Recently, we went to a wine tasting in our neighborhood. The title of the wine tasting was barbecue wines from the new world. We were assigned a wine we have never heard of nor tasted ever before. Since we enjoy wines and know a little bit (and I mean a little bit about wine), we thought we would give it a try and see what we could match with it.

The wine chosen for us was a Uruguayan Tannat. The first thing we had to do was to research the tannat grape so we could begin to figure out what food we could match with it.

It turns out that the tannat grape is fairly rare. It was originally grown in the Basque region of France although it seems to be more associated with a wine making area called Madiran located at the foothills of the Pyrenees. It was grown in that region for centuries, and, at some point, tannat wine was used as currency to pay taxes to the King of France.

It was introduced to Uruguay in the 1870’s by Basque immigrants.  Since that time, the tannat varietal became Uruguay’s most famous wine.

In the last few years, tannat vines were planted in other regions, most notably one of our favorite areas: Paso Robles. Tablas Creek, a wonderful winery known for their Rhone wines, is now growing it as part of their offering.

Tannat is a dark red/purplish wine that comes with a lot of tannin. It really needs some time to breathe before using. In fact, we opened it a couple of hours ahead of use. We also tried aerating it and putting it into a decanter. That worked much better.

We didn’t feel that it was a full bodied wine because the tannins overshadow much of the taste. The front of mouth tastes blackberry, plum, and dark red fruits along with woody notes, spices, and licorice….and then the tannin smacks you in the face.

One of the interesting little details about this wine is that because of the tannins, tannat is very healthy. It is higher in antioxidants than other wines. Its skin is thick skins and it has five seeds (rather than 2 or 3 from other grapes) which gives it the healthier, albeit strong tannin finish. We also found out that it is typically blended with other wines such as Cabernet Sauvignon, Cabernet Franc, or Merlot. From our point of view, it would be much better if it were blended.

We bought 2013 Pisano RPF Tannat mainly because we didn’t have too many choices at our local wine store, in fact, we were surprised they had any of them. The price was $20. It received an 88 rating.

Pisano Family Vineyards is a small-production, family-owned business located near the Rio del Plata in Uruguay.  The Rio del Plata is a river that is part of the border between Uruguay and Argentina and eventually empties into the Atlantic Ocean. The winery was established by Don Cesare Secundino Pisano in 1914. The family produces the national grape, Tannat, among others including French and Italian varietals.

This wine definitely required a “big tasting” food to match it. We decided the perfect food would be a chimichurri barbecued/grilled food. We used a combination of boneless, skinless chicken breasts and thighs that were cut in small pieces and put on skewers once they were marinated. We marinated the chicken for 4-6 hours. The marinade recipe is as follows:

½ cup Italian flat parsley

½ cup cilantro

4-6 cloves garlic

½ cup of lemon juice

1 cup of olive oil

2 teaspoons oregano

1 teaspoon hot pepper flakes

Salt and pepper to taste

Put everything into a food processor and let it blend.

We split the chimichurri sauce to keep some for dipping and the rest went into the chicken pieces to marinate for 4-6 hours.

We put the chicken onto skewers before grilling.

We grilled the chicken skewers for a few minutes (15-20 minutes) but check to see the chicken is done. We also grilled onions and cherry tomatoes to be served with them.

The results were amazing and we have to say we would never drink this wine on its own but in combination with the chicken chimichurri, it was simply delicious. Once again, we surprised ourselves. We were prepared to dislike this particular wine but paired with an equally big food, it turned out to be a great match. It was also a big hit with the wine tasting group.

By all means, try something new but try it with matching food. It makes the wine so much better (and the food so much better too).