Authentic Sevilla Gazpacho a la Doña María (Doña María Franco, my Spanish Madre) & Rozanne Gold's Blog on Her Gazpacho Experience

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Sevilla gazpacho after the recipe from my Spanish madre, Maria Franco, from the Pensión Santa Cruz (now converted in Hotel Murillo Residencias) in calle Lope de Rueda, Sevilla.
Photo: Gerry Dawes©2011 / gerrydawes@aol.com.

Rozanne Gold on Sevilla Gazpacho 

Read Cookbook Author Rozanne Gold's on Gerry's Gazpacho
 

(Slide show on gazpacho.  Double click on image for larger view, 
click on slideshow in Picasa, hit F11 for full-screen view.)

Visiting Bodegas José Pariente, one of the gates wineries in the Rueda D. O., with owner Victoria Pariente.

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 Filmed at Bodegas José Pariente by Bianca Boragi, assisted by Robert Balun. July, 2015.

The Spanish Artisan Wine & Spirits Group - Gerry Dawes Selections©2015

___________________________________________________  

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. 
 

Trailer for a proposed 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.

Flamenco at Villa Rosa, Plaza de Santa Ana, Madrid (Short Video)

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 Flamenco Dancer & Troupe, Villa Rosa, Madrid
Photo by Gerry Dawes©2015

_________________________________________________________________  

About Gerry Dawes

Gerry Dawes is President/Jefe, Chairman of the Board, of The Spanish Artisan Wine Group - Gerry Dawes Selections

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. 

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. 
 

Trailer for a proposed 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@spanishartisanwine.com

Bodegas Aliaga Superb Tempranillo and Garnacha-Based Wines From Navarra, Including Aliaga Rosado de Lágrima de Garnacha (Garnacha Rosado made with free-run juice), one of Spain's Greatest Rosados

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 Bodegas Aliaga, Corella (Navarra)

 The wines of Carlos Aliaga and his family.

 
Carlos Aliaga showing his Viña Aliaga vineyards to a visitor.
 Photo by Gerry Dawes©2011 / gerrydawes@aol.com.

The Wines of Aliaga and Restaurante El Crucero
(Click on the El Crucero titles below to see photos of the restaurant and its dishes.)
 

Upgraded to Four Dalí Watches: El Crucero in Corella (Navarra), Lunch with the Wines of Aliaga at One of the Great Restaurants of Navarra's Ribera Baja Wine-growing Region, Also Home to One of Spain's Finest Vegetable Growing Regions and Some of Navarra's Little-known, But Best Country Restaurants. 

Another Great Lunch at El Crucero, Corella (Navarra) with Carlos Aliaga and the Wines of Viña Aliaga, June 6, 2011 

Aliaga Lágrima de Garnacha Rosado 13.5%

Made from free-run juice from 100% old vines Garnacha from the Viña Aliaga vineyard located at Ombatillo near Corella in the heart of the Ribera Baja of Navarra.  The soil is calcareous and poor; vine density is 1,200 vines per acre.
 
This superb, lovely rosado is made by the free-run sangrado de lágrima method.  After brief contact with the red grape skins, the grape juice is separated by gravity without using any mechanical pressing, after which the must is fermented in temperature- controlled stainless steel tanks for 20 days at 14º C. (57º F.)

Fresh, clear and brilliant strawberry-cherry colour. The fragrant bouquet is reminiscent of fresh fruit.  On the palate the wines is clean, smooth and will balanced with a hints of flowers and cherries and a long, persistent mineral-laced finish.  This wine steadily evolves with time in bottle and is often superb 2-3 years from the vintage.
 
Food Pairings: Ideal for tapas, first courses, aperitifs, fish and seafood, chicken, port, Asian food, pasta, pizza and salads.  Not just a summer wine.  If you drink cold white wine in the cooler months, you will love this great rosado all year long.

