Whole peeled pears slowly poached in Rioja red wine with sugar and cinnamon until tender and stained deep ruby through. The poaching wine is then reduced to a glossy syrup and spooned over the fruit. A simple, classic dessert of La Rioja tied to the wine harvest, served cool, often with the reduced syrup and sometimes a spoon of cream. The whole pear keeps its shape, its flesh perfumed with wine and spice to the core.
A harvest-season dessert of La Rioja that makes use of the region's red wine, part of a broader tradition across Europe's wine country, from Beaujolais and Burgundy to Castile and Leon and Piedmont, of poaching pears in the local red. In Rioja it is made with the region's Tempranillo-based wine, which lends both color and the tannic backbone that balances the sugar. The dish has no single recorded inventor; it is a longstanding country sweet built on the two things the land yields in autumn, pears and wine.
A whole pear gone soft and yielding to the spoon, its pale flesh dyed wine-red at the skin and deepening inward, glistening under a dark, syrupy glaze. The taste is sweet but not cloying, the wine's fruit and gentle tannin cutting the sugar, with warm cinnamon running through. Served cool, the cold fruit against the rich syrup; the flesh should be tender all the way through but still hold together, never collapsing to mush.
The pear is poached, not boiled: held just below a simmer so it cooks evenly to the core without the outside falling apart. The wine's pigments, anthocyanins, are water-soluble and migrate into the fruit over time, which is why long, gentle cooking stains the flesh deep red rather than just the surface; the wine's tannins also firm the pear's pectin somewhat, helping it hold shape. After the fruit is removed, the poaching liquid is boiled hard to drive off water and alcohol and concentrate the sugar and wine solids into a syrup that thickens and turns glossy as it cools. A firm pear variety is essential so it does not disintegrate.
Variations
Cinnamon is the standard spice, but many cooks add lemon or orange peel, a vanilla pod, star anise, or a few cloves. The pears may be poached whole with the stalk on for presentation or halved and cored. Beyond Rioja, the French poire a la Beaujolaise is the same idea in Beaujolais wine, and Castilian and Piedmontese kitchens make their own red-wine pears; a few drops of liqueur are sometimes added to the syrup.
On the Palate
Where Peras al Vino de Rioja sits in the Spanish flavor cloud
Ingredients
Serves 4How it's made
7 steps · 15 min
- 110 min
Peel 4 firm pears, leaving the stalks on, and trim the bases flat so they stand upright.
- 23 min
Pour about 750ml Rioja red wine into a pot just wide enough to hold the pears, and add 150g sugar and a cinnamon stick.
- 33 min
Warm gently, stirring, until the sugar dissolves.
- 43 min
Stand the pears in the wine, adding a little water if they are not nearly covered, and bring to a bare simmer.
- 540 min
Poach gently for 30 to 40 minutes, turning the pears now and then, until tender to a skewer and stained red.
Watch outPoach the pears at a bare simmer, turning now and then — a hard boil makes the outsides fall apart before the core cooks and stains red.
- 615 min
Lift out the pears and set aside; boil the wine hard for about 10 to 15 minutes until reduced to a glossy syrup.
Watch outAfter lifting the pears, boil the wine down hard to a glossy syrup — under-reduced it stays thin and watery and won't cling to the fruit.
- 75 min
Cool the pears and syrup, then serve the pears cool with the syrup spooned over, with cream if desired.
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