October

And here it is… October… And this means in the city of Leiden, the Netherlands, an annual celebration takes place on October 3rd. What celebration you might ask?

Leidens Ontzet
Leidens Ontzet is the celebration of the liberation of the city of Leiden during the Siege of Leiden in 1574, during the 80 Years War, when the liberators breached the dikes to flood all the fields around the city with water, to flush the Spanish soldiers camping in the fields out.

This anniversary of this event is celebrated every year on October 3rd. This comes of course with some food tradiotions as well. In this case, the celebration includes consumption of hutspot. According to legend, the ‘hutspot’ recipe came from the cooked bits of potato, onion and carrot, left behind by hastily departing Spanish soldiers.

Wine
Now all I had to do was find a wine to accompany this meal. So looking at history, of course I had to pair it with a Spanish red.

As this meal is a bit fatty, I thought it would go nice with a a not too expensive bold, fruity, young red wine, which has some nice tannins. Looking at the wines, I picked a 2014 Ribera Del Duero Tempranillo, Barrel Aged.
This wine is well balanced, lovely red fruit flavour which really goes well with the hutspot, or ‘hotchpotch’; now let’s go out and celebrate!