"An almost dusty-dry Navarra sangrado ("bleeding," i.e. free-run juice) rosé — meaning that it's made from free-run juice — with a light, luminous pink color and an intense strawberry fruit both on the nose and on the palate." - - Colman Andrews, The Daily Meal.

 
Read more:  Spanish Wines — A Seductive New Crop: Godello, mencia, and other less-than-famous Iberian grapes shine in a new selection from Spanish wine expert Gerry Dawes

In Tudela (Navarra) at the home of Carlos Aliaga and his wife Mari Cruz with a tomatada (tomatoes, ham and snail stew, and sometimes illegal ortolans, from southern Navarra) made by Nabor Jimenez of Restaurante El Crucero, which was closed for vacation,  and a bottle of Aliaga Rosado de Lágrima de Garnacha (Garnacha Rosado made with free-run juice), October 8, 2014. A wine represented by The Spanish Artisan Wine & Spirits Group - Gerry Dawes Selections.  Photo by Gerry Dawes©2014 / gerrydawes@aol.com / Facebook / Twitter / YouTube /  Pinterest.  Canon G15 / Canon f/1.8 – f/2.8 5X 24-140mm IS USM.

Aliaga Tempranillo 13.5% 

 

Dark cherry color, with violet tones. The bouquet is clean, harmonic and intense. The taste is pleasant and reminiscent of ripe red fruits, the tannins are well-integrated and overall effect fresh, persistent and lasting.  This wine is ideal for red meat, game, roasts and well-cured cheeses.

Straight forward, good, un-blended, un-oaked Tempranillo, a relative rarity in Navarra, where there are a multitude of tempranillo wines, often blended with mediocre cabernet sauvignon.  Made from 100% Tempranillo grapes grown in the calcareous soil of Viña Aliaga.  The wine is fermented for 6 days in stainless steel tanks at 28 º C. (82 º F.). 

Aliaga Garnacha Viejo Tinto 2010 13.9%

100% old vines Garnacha grown in the calcareous 1,200 vine per acre Viña Aliaga vineyard.  

The wine is fermented for 6 days in stainless steel tanks at 28 º C. (82 º F.) followed by maceration on the grape skins for 20 days with two stirrings every day.  Aged 6 months in American and French Allier oak cask, but the wines does not have heavy oak flavors.  Only 2,800 cases are produced. 

Deep dark cherry color. Ripe black cherry and spice nose. Round, rich black cherry fruit with hints of garrigue herbs with long, persistent finish. 

Food Pairing:  Ideal with red meat, game, roasts, cheeses.

Aliaga Colección Privada Tinto 2007 13.5%  

Made from 80% Tempranillo and 20% Cabernet Sauvignon grown in the calcareous soil of Viña Aliaga.  The wine is fermented for 6 days in stainless steel tanks at 27 º C. (80 º F.), followed by maceration on the grape skins with two stirrings every day. Aged 12 months in new American and French Allier oak.  Just over 1650 cases made.

Deep black cherry colour rimmed with brick-red.  The nose is intense, with “toasty” aroma from its ageing in cask, reminiscent of ripe black and red fruits. Smooth, full-bodied and round, with a long finish. A very special wine.

Good with red meat, game, roasts, grilled and fried fish, Spanish, Italian and Mediterranean dishes, cheese.

Carlos Aliaga at the edge of Aliaga's property. The vineyards are on a higher plateau. Here the vineyards end and the land drops off into an area that is covered with wild thyme and rosemary, traces of which turn up in some of the wines as what the French call garrigues.   Photo by Gerry Dawes©2013 / gerrydawes@aol.com / Facebook / Twitter / YouTube / Pinterest.   Canon EOS 6D / Tokina Macro 100mm f/2

Aliaga Reserva de la Familia Tinto 2005 13.5% 

Brick-edged ruby.  Black and red fruits, complemented by toasty oak in the nose. Round, smooth and ripe with red and black berry compote, spices, garrigues-like herbal components and persistent finish. Good with red meat, game, roasts, grilled and fried fish, Spanish, Italian and Mediterranean dishes, cheese.

