Salt cod with samfaina
Salted cod and the oil in the samfaina want acidity. A young red, light in body and fine in tannin, cuts the fat and follows the tomato without drying the fish.
- Trepat style
- Young Trepat Red or Rosé
- Temperature
- 13 - 14 °C
Salt cod with samfaina is salted fish and a long sofrito. Desalted cod flakes and brings salt. Samfaina is pepper, aubergine, onion and tomato, cooked in oil until the vegetables are sweet. This plate also has potato and sweet potato beside it: starch that carries the oil. The mouth stays coated and a little sweet.
Young Trepat red has a light body, high acidity and the soft tannin of thin skins. Acidity cuts the oil between bites. Red fruit — strawberry, sour cherry — sits with the tomato and the roasted pepper. The wine's white pepper repeats the pepper in the pot. A rough red would dry the fish and fight the sweetness of the samfaina. Here the tannin does not rasp.
The style is a young red, served cool, at 13–14°C, inside the 12–14°C window. If the samfaina is lighter and the tomato is fresh, rosé also works: less body, the same acidity, at 9–11°C. This is not a plate for a long ageing. New oak would cover the vegetables.
Tip: the cod is already salted in the kitchen; do not add more at the table. A wide red-wine glass, ten minutes of air, no decanting. If the bottle comes out warm, the alcohol sits on the fish.
