Wine Pairing with Campo Viejo *

I’m a wine snob, there I said it! I was brought up spending weeks in vineyards in Rioja, with a family that know a hell of a lot about wine, so it’s just followed down the line. We now spend time doing wine tastings and pretending we know far more than what we do, but when it comes to Campo Viejo we know it’s great value for money and works its way into our online shop weekly! This weekend there is an awesome Fiesta de Color hosted by Campo Viejo in Waterloo, so naturally I headed over to the opening!

My favourite Italian and I headed over to the Millenium Green and were able to take part in a wine tasting and food pairing with POP Brixton residents and street- tapas pioneers, Donostia and young sommelier, Kate Bedwell.

We began with an ever so quirky Gazpacho, that really complimented the tastes of the Rioja Blanco. Yes, you can get white Rioja and I suggest you try it as it’s perfectly summery and perfect for this sunny weather!

So, fun fact, colours can change your taste – as crazy as that sounds, it’s true, we tried it! We ate out next course with green and red tinted glasses. The green made the food taste a little fresher and the red added a little more flavour.

The food were testing were these stunning Croquetas, but I’m not telling you what was in them as they’re far from conventional and you have to pop by and try them!

They are also paired with more stunning Campo Viejo, but this time it was the Tempranillo.

The third course was playing with temperatures. Did you know you can drink red wine at an ambient room temperature of 18 degrees, or totally chilled from the fridge?! With your wine being different temperatures it really affects your food; for this course, there were warm and cold octopus salads that complimented the wine temperatures so well. Go on, try your red wine from the fridge!

The last wine came as a surprise to me as I was unaware that Campo Viejo had launched a Cava. Dreamy!

And did you know that having popping candy with Cava is bloody amazing?! It really enhances the bubbles!

Our final course paired with the Cava was a Manchego cheese cake, so on its own was quite savoury, but paired with the wine, it made it a lot sweeter!

It’s actually crazy how much wines and temperatures can change the food you eat. I learnt so much about flavours and can’t wait to teach other people!

Book your tickets here!