Made from 75% Tempranillo and 25% Cabernet Sauvignon grown in the calcareous soil of Viña Aliaga.  The wine is fermented for 6 days in stainless steel tanks at 27 º C. (80 º F.), followed by maceration on the grape skins with two stirrings every day. Aged 14 months in new American and French Allier oak.  Just under 2000 cases made.

Aliaga Moscatel Vendimia Tardia Dulce 2010 12.0% 500ML
 

100% late harvested Moscatel de Alejandria, from the calcareous soil of a single vineyard, Viña Lorena at Fugenique near Corella in Navarra’s La Ribera Baja.    Fermented for 35 days in stainless steel tanks at  12 º C. (53.6 º F.), after which by using only cooling techniques the fermentation is stopped without the addition of alcohol. Only 750 cases are produced.

Clean, clear, bright, gold-tinged color. Lovely honesuckle nose with hints of pear and peach.  Very fruity with luscious honeysuckle and peach flavors and a lingering, fresh, but not unctuous finish.    

Excellent with foie gras, ripe, soft cheeses and fruit-based desserts.

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Colman Andrews of The Daily Meal on Gerry Dawes, President-Jefe of The Spanish Artisan Wine & Spirits Group - Gerry Dawes Selections

* * * * *

Gerry Dawes is a famous character in the Spanish food and wine scene, both on these shores and in Spain itself. A veteran of the wholesale wine business, he has been traveling around Spain for decades, discovering its best things to eat and drink, and promoting them — the wines above all — in the United States, through personal appearances, interlocking websites (click here for the main one www.gerrydawesspain.com), and guided tours. 

Gerry Dawes at Chef Paco Roncero's Estado Puro in Madrid with a glass of Godello. 

Photo by Harold Heckle©2014, Associated Press, Madrid.

He is a prolific writer and pretty much nonstop photographer (his images of Ferran Adrià, Mario Batali, and other important chefs have appeared on The Daily Meal).  He is highly opinionated — some would say cantankerous — and extremely knowledgeable. His passion for things Spanish (he knows the country's literature and history and its flamenco almost as well as he knows its gastronomy) is so strong as to seem proprietary; somebody once called him, not without a hint of sarcasm, "the man who invented Spain."

Well, call him what you will, but Dawes has recently gotten back into the wine business, as an importer of small lots made by small producers, mostly in northwestern Spain, and his initial offerings include some bottlings that are nothing less than a revelation.

Dawes is forthright about what he doesn't like in wine: He is an outspoken foe of high alcohol, too much oak, insufficient acidity, the over-extracted "fruit bomb" style, and maybe most of all the anonymous could-be-from-anywhere character that all too many winemakers in every corner of the world seem to be striving for these days. In other words, he hates international-style stuff based on big-name French varietals, usually grown in areas where they have no business being, and vinified in a style that makes one indistinguishable from the next. 

When he opens a bottle, he's looking for something with balance, flavor, and above all individuality — the expression of terruño, or terroir, through indigenous grapes and native yeasts and winemaking practices that may be up-to-date but that allow the region's personality to shine through. Oh, and he doesn't have much patience with excessive pricing, either, and all but one of the 30-plus selections in his portfolio (he is adding more) have a suggested retail price of less than $30 a bottle, and some are less than $20. (Even the exception, Viña Cazoga Don Diego Crianza from Ribera Sacra, an exotic, chocolate- and tobacco-flavored wine with some of the "wild" character the French call animal, retails for only $50.)

Spanish Wines — A Seductive New Crop Godello, Mencia, and other less-than-famous Iberian grapes shine in a new selection from Spanish wine expert Gerry Dawes - - Colman Andrews, Managing Editor, The Daily Meal

* * * * *

Gerry Dawes is a famous character in the Spanish food and wine scene, both on these shores and in Spain itself. A veteran of the wholesale wine business, he has been traveling around Spain for decades, discovering its best things to eat and drink, and promoting them — the wines above all — in the United States, through personal appearances, interlocking websites (click here for the main one www.gerrydawesspain.com), and guided tours. 

