Pairing: St. Francis ‘Old Vines’ zin with spicy citrus salad

Our Wine of the Week, St. Francis Sonoma County “Old Vines” Zinfandel ($20), is big, bold and luscious, with a mouth-filling structure and a cupboard full of spice.

There are plenty of berries in this beautiful and affordable wine, with flavors of tobacco, cinnamon, clove, allspice, licorice root and a slight hint of juniper berry breaking through the fruit. Tannins are suave and smooth, without that drying quality that some big reds have.

“Spice is nice,” said Bryan Jones, the winery’s executive chef, when asked how thinks about pairing the wine for his widely-acclaimed daily wine and food pairings.

He recommends a bit of something sweet, along with some heat and a flourish of bitterness for balance. At ZAP, taking place Saturday in San Francisco, Jones will serve smoked pork rillette topped with a salsa-slaw-salad of fennel for sweetness and piquillo chilies for heat. It is a nuanced blend of flavors and textures that make the wine soar.

At home, enjoy this wine with classic spaghetti and meatballs (and don’t spare the red pepper flakes), traditional pizza, grilled sausages with caramelized onions, roasted spaghetti squash, barbecued baby back ribs, almost anything slathered with good barbecue sauce, ham hocks and beans, oven roasted beets and seared duck breast with a spicy rub.

For today’s recipe, I’m focusing on beets and grapefruit, which can be enjoyed as a warm salad or as a bed for smoked and braised sausages.

Roasted Beets with Shaved ?Fennel, Grapefruit and ?Grapefruit Vinaigrette

Serves 3 to 4 as a side dish, ?2 as a main dish

1½ pounds red beets, washed and trimmed

- Olive oil

- Kosher salt

1 large grapefruit

2 tablespoons white wine vinegar

½ teaspoon ground cardamom

- Pinch of sugar

- Pinch of red pepper flakes

- Black pepper in a mill

6 tablespoons extra virgin olive oil

1 medium fennel bulb, very thinly sliced or shaved on the large blade of a box grater

Preheat the oven to 400 degrees.

Set the beets on a small sheet pan or in a cast iron skillet, drizzle with a little olive oil and turn to coat the beets completely. Sprinkle with salt. Set on the middle rack of the oven and cook until they are tender when pierced with a fork; time will vary from about 25 minutes for very small beets to an hour or longer for large beets. Remove from the oven and let cool until easy to handle.

Meanwhile, use a sharp knife to peel the grapefruit, removing all of the white pith and outer membrane. Holding your hand over a medium bowl, cut close to the segment membranes and let the segments drop into the bowl. When done, squeeze as much juice as possible from the membrane and then discard it.

Let the grapefruit rest for a few minutes, then tip the juices into another medium bowl; you need about 2 tablespoons. Add the vinegar, cardamom, sugar, red pepper flakes and several turns of black pepper to the juice, taste and correct for salt and sugar. Whisk in the olive oil and set aside.

Add the fennel to the grapefruit and toss gently.

When the beets are cool enough to handle, use a sharp knife to peel them and cut them into small wedges. Add to the bowl with the vinaigrette and turn the beets a time or two.

To serve, mound a pile of fennel and grapefruit on individual plates and top with beets and vinaigrette. Enjoy right away.

Michele Anna Jordan is author of the new “Good Cook’s” series. Email her at michele@saladdresser.com or visit her blog at pantry.blogs.pressdemocrat.com.