Pulpo Caribeño
At Blend 111, a restaurant in Vienna, Va., executive chef Andrés-Julian Zuluaga doesn’t develop menu items and then leave it up to the beverage team to pick a wine to go with it. Rather, he makes dishes meant to go with a specific wine, generally drawing on the cuisines of Spain, France and Venezuela.
This dish, which translates as “Caribbean octopus,” is paired with the 2015 Marcel Hauss dry Riesling from Alsace and is inspired by the octopus dishes of the Spanish region of Galicia, accompanied by alcaparrado, a condiment popular in Spanish-speaking communities in the Caribbean that Zuluaga makes with capers, manzanilla olives, roasted red peppers, red onions, bay leaves, achiote oil, sherry vinegar and garlic.
The octopus is braised and then grilled and served with salt-crusted potatoes, adobo aïoli and alcaparrado.
Price: $34