Manchegan Classic Dishes: La Casa del Corregidor, Almagro (Cuidad Real)

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Classic traditional Manchegan dishes (clockwise from bottom) : Pérdiz en escabeche, preserved partridge; pisto Mancego con huevo, gachas, migas and berenjenas fritas at Restaurante El Corregidor de Almagro, Almagro (Cuidad Real).  Photo by Gerry Dawes©2013 / gerrydawes@aol.com / Canon 5D Mark III / Canon 24 105mm f/4L IS USM. Photo by Gerry Dawes©2013 / gerrydawes@aol.com

 

Slide Show of Manchegan Classic Dishes

  

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“The American writer and town crier for all good Spanish things Gerry Dawes . . .the American connoisseur of all things Spanish . . .” – The Telling Room: A Tale of Love, Betrayal, Revenge and The World’s Greatest Piece of Cheese

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"Gerry Dawes, I can't thank you enough for opening up Spain to me." -- Michael Chiarello on Twitter. Chef Chiarello toured northern Spain with me in October 2011 and was just in Barcelona again in January 2013.  He is preparing to open his new Spanish inspired restaurant, Coqueta, at San Francisco's Pier 5 in April.

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"In his nearly thirty years of wandering the back roads of Spain," Gerry Dawes has built up a much stronger bank of experiences than I had to rely on when I started writing Iberia...His adventures far exceeded mine in both width and depth..." -- James A. Michener, author of Iberia: Spanish Travels and Reflections

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About Gerry Dawes  

Gerry Dawes's Spain: An Insider's Guide to Spanish Food, Wine, Culture and Travel  

Gerry Dawes was awarded Spain's prestigious Premio Nacional de Gastronomía (National Gastronomy Award) in 2003. He writes and speaks frequently on Spanish wine and gastronomy and leads gastronomy, wine and cultural tours to Spain. He was a finalist for the 2001 James Beard Foundation's Journalism Award for Best Magazine Writing on Wine, won The Cava Institute's First Prize for Journalism for his article on cava in 2004, was awarded the CineGourLand “Cinéfilos y Gourmets” (Cinephiles & Gourmets) prize in 2009 in Getxo (Vizcaya) and received the 2009 Association of Food Journalists Second Prize for Best Food Feature in a Magazine for his Food Arts article, a retrospective piece about Catalan star chef, Ferran Adrià. 

 In December, 2009, Dawes was awarded the Food Arts Silver Spoon Award in a profile written by José Andrés. ". . .That we were the first to introduce American readers to Ferran Adrià in 1997 and have ever since continued to bring you a blow-by-blow narrative of Spain's riveting ferment is chiefly due to our Spanish correspondent, Gerry "Mr. Spain" Dawes, the messianic wine and food journalist raised in Southern Illinois and possessor of a self-accumulated doctorate in the Spanish table. Gerry once again brings us up to the very minute. . ." - - Michael & Ariane Batterberry, Editor-in-Chief/Publisher and Founding Editor/Publisher, Food Arts, October 2009. 

 

Mr. Dawes is currently working on a reality television series  
on wine, gastronomy, culture and travel in Spain.
 

Experience Spain With Gerry Dawes: Customized Culinary, Wine & Cultural Trips to Spain & Travel Consulting on Spain  

Gerry Dawes can be reached at gerrydawes@aol.com.

Spanish Grape Varieties: A Photographic Encyclopedia (A Work-in-Progress, More to Come)

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(Double click on image to go to larger image, once in Picasa web album push F11 for full screen view.)

