Coast to coast -seven summer wines

September 3, 2008 in Baleares, Rioja | by josé | 1 comment

It has been a long vacation away from the blog -urgent things did not allow me to spend time on the important ones-. I have just returned from a rather short holiday, spent between the Atlantic coast of Galicia and the Mediterranean shores of Majorca. In these August weeks I have tasted a few different wines, some old friends, some new acquaintances. Here is my list of impressions and feelings about them, with the hope that my comment will re-launch our conversation on wine and more.

I discovered in the beginning of the summer season Baigorri, thanks to my friends from Barolo, the trendy Madrid wine store in Príncipe de Vergara 211, a beautiful place where you can talk and learn about wine without any rush. They recommended Baigorri crianza highly, a new Rioja from Alava, and I am very glad I trusted them. Baigorri is a perfect young red wine for the amazing price of around 9 euros, a modernized version of the best crianzas in the region.

On August 15, big celebration day in my Galician family, we drank Roda I, the up market, trendy Rioja (unfortunately my Conde de Rodas name has no connection witht this wine at all!) and we truly enjoyed the depth of colour and taste of this Reserva, I have wonderful pictures of my daughter Blanca taking pictures at all of us while we toasted to her and to all the family.

The rest of the days in Monterroso, Galicia, my brother in law provided us with Valenciso 2002, from one of my favorite wine makers. The 2002 edition is very nice but I preferred the amazing 2001 one and I am looking forward to their 2003 creature. Last but not least one of our night outs in La Coruña we drank La Montesa Herencia Remondo, a serious but sensual Rioja for an amazing price.

We then moved to our Mediterranean refuge in Valldemossa and truth about enzyte for the first time in my life I ordered a wine at a restaurant that was unkown to my father -so far, I had never been able to surprise him. The lucky strike was Allende Rioja 2004, an elegant and seductive Rioja, very Carla Bruni like and the date was August 23, 2008, just for the record. My father liked Carla, meaning Allende, so much, that he said: “it’s OK”.

The last day in Majorca we had lunch with my cousin Juan and his wife Adela in their beautiful house hanging over the Son Gallard cliffs, overlooking the sea. I brought him “Son Bordills”, Shiraz, a wine from the island that I have commented before and once we started drinking their terrace was paradise, a real one, unlike the one experienced by bored Robert Graves, who retired to the nearby village of Deia saying: “this is paradise, if you can stand it” (in a letter to Virginia Woolf).

The last weekend we flew back to La Coruña, Galicia and we drank the best wine so far this summer, Cortes de Cima, from the South of Portugal, a happy, singing wine that soothen for me the abrupt end of the season.
How many bottles of good wine can you buy with 20 €? (Part III)

May 31, 2008 in Bierzo, Priorato, Ribera del Duero, Yecla | by josé | No comments

by Guest Contributor Fernando Vigón

Life always has its up and downs. The downside started a few days ago when Blanca got home after work:
“Fernando, have you ever heard of Montecastro y Llanahermosa?” she asked.
Her ominous tone of voice made me felt uncomfortable, as I tried to read between the lines.
“No, I haven’t. What is up with it?” I answered.
“You haven’t! Oh, it is not big deal, just a 15 € wine, rated 93 by Parker. I guess your value-for-nothing wine hunting skills seem to be a bit rusty”.
That was below the belt I thought. Luckily enough the up side was just round the corner: “By the way, I left two bottles in the kitchen. We can taste one for dinner”

And so we did and the Montecastro y Llanahermosa 2005, D.O. Ribera de Duero, a blend of 95% Tempranillo, 2% Merlot and 2% Cabernet Sauvignon turned out to be a superb wine, dark ruby, explosive nose of blackberries, with elegant mineral and woody touches. Persistent in mouth, very well integrated tannins, it possesses the right balance between power and elegancy……and of course a bargain.

Ashamed by my poor show of weakness I decided to go on another bargain hunting tour and as usual the results were amazing:

The first prey was the Hecula 2005 Bodegas Castaño, 100 % Monastrell, a terrific example of Yecla, the tiny D.O. in Murcia just 4.000 Ha. located in the barren inland part of Murcia with a strong emphasis on young powerful wines based on Monastrell. With a knock out price of 9 €, deep ruby purple coloured, a sweet nose of blackberry jam and sweet, full bodied exceptionally concentrated in mouth, it is perfect to be drunk now and over the next 5 to 7 years.

The next one was a blockbuster: Nita 2006, Meritxell Palleja, 10 €, D.O. Priorat. 45 % Grenache, 35 % Cariñena, 15 % Cabernet Sauvignon, 5 % Syrah. Very bright cherry, the wine has ripe blackberry and dried herb scented nose, medium to full body it shows the mineral richness hallmark of the Priorat “terroir”.

