Chorizo, flavouring profile

Chorizo, flavouring profile

Chorizo is fat, salt and smoked paprika, and it wants a wine with enough freshness to cut the fat and enough savoury fruit to meet the smoke.

The compounds that matter. Pork fat, rendered orange with paprika, which coats the palate and needs acidity to lift it. Smoked paprika, whose smoky, sweetly roasted notes suit a wine with a savoury or charry edge. Salt, which softens tannin, so a moderately structured red is comfortable here. In the hot, picante style, chilli heat that high alcohol would make sting.

What it demands of a wine. Fresh acidity and bright, savoury fruit. Moderate tannin and moderate alcohol, especially with hot chorizo. Pale whites and delicate wines are simply flattened by it.

Seek. Garnacha from the Sierra de Gredos, fresh, perfumed and light in extraction, which lifts the fat. Young Rioja in the modern style, cherry fruited with a touch of spice. Bobal from Utiel-Requena, dark and bright. Cava from Penedès, whose bubbles and acidity cut fried chorizo and calm any chilli. Unoaked Mencía from Bierzo, savoury and peppery.

Avoid

Heavily oaked, high alcohol reds, which make the smoke taste bitter and turn chilli heat into a burn. Delicate whites and pale roses, which the fat and paprika simply overpower.

Three to reach for. Garnacha, Sierra de Gredos, Spain. Tempranillo, Rioja, Spain. Cava, Penedès, Spain.