Wines to Keep Us Warm

According to a popular Spanish saying, “mature wine and fresh bread get us through the winter.” During the cold season, we bundle up and change our diet to include more protein-rich foods that are higher in calories. When temperatures drop, we crave pulses, soups, vegetable and meat stews.

With all due respect to hot chocolate, nothing beats wine (in moderation, of course) to keep us warm. Plus, the tannins help dissolve fat in food, both on the palate and during digestion.

To strike a harmonious balance between these full-bodied, structured, textured reds and the winter chill, try this: in the evening, put the wine out on the balcony half an hour before opening it. We can thus savor the stories of the Perpetual vineyards, which tell us about the red Garnacha and Cariñena that grow thanks to the sunshine absorbed by the llicorella slate. We can also delight in an oak-aged Chardonnay, which gets all the creamier when served at eight to ten degrees Celsius—lovely with a good fish soup. Onion soup paired with a Chardonnay like Milmandais a delicious pick-me-up!

Creamy vegetable soups matched with a rosé like Santa Digna conjure up Chile's climate; the alcohol content revealing its latitude like a whisper in our ear. Bear in mind that for hot flavorful soups to get us nice and warm, it is best to drink moderate amounts of wine, because the dish itself already contains a lot of liquid.

As Ferran Centelles writes in his book Qué vino con este pato, pairing is based on simple concepts like the weight and intensity of the food in relation to the body and aroma of the wine. Talking about winter foods, we must mention fabada asturiana, a classic Asturian bean stew. This incredibly creamy dish with a touch of paprika can easily overpower a good red, but gets along beautifully with a traditional-method sparkling wine like Esplendor by Vardon Kennett, the Torres family's first in Catalonia.

We'll close with another classic, cocido madrileño—a meat and chickpea stew from Madrid that begs for an excellent Cabernet like Mas La Plana or the seductive fleshy Merlot that characterizes Bellaterra.

Nothing quite thaws the senses on a cold day like the spicy nose of a warm irresistible brandy at the end of a good home-cooked meal. Gift yourself a bottle of Jaime I: distilled in copper pot stills and aged in the finest American oak with the best soleras or parent brandies enhancing its complexity. Or opt for Torres 20 Hors D'Age, two-time world champion among brandies. We spend more time at home when it is chilly outside. The perfect moment to enjoy small wintry pleasures like curling up on the sofa with a blanket, a book and a glass of good brandy.

Don't let these ideas go cold—February is a short month and once it’s over, spring is here!