For 4 people: 1 kg leg or shoulder of lamb, salt and pepper, 1/2 tsp cinnamon, 1/2 tsp ground cumin, 100 ml olive oil, 2 large onions, chopped; 2 cloves garlic, chopped; 1/2 l stock, 1 tbsp sultanas, soaked in 2 tbsp sherry, 1 tbsp chopped almonds.
Wash the meat, pat dry, rub with salt, pepper, cinnamon and cumin. Preheat oven to 150 degrees. Heat the olive oil in a suitable roasting pan, sauté the onions and garlic in it. Add the meat and brown gently on all sides. Then pour in the stock and add enough water to just cover the meat. Cover the pot and put it in the oven. After 10 minutes, reduce the heat to 120 degrees and let the meat braise for about 1 1/2 hours. Just before the end of the cooking time, add the sultanas with the sherry and the almonds. Season to taste and serve with rice.
With Waldemar Thomas at Wine Hilgard
Dr. Peter Hilgard, a doctor and active in research, met his later wife Isabél in Spain at the end of the 1970s, and together they drank a wine they liked exceptionally well: '59 Martinez Lacuesta, a Reserva especial from La Rioja. So the Hilgards started to trade with Spanish wines, first in Bielefeld. Since 1986, they have been importing themselves; today, almost 90% of their customers are supplied by mail order. Every now and then, however, there are also open days in the Vilbeler Landstraße at the Mainkur.
In the course of the past few years, a lot has happened with Spanish wine. The wine culture, which has grown over 3000 years, has changed profoundly, and on the largest cultivation area in the world, growths are flourishing which meanwhile stand up to any comparison with corresponding wines in Europe. The formerly so typical, heavy, almost always oxidized white wines have almost disappeared, the internationally known Spanish red wines are no longer limited to those from La Rioja or Ribeira del Duero, home of the still largest Spanish red wine: Vega Sicilia. As before, the country can be divided into three wine-growing zones: the north with its moderate, relatively humid climate, from which the best wines come; the dry, hot middle part with its sometimes huge wine-growing areas (La Mancha, for example, with 150,000 hectares of vineyards covers one and a half times the entire German vineyard area) and, at least in the past, very alcohol-rich, not infrequently plump wines. Finally, the sun-drenched south with its world-famous liqueur wines, the sherries, Montilla-Moriles and Málagas.
Besides quite a few Riojas and sherries, there wasn't much there when the Hilgards started selling Spanish wines in 1979, and the fact that even today there are more white than red vines under production in Spain was and still is unknown to most people. However, the wine that initially sold best was a red from the Bierzo region of northern Spain (León province). It is a cuvee of the regional Mencia variety, which produces fruity, light wines and reminds of the Cabernet Franc grape, which is widespread in the French Loire region, and the Garnacha variety, which is widespread in Spain and is also popular in the south of France (Grenache). Today, La Viñeria carries 2002 Luna Berberide from this region for 7.20 euro. The Hilgards themselves also grow wine, in the Andalusian province of Granada, in the wildly romantic Alpujarras: Corral de Castro Barranco, from Garnacha and Tempranillo, the most important Spanish red wine grapes. It comes along deep dark, with fine acidity and blackberry fruit (2001, 7.50 euro). The noblest of their own wines, Cerro de La Retama, is also made from Garnacha and Tempranillo from old vines. The 2001 costs 15.90 euros and goes perfectly with lamb Moorish style, a recipe that Doña Isabél has at the ready, she was born in Spanish Morocco.
La Vineria
Dr Peter Hilgard and Isabél del Olmo
Vilbeler Landstr. 7 (building 08), tram, line 11
60386 Frankfurt am Main
Phone: 069-425706
Fax: 069-425309
Internet: www.la-vineria.de
from Waldemar Thomas