Gerry Dawes at Chef Paco Roncero's Estado Puro in Madrid with a glass of Godello. 

Photo by Harold Heckle©2014, Associated Press, Madrid.

He is a prolific writer and pretty much nonstop photographer (his images of Ferran Adrià, Mario Batali, and other important chefs have appeared on The Daily Meal).  He is highly opinionated — some would say cantankerous — and extremely knowledgeable. His passion for things Spanish (he knows the country's literature and history and its flamenco almost as well as he knows its gastronomy) is so strong as to seem proprietary; somebody once called him, not without a hint of sarcasm, "the man who invented Spain."

Well, call him what you will, but Dawes has recently gotten back into the wine business, as an importer of small lots made by small producers, mostly in northwestern Spain, and his initial offerings include some bottlings that are nothing less than a revelation.

Dawes is forthright about what he doesn't like in wine: He is an outspoken foe of high alcohol, too much oak, insufficient acidity, the over-extracted "fruit bomb" style, and maybe most of all the anonymous could-be-from-anywhere character that all too many winemakers in every corner of the world seem to be striving for these days. In other words, he hates international-style stuff based on big-name French varietals, usually grown in areas where they have no business being, and vinified in a style that makes one indistinguishable from the next. 

When he opens a bottle, he's looking for something with balance, flavor, and above all individuality — the expression of terruño, or terroir, through indigenous grapes and native yeasts and winemaking practices that may be up-to-date but that allow the region's personality to shine through. Oh, and he doesn't have much patience with excessive pricing, either, and all but one of the 30-plus selections in his portfolio (he is adding more) have a suggested retail price of less than $30 a bottle, and some are less than $20. (Even the exception, Viña Cazoga Don Diego Crianza from Ribera Sacra, an exotic, chocolate- and tobacco-flavored wine with some of the "wild" character the French call animal, retails for only $50.)

Godello grapes, Bierzo.  Photo by Gerry Dawes.

Early in June, Dawes poured 21 of his wines for a small group of wine retailers and consultants, sommeliers, and writers over lunch in midtown Manhattan (at Le Cirque). The grapes involved were mostly Spanish: albariño, a primarily Galician white variety ever more popular in the U.S.; godello (pictured above), another white grape found mostly in Galicia and capable of producing truly fine wines, especially in the Valdeorras region; mencia, never thought of as an important red grape until recent years but now yielding wines of some distinction in Galicia and its neighbor in Léon, bierzo; and garnacha, which is grenache, a red grape (though it actually comes in white and "gray" forms, too), that is widely grown in southern France and increasingly important in California and Australia, but is probably from Aragón originally.

There wasn't one of these wines that I wouldn't have sipped happily, but these were the ones that particularly impressed me.

White:

Adegas D. Berna Godello 2010 ($25). If I were a producer of white burgundy, a wine like this, from Valdeorras in Galicia, would make me nervous. It's big, authoritative, lush, and full of fruit (peaches come to mind), but beautifully structured, with plenty of acidity and a trace of flint — just delicious.

Godello, Bodegas D. Berna, Valdeorras.

Photo by Gerry Dawes copyright 2013.

Lagar de Broullón Albariño 2010 ($24). An albariño to banish all memory of those banal examples of the wine that now flood U.S. wine shop shelves — bright and well-rounded, with juicy fruit and a long, complex finish.

Rozas Albariño 2010 ($26).  If I'd tasted this blind, I might have thought it was a particularly lean and stylish viognier. It has a wonderful, intense aroma and real complexity of flavor, with plenty of acidity and a beguiling finish that is part mineral, part floral.  I don't think I've had a better albariño.

  

Bodegas Manuel Formigo Finca Teira Blanco 2011 ($20). This is a blend of grapes found mostly in Ribeiro in northwestern Spain: treixadura (65 percent), godello (20 percent), and torrontés (15 percent; this is not, incidentally, the same grape that goes by this name in Argentina). It is wonderfully fragrant — think of honeysuckle and jasmine — but pleasantly sharp and well-defined on the palate.