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__________________________________________________________________________________

About Gerry Dawes

Gerry Dawes's Spain: An Insider's Guide to Spanish Food, Wine, Culture and Travel


Gerry Dawes was awarded Spain's prestigious Premio Nacional de Gastronomía (National Gastronomy Award) in 2003. He writes and speaks frequently on Spanish wine and gastronomy and leads gastronomy, wine and cultural tours to Spain. He was a finalist for the 2001 James Beard Foundation's Journalism Award for Best Magazine Writing on Wine, won The Cava Institute's First Prize for Journalism for his article on cava in 2004, was awarded the CineGourLand “Cinéfilos y Gourmets” (Cinephiles & Gourmets) prize in 2009 in Getxo (Vizcaya) and received the 2009 Association of Food Journalists Second Prize for Best Food Feature in a Magazine for his Food Arts article, a retrospective piece about Catalan star chef, Ferran Adrià.

In December, 2009, Dawes was awarded the Food Arts Silver Spoon Award in a profile written by José Andrés.

". . .That we were the first to introduce American readers to Ferran Adrià in 1997 and have ever since continued to bring you a blow-by-blow narrative of Spain's riveting ferment is chiefly due to our Spanish correspondent, Gerry "Mr. Spain" Dawes, the messianic wine and food journalist raised in Southern Illinois and possessor of a self-accumulated doctorate in the Spanish table. Gerry once again brings us up to the very minute. . ." - - Michael & Ariane Batterberry, Editor-in-Chief/Publisher and Founding Editor/Publisher, Food Arts, October 2009. 

Mr. Dawes is currently working on a reality television series 
on wine, gastronomy, culture and travel in Spain.

Experience Spain With Gerry Dawes: Customized Culinary, Wine & Cultural Trips to Spain; Travel Consulting on Spain

Gerry Dawes can be reached at gerrydawes@aol.com; Alternate e-mail (use only if your e-mail to AOL is rejected): gerrydawes@gmail.com

World Wine Crisis (Three): Jaime Goode's Blog "I would say that Winefuture is about the old wine industry".

 

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Very Interesting post about WineFuture-Rioja 2009 by Jamie Goode on his Blog

"The much talked-about 'Wine Future' conference is taking place in Spain later this week. I'm not going (although I probably would have gone had I been invited, even if it was out of morbid curiousity).

There's a glittering speaker list, and it will draw a significant crowd of important people, but I feel lukewarm to the whole idea.

I don't think the future of the wine industry will be determined top-down by the famous people who currently 'lead' the wine industry.

Instead, I think it will come from an under-the-radar movement of dedicated winegrowers who are prepared to understand the vineyards they work with and make interesting, authentic, characterful wines.

Very few of these winegrowers would be at all interested in a conference like this. They make wine not because they want to make money, but because they have to. These new great wines are made by people who see winegrowing as their vocation. Their focus starts in the vineyard and they work as naturally as possible. Typically, they prefer large oak to small, old oak to new, and concrete to stainless steel.

Instead, I think it will come from an under-the-radar movement of dedicated winegrowers who are prepared to understand the vineyards they work with and make interesting, authentic, characterful wines.

Very few of these winegrowers would be at all interested in a conference like this. They make wine not because they want to make money, but because they have to. These new great wines are made by people who see winegrowing as their vocation. Their focus starts in the vineyard and they work as naturally as possible. Typically, they prefer large oak to small, old oak to new, and concrete to stainless steel.

If I am allowed to be provocative, I would say that Winefuture is about the old wine industry. The new wine industry will emerge from the corpse of the old industry. The secret revolution is underway."

 

With answers from Jim Budd, my self and a wine grower named Fabius.   

At 5:07 PM,  Jim Budd said... 

 

Justin is quite right to highlight the questions that hang over Pancho Campo MW and his Wine Academy of Spain. For more than a month I have been asking him a series of question about his conviction for fraud in Dubai, how he got out before the trial and whether any of the money (640,000€) involved in the conviction was used to set up The Wine Academy of Spain. Campo left Dubai in 2003 and set up the Academy the same year. To date I have had no response to my questions. Pancho Campo was due to speak at the recent European Wine Bloggers Conference but failed to show. Avoiding answering legitimate questions? No-one appears to know whether The Wine Academy of Spain, the owner and organiser of WineFuture Rioja09 was funded, wholly or in part, on the proceeds of fraud. The distinguished speakers and sponsors appear not to care. Various posting can be found on Jim's Loire including this one: http://jimsloire.blogspot.com/2009/10/pancho-campo-mw-essence.html  

 

 At 5:28 PM,  Gerry Dawes said... 

