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Grilled Artichoke and Marianna Rocim Alentejo

This month our Wine Pairing Weekend post is hosted by Cam at Culinary Adventures with Camilla.  I have her invitation post linked here so you can see what we were challenged to do.  Thank you, Cam, for hosting us!




To summarize, our challenge is to pair up something from our CSA boxes (Community Supported Agriculture) or farmers' markets. I love a good CSA box and have been a part of one for more than fifteen years. When we moved to our current home, our community had a built-in farm where we could buy eggs, veggies, and even a few flowers!  They have the cutest little produce shack which I have discussed before.  

I also love my farmers' market.  We go to one that our local farm supports, so we get to see them multiple times!  This weekend we were able to get some beautiful artichokes.  We love to make them the simple way, just steamed for a few minutes and served with lemon and butter, but tonight we made them on the grill.  A little charcoal makes these babies shine!




We paired them with Mariana Rocim Alentejo from Portugal. This is an aromatic wine with herbal notes and citrus. It really made the artichoke flavors take the forefront.  With a little lemon butter to round out our artichoke, we had quite the feast on this beautiful vegetable.



This wine is produced by Herdade do Rocim vineyards using an amphora wine process.  The vineyard is cultivated manually and grapes are harvested manually.  70% of the vineyard is certified organic and the other 30% is in conversion.  It is in a temperate sub-region of the Alentejo so it gets cooling and humid conditions at night. which extends the ripening period.  The soil is mostly granite.  The grapes are cold macerated to extract the aromatics.  Fermentation is in steel tanks for 5 months.  The minerality shows up in the tasting and has a lively finish.  

My husband and I read that artichokes aren't a good pairing with wine, but we'd like to disagree and have you try our pairing. It was delicious and each enhanced the other.

Here are other CSA offerings and pairings!

Would you like to comment?

  1. I love that you did an artichoke pairing! I have heard that it's a challenge, too. Your pairing looks amazing.

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  2. Oh that sounds so good! I love grilled vegetables but never attempted an artichoke before. I will definitely make that a priority.

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  3. Artichokes can be hard on wine...but like virtually every thing food and wine related "It depends". I'm glad you were thrilled with your pairing with the wine. The wines of Alentejo offer wonderful value and are the wines the Portuguese drink most often. Cheers!

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