Rosé:

Aliaga Lágrima de Garnacha Rosado 2011 ($14). An almost dusty-dry Navarra sangrado ("bled") rosé — meaning that it's made from free-run juice, no pressing — with a light, luminous pink color and an intense strawberry fruit both on the nose and on the palate.

Red:

Bodegas Adrià Viña Barroca Mencía 2010 ($15). A dark, juicy, lively mencía from Bierzo. The wine is unoaked, which lets the intense fruit shine through very nicely.

Viña Cazoga Tinto Mencía 2010 ($27). Another Ribeira Sacra mencia, surprisingly soft, with a generous bouquet, a blackberry-and-black-pepper tang on the palate, and a long, satisfying finish. (Pictured below, Jorge Carnero, proprietor of Viña Cazoga, courtesy of Gerry Dawes)

For more information on these wines, see www.spanishartisanwine.com.

Read more: http://edit.thedailymeal.com/spanish-wines-seductive-new-crop?page=0,1#ixzz21kNzZmZT

Valdeorras: Spain's Great White Hope in The Valley of Golden Ore

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"Adegas D. Berna Godello. If I were a producer of white burgundy, a wine like this, from Valdeorras in Galicia, would make me nervous. It's big, authoritative, lush, and full of fruit (peaches come to mind), but beautifully structured, with plenty of acidity and a trace of flint — just delicious."  - - Colman Andrews, The Daily Meal.  Read more: Spanish Wines — A Seductive New Crop: Godello, mencia, and other less-than-famous Iberian grapes shine in a new selection from Spanish wine expert Gerry Dawes

Glass of Godello at sunset at Adegas D. Berna, Valdeorras.
Photo by Gerry Dawes©2011 / gerrydawes@aol.com
(None of the photos here were a part of The New York Times article.)

 In Spain, the Promise of Godello by Eric Asimov

The New York Times, Saturday, May 26, 2012

Excerpt: ". . .Some people have already made up their minds about godello.  Gerry Dawes, who has been writing about Spanish wines for decades and who recently went into the importing business, has called godello “Spain’s emerging hope as an equivalent to the great white Burgundies.”

 Godello grapes, Valdeorras.
Photo by Gerry Dawes©2011 / gerrydawes@aol.com.

The consulting enologist for both D. Berna and O Barreiro is José Luís Murcía, who has more than 20 years experience making Godello in Valdeorras and consults to eight other wineries, including the stellar Casal Novo, and somehow manages to capture the essence of their grapes and vineyard sites and transmits that in the bottle like few others. 

 Gerry Dawes at Chef Paco Roncero's Estado Puro in Madrid with a glass of Godello. 

Photo by Harold Heckle©2009, Associated Press, Madrid.

Adegas D.Berna, Córgomo, Villamartín de Valdeorras (Ourense) 

D. Berna Godello 2010 Valdeorras 13.0% 12/750ML

"Adegas D. Berna Godello 2010 ($25). If I were a producer of white burgundy, a wine like this, from Valdeorras in Galicia, would make me nervous. It's big, authoritative, lush, and full of fruit (peaches come to mind), but beautifully structured, with plenty of acidity and a trace of flint — just delicious."  - - Colman Andrews, The Daily Meal.  Read more: Spanish Wines — A Seductive New Crop: Godello, mencia, and other less-than-famous Iberian grapes shine in a new selection from Spanish wine expert Gerry Dawes
 
“The 2010 godello, a white from the small-production Bodegas D. Berna, in Valdeorras, was splendid.  Pointillistic, lithe, long, delivering visceral and cerebral pleasures, it was reminiscent of white peaches.  The property, Dawes wrote, is advised by “a great local, enologist, José Luís Murcía, who may know more about godello than anyone in Galicia.”  Murcía, he went on, “advises nine wineries” but “does not mark the wines with a one-fits-all winemaking stamp.” - - Howard G. Goldberg, who writes for The New York Times, Decanter and other publications.