 

More frightening while this WF-Rioja 09 conference is going on (it reminds me of elephants coming home to the graveyard) is the questions of thousands of tons of grapes left on the ground this year, the growers in tractor brigades rolling into provincial capitals to protest low grape prices, Diageo's dumping of cru classe Bordeaux, Constellation's reported selling off of a 164-year old Australian vineyard where a complex of small apartments is planned, etc.    This conference purports to enlighten attendees on how to "market" wines in this climate is really like Nero fiddling while Rome burns. And there are several potential performers in this affair auditioning for the role of Nero.    (I also highly recommend that you watch the Zev Robinson trailer for his film, Bobal & Other Wine Stories, which is really a Grapes of Wrath saga about the struggles of Bobal grape growers in Utiel-Requena. [See the Zeb Robinson article on my blog for a link to the trailer.)  

 

At 6:42 PM,  Fabius said... 

 

As a (very) small producer of quality wines made from our own grapes grown in our own vineyard, what our great leaders say or do at WF is of absolutely no significance to us. The wine industry today is in a huge mess (of said leaders' own making, I might add) what with oversupply and falling consumption in most markets. Anyway, we are focussed on quality, terroir, etc and our niche market, even though tiny for the big boys, is enormous for us. We are passionate about what we do and are going to do it no matter what!!!

 About the author

Gerry Dawes was awarded Spain's prestigious Premio Nacional de Gastronomía (National Gastronomy Award) in 2003. He writes and speaks frequently on Spanish wine and gastronomy and leads gastronomy, wine and cultural tours to Spain. He was a finalist for the 2001 James Beard Foundation's Journalism Award for Best Magazine Writing on Wine, won The Cava Institute's First Prize for Journalism for his article on cava in 2004, was awarded the CineGourLand prize in 2009 and received the Association of Food Journalists 2009 Second Prize for Best Food Feature in a Magazine for his Food Arts article, a retrospective piece about Catalan star chef, Ferran Adrià.

Mr. Dawes is currently working on a reality television

series on wine, gastronomy, culture and travel in Spain.

Experience Spain With Gerry Dawes: Culinary Trips to Spain & Travel Consulting on Spain

Gerry Dawes can be reached at gerrydawes@aol.com; Alternate e-mail (use only if your e-mail to AOL is rejected): gerrydawes@gmail.com

The Emerging Wines of Valencia:

by Gerry Dawes copyright2006

(First appeared in Spain Gourmetour magazine [consumer edition, 400,000 copies of which were circulated as an insert in The New York Times in Fall, 2006)

The exotic, once Moorish-dominated Comunitat Valenciana–which encompasses the provinces of Valencia, Alicante and Castellón de la Plana–and its capital, the ancient, but suddenly ultra-modern and rapidly growing Mediterranean port city, Valencia, has long been known for its wild end-of-winter Fiesta called Las Fallas and sunny beaches that have become nirvana for northern Europeans who flock to Valencia like Americans do to Florida. Gastro-nomically, Valencia is known world-wide for paella–in reality a wide variety of rice dishes made with local bomba or senia arroces–and nationally for its, Mediterranean seafood, Valencia oranges and clementines from Castellón, almonds and almond turrón candy from Jijona and dates from the largest date palm forest in Europe in Elche (both in Alicante province). Until recently, except for the large quantities of bulk wines shipped most to northern Europe, the only vinos la Comunitat Valenciana was known for were a strange, but exotic and wonderful vino rancio from Alicante called Fondillón and sweet dessert mistelas made from luscious moscatel grapes from the vineyards of Valencia and Alicante. (see more)