Spanish wine warms snowy solar term repast

It has almost become a tradition that, for each of the 24 Chinese solar terms, Da Dong restaurant hosts a special dinner that delivers an artistic conception of Chinese cuisine.

To celebrate the 21st solar term, "heavy snow", which began on Dec 7, Da Dong provided something a little different. Dong Zhenxiang, founder and chef of Dadong joined forces with Lyv Yang, the only Chinese person who has passed the exam of Master Sommelier, to present a feast combining Chinese cuisine and Spanish wine.

The dinner was held at Da Dong Nanxincang branch in Beijing on Dec 13.

The festive repast started with saipangxie, which literally means "imitation of crabs". It is a traditional dish in which ginger and vinegar are added to stir-fried egg whites to produce a similar taste to that of crab meat.

Dong's version is to elevate it through the use of lobster soup and stir-fried egg whites with a topping of truffle to lift the taste. Lyv pairs the Westernized dish with a white wine, adding a sophisticated air to the rich flavor.

Dong offers a platter of cold dishes－traditionally prepared duck feet with yellow mustard dressing, sweet and sour pork ribs, Beijing-style pickled vegetables and pickled cabbage in spicy and mustard flavor.

Lyv pairs the platter with a fresh and fruity Lustau En Rama Manzanilla 2019 which is delivered directly to China after bottling.

"The order for Western cuisine dishes is from light flavor to heavy, so we can pair the wines following the same rule. However, the flavors of Chinese cuisine are more complicated, so sometimes we need to find a wine that is suitable for a number of different flavor profiles," Lyv explains.

"This wine can extend the flavor of the mustard and also highlight the freshness of the cabbage and the sweetness of the ribs," he says.

For the foamed cuttlefish roe soup, Lyv chooses a La Solucio Rosa 2017 which is made with six different grapes and fermented with natural yeast.

Fellow dinner guest, Ma Huiqing, a professor of wine appreciation at the College of Horticulture, China Agricultural University, found the pairings to be quite interesting.

"Both the soup and the wine have their own personalities, and when they combine together it's very tasty," Ma says.

The highlight of the dinner is, of course, the Da Dong roast duck. Dong offers the 4.0 version to the diners.

"The 1.0 version is regular roast duck, and the 2.0 version is our subuni duck－which means that it's crisp but not greasy. We have created smaller subuni roast duck which uses 22-day-old birds," Dong explains.

"As for today's 4.0 version, we don't need any sauce to pair with it, as the duck was roasted with lemon-grass. It's more suitable for wine pairing than any other previous version," he says.

Lyv selected Spanish vintner Alvaro Palacios's work, a large bottle of L'Ermita 2015 to accompany the featured fowl. To reach its optimal state, the wine was decanted an hour and a half prior to service. The fruity aroma and rich tannin of the red wine adds a silky elegance to the duck.

Dong finishes the dinner with a beautifully presented chocolate dessert, aptly named "frost", which pays homage to the "heavy snow" solar term. To accompany the icy-looking tableau of chocolate and berries, Lyv deploys a 52-year wine with refined and complicated aroma to match.

"It was the first time we have tried to pair our special solar term menu with Spanish wines, and it has shown that there is more possibility for combining Chinese cuisine with wine from overseas. We are looking forward to trying this again in the future," Dong says.