 Berna Guitián and Elena Blanco, Adegas D. Berna, Valdeorras.

Photo: Gerry Dawes©2011 / gerrydawes@aol.com.

This is the first vintage of this wine by the young couple, Berna Guitián and Elena Blanco, to reach the U.S. market.  The consulting enologist is the great José Luís Murcia, who probably knows more about Godello than anyone in Valdeorras.  

Brilliant white gold.  Intriguing nose of white peach and racy minerals. A gorgeous mouthful of silky sweet white peach fruit with a long mineral finish laced with attractive hints of peach pit and almond.  No oak.  Excellent value.

Consulting enologist at Casal Novo, D. Berna, O Barreiro and a number of other wineries in Valdeorras 
is José Luís Murcía, who, somehow manages to capture the essence of their grapes and vineyard site 
and transmit that in the bottle like few others. Photo: Gerry Dawes©2011 / gerrydawes@aol.com.

Adegas D.Berna Mencía Tinto 2011 13.0% 12/750ML $19.99

A lovely easy-drinking Mencía with smooth pomegranate fruit-laced with minerals.  

Reminiscent in style of a village Burgundy, but somewhat more akin in taste to a good Loire valley Bourgueil. 

Spanish Wines — A Seductive New Crop: Godello, mencia, and other less-than-famous Iberian grapes shine in a new selection from Spanish wine expert Gerry Dawes

* * * * *

Godello Article by Gerry Dawes Sommelier Journal January 15, 2012

Looking Back at Galicia’s Green Gold: White Wines from Native Spanish Grapes (Article with photos on Galician wines in The Wine News, 2007 by Gerry Dawes

* * * * *

____________________________________________________________________ 

About Gerry Dawes  

Gerry Dawes is the Founder, President & Chairman of the Board of The Spanish Artisan Wine &
Spirits Group - Gerry Dawes Selections

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. 
 

  A reality television series pilot 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.

Food Arts Silver Spoon Award December (Written by José Andrés)

* * * * *

Some days, the Gods smile on you.  Tuesday, December 1, 2009, was one of those days for me. When I came home from Thanksgiving weekend there was a FedEx envelope on my front porch. In it was the December issue of Food Arts, which contained my Silver Spoon Award. The profile was written by my friend, the great chef-restaurateur-television personality-and expert on Spanish cuisine, José Andrés, whose new restaurant Bazaar has taken Los Angeles by storm.

I am very grateful to José for his kinds words in this supremely gratifying piece and to Michael and Ariane Batterberry, founders and publishers of Food Arts, and to my editor Jim Poris, who selected me for this prestigious award and got José to write it.

And many, many thanks--miles de gracias--to Ferran Adrià, the great Catalan chef whom many consider to be the greatest--and certainly the most innovative--chef in the world, who contributed this: 

 

"Spain wouldn't be as known to Americans without the stories Gerry tells and writes."


But, few lines could be better than the ones José Andrés wrote, especially these:


"As a young chef arriving in America from Spain in the early 1990s, I came to see Gerry as an ally. At the time, I found myself struggling to explain Spanish cooking because people either had no idea or they had the wrong idea.  It was a battle.  But Gerry's writing meant I was not alone in telling Americans about piquillos and escudella and jamón.  At a time when most food journalists were writing about France and Italy, Gerry went off in his own direction to become to first to really tell the story of Spain."


Like I said, some days the Gods smile on you and when the culinary Gods smile on you that is some great day indeed. For many years I have lived believing that the greatest day of my life is still ahead of me, not behind me. Receiving the Silver Spoon Award made this one of my greatest days and it also re-affirmed that the best day of all is still ahead.


Mil gracias a todos, Gerry

From Food Arts Silver Spoon Award December 2009 Gerry Dawes

____________________________________________________________________________

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.

". . .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: 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