I must admit I have a certain fondness for el Bierzo and its wines and the Ultreia Saint Jacques 2006, Raul Pérez, D.O. will be from now on my shopping list. The fact that the price is 6 $ does nothing to do with it. With a dense dark ruby colour, highly expressive, owns an stunning level of fruit, it is a simple and yet delicious wine, perhaps lacking complexity but making it up for it with a overall sense of elegance and fruity finish.

I am looking forward to talking to you again about my summer holydays wine shopping. In the meantime, please enjoy these wines.
Very Elegant Arzuaga

April 3, 2008 in Ribera del Duero | by josé | No comments

by Guest Contributor Pablo Echenique

To be honest, not very long ago when I heard anyone saying that a wine was “elegant” I could not help laughing. To me, such an adjective had always made me think about Coco Chanel, Armani, the London shirt-makers, Sinatra and the Prince of Wales and, of course, about my dad, but never about wine.

Tinto Arzuaga changed my mind. I first had it as the perfect companion to a “lechazo” (roasted baby lamb) in Lerma’s relatively new Ojeda restaurant (the Burgos temple now has a branch in the ducal town).

Arzuaga is the short name for the wines created by “Bodegas Arzuaga-Navarro”, owned by Florentino Arzuaga that is, in fact, the father of Spanish fashion star designer Amaya Arzuaga. According to their web site, their cellar is quite young (as young as born in the early nineties). This is hard to believe, given the great quality of its wines.

Tinto Arzuaga crianza 2003 (I just can imagine what the “reserva” and the “gran reserva” have to offer) has a beautiful dark cherry colour. Wild berries are definitely there; also a pleasant smoked wood remembrance. It is definitely elegant. When you drink it, I would not say like my friend José Areilza that “one feels like driving an old Jaguar in a cold winter morning through the hills of Álava”; but perhaps it is like “feeling a silk curtain going down your throat” or even like “listening to the prelude of “Tristan und Isolde” coming out of an old and cherished gramophone”.

Now, every time that I pass by Amaya’s trendy fashion store in Madrid, I immediately can smell those berries and I think about the Duero, a river that crosses old Castille and dies in the north of Portugal, that is becoming, more than ever, a great reference for wine lovers.
El Rincón and the global election

March 15, 2008 in Vinos de Madrid | by josé | 1 comment

Yesterday we had an interesting dinner at La Penela, Madrid, the famous Galician restaurant of La Coruña that has also opened in the capital, in Infanta Mercedes 97.

La Penela reached culinary heights thanks to its “carne asada” (roasted meat) and specially, “tortilla de patatas”, no need to translate this, I hope, besides other great Galician goodies like fish, seafood, Padron peppers…

Our dinner revolved with equal passion around the super yellow tortilla and the US presidential elections. Consensus was that the Clinton-Obama contest has become a true globalized race, so much that newspapers all over the world spend a lot of time analyzing it, as if non US citizens could vote in the primaries or in November (NB: in my other blog, on European affairs, www.blogeuropa.eu, I have endorsed Obama, not just because we went to law school together). We drank our humble and delicious semi-liquid tortilla with a sophisticated wine, El Rincón, from Madrid, a new-new thing of Pagos de Familia del Marqués de Griñon (check out the beautiful label and presentation of the wine, way to go!). Everybody around the table agreed that it was a very different wine from any others we had tasted -we had among us the former Master of the Cellar of one of the Oxford Colleges and he was pleasantly surprised. El Rincon is made with shiraz and garnacha grapes and will shock you with its wondrous mineral notes and a touch of spices like cinnammon. The combination of this powerful and ambitious wine, designed to have a global projection, with the simple tortilla was another metaphor of the US elections being experienced with trepitation by citizens of so many different countries.
À Leukade…

February 29, 2008 in Rioja | by josé | No comments

by Guest Contributor Otto Silenus

Wikipedia, always a reliable source, tells us that Leucade is the name of a greek island where the female poet Sapho allegedly leapt to her death from the 100 foot (30m) high cliffs. Other sources tell us that those who followed her example and survived the jump were more fortunate; thus was the fate of Nicostratus, who emerged from the Ionan Sea relieved from the pangs of disprized love.

Not being so broken hearted, and, at least, unwilling to share those risky activities, some of us decided, a few days ago, to turn our minds to a less exciting but closer Leucade, that of a pre-roman settlement called Contrebia Leucade, near Inestrillas in La Rioja. Contrebia Leucade ows its name –as the greek island- to its white colour; built on white limestone it literally means “white village”.