Chili con carne: this well-known and very good dish from Texas (not from Mexico!) is one of the things that makes you in a good mood: that’s why “it must be done”. This is the point. The variant I choose to prepare is the classic one (which basically has a lot of Mexican ingredients!): beef stew with beans, peppers, tomato and spices such as cumin, coriander and obviously the inevitable fresh chilli.
Spicy dishes are always a challenge: to find a wine that can compete with the spicy character and at the same time the succulence and fatness of chili con carne. A strong wine is required. And I want it white.
And so I make an experiment: let’s move through South of Texas up to 7000 km away, to reach Argentina.
We land in Salta, a region of North of Argentina close to Andes, where Torrontés is cultivated, a purely Argentine vine that gives life to this Alamos Torrontés 2018 distributed by Botega Catena Zapata, an important name among the wineries that have made Argentine wine of high quality known all over the world.
This white wine with a greenish yellow color on nose has an extremely intense floral note, it is like receiving a bouquet of roses, jasmine and elderflowers. It is so intense that it almost tends to be sickly sweet, in fact it seems like a sweet wine such as muscat or gewurztraminer, and indeed it is surprisingly dry on the palate, to be precise medium-dry with its 1.25 g / L residue sugary, supported by a good freshness. For my absolutely personal taste, this wine tasted alone turns out to be unbalanced in its intensity of flowers, BUT combined with chili con carne it is nothing short of just right: its eccentric bouquet of flowers perfectly balances the spiciness and strong aroma of the meat, indeed I would dare to say that one exalts the other. And its acidity manages perfectly the fatness of the stew. Please be careful to the serving temperature: this Torrontés must be strictly kept below 10 ° C, in order to attenuate the floral aroma and maintain the correct sensation of acidity.
My cowboy soul is satisfied, good mood is on the table: enjoy you meal!