TAPEO | What to order and what to drink with it

Confidentials 14 October 2016

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PAELLA is easier to get your head round than Meloso de Bogavante, so you might just pass on ordering Tapeo’s best rice dish. Wrong move. Meloso is richer and creamier than classic Paella without the trademark toasty, crackly rice crust underneath but still a gorgeous shellfish rush.

Its presence on the menu, along with slow-roasted Segovian-style milk-fed lamb, alerts you to the fact that this indie place on Deansgate is several notches up on the tapas norm. The same goes for its wine list, where it pays off to avoid the usual Spanish suspects and explore some fascinating reds, whites and Cava, exclusive to Tapeo. Co-owner Natalia Esquerdo and her team will be happy to advise.

Nacho and Natalia

Take Cava. You think you know it through the £4.99 supermarket special offers? At that level, acid in a glass from Catalonia. You’re ready then for the real thing – Pago de Tharsys Cavas, produced in Requena, 70 miles inland from Valencia.

Cavas

Yes Valencia, Natalia’s home town. It’s not just sentiment that makes her stock the entire range from Vicente Garcia (plus his gloriously fruity Bobal red). These are some of Spain’s most interesting contemporary wines.

Try the Pago de Tharsys Brut Nature (£42 a bottle). Made by the Champagne method, 100 per cent Chardonnay, spending 18 months on the lees, it is what the French would call a ‘Blanc de Blancs’. Pale straw in colour with persistent bubbles, it is all fresh pears and apples and beautifully biscuity on the palate. As elegant as the arty ceramic labels hand-tied round each bottle. Natalia’s husband and partner, chef Nacho Perez-Barreiro admits he wasn’t a Cava fan but is now converted.

Pago Brut

Searching the rest of the list, what to match with your lobster-laden Meloso and your milk-fed lamb? Albariño for the Meloso, but not the obvious easy-drinking style that’s all over now. This is the stunning blend of fruit and acidity that made this North West white’s name, seafood-friendly, special occasion stuff revered by connoisseurs.

Tapeo’s Albariño source, Eladio Piñeiro, is no ordinary grower. He was one of the founders of large scale production back in the Eighties but sold his winery in 2003, just keeping the pick of his vineyards. Now he’s back dedicating himself to making just 5,000 cases of artisanal hand-crafted Albariño, primarily biodynamic production, sold in unique bottle shapes with whimsical labels.

Tapeo stock the his approachable but complex Envidia Cochina 2014 (£38) – it means ‘Envy Eat Your Heart Out’ – and the more formidable, initially lip-puckering Frore de Carme 2011 (£54) It may be fanciful but their uncompromising flavours transport you to the Galician sea-inlets of the Ria Baixas where the grapes are grown. Fruit and acidity in perfect balance, with a saline, mineral undertow.

Frore de Carme

Even at £54 I’d urge you to splash out on the Frore de Carme not just for its rasping purity, but also to see the little bird emblem on the bottle turn from yellow to red to signify it has reached the right temperature for drinking!

Finally bring on the milk-fed lamb and break open Tapeo’s chosen Priorat, Peites 2014, a blend of Garnacha and Syrah from a former mining area Catalonia, producing red wines that somehow meld Spanish and Bordeaux styles into a smooth, silken monster. In comparison with equivalent Riojas and Ribero del Dueros it’s a bargain on the list at £33 (or you could order a 250ml glass at £12.20 to go with your cheese).

Peites

As with Tapeo’s food, so with its bold wine choices. As Natalia says: “Our mission is we are not going to put anything on the menu we wouldn’t drink or cook ourselves or give to our friends – we need to be proud of what we are selling.”

Tapeo & Wine, 209 Deansgate, Manchester M3 3NW. 0161 832 2700.