News from the vine!
Please click on the above to see the poster for our final Telitec Tasting Tour venue with joint Sponsors Telitec Communications and Blu Property Group!
We’ll be at the excellent Restaurante Republica, Denia Marina, on Wednesday 10th December – and it’s going to be great!
We’ll be tasting 5 specially designed and cooked gourmet tapas, each one paired with a different top wine from the Republic’s Fine Wine List – I can’t wait!
The event starts at 7pm (19:00 hrs) and ends at approximately 9pm (21:00 hrs). The price is just 25€ – which is a steal, believe me!
Please e-mail me colin@colinharknessonwine.com or please call me on 629 388 159 to reserve your places – please don’t delay though, seats are booking quickly for this hugely anticipated event!
JOSÉ LUIS BLASCO – TEULADA’S NEW WINE SHOP
Many readers living in the Teulada/Moraira area will know of the wholesale beer and wine business, José Luis Blasco. They’ve been successfully supplying the catering trade for many years – it’s almost certain that if you’ve eaten out in the area, you’ve enjoyed their beers and wines.
There will also be several of you who have, cheekily, like me, been to the warehouse and asked if you could buy the odd bottle of wine, which perhaps you’d enjoyed in one of their clients’ establishments. José was always happy to oblige.
A few months ago he started to think that maybe there was a call for a more visible, retail arm to the business. Simple, knock through his warehouse at the back of the Teulada Industrial Industrial Estate and come out into another warehouse sized building, this time on the front, easily seen by all those entering Teulada from the N332.
Unfortunately, though invited, I couldn’t go along to the inauguration as I was recovering from my knee op, but when I did visit and sampled some wines I was asked to present a tasting after the Summer. I jumped at the chance with alacrity. Although I was well aware that José already has a good selection of wines, it was clear to me that he had upped the ante in terms of quantity, variety and quality. Choosing just five wines for the tasting was going to prove difficult.
So we chose six!
I often like to start a tasting with a Cava and as José and I had agreed that we would also like to showcase some local wines in this tasting, so we chose a Cava from Valencia. As Cork Talk readers will know, Cava is an unusual DO in that it is not restricted to just one geographical area – it can be made in a part of Valencia too.
Nodus Brut is such a Cava. Not content with the minimum 9 months ‘en rima’ the Nodus wine maker left his Cava in contact with the lees, the dead yeast after the 2nd fermentation, for 22 months, qualifying it for Reserva status. The Macabeo and Chardonnay in the blend add apple fruit acidity and a touch of peach flavoured body and depth. Super start.
I apologised to fellow tasters, not for the choice of the white wine that followed, but for the fact that I haven’t ever written about the wines of DO Monterrei! Located in the deep south of Galicia, where Spain is divided from Portugal by the Rio Minho. This mention now, is the first of more, I assure you – if Minius 2014 is anything to go by! What an inspired choice by José! If you ever want an introduction to the Godello grape variety – which has been praised several times in this column – then this is it!
It has such a fruit filled delivery with the usual white flower fragrance plus a touch of fennel on the nose too! Drink this wine for aperitifs and with salads and fish. Seriously, you need to buy this wine now!
As Spain has such a wealth of rosé wines, we couldn’t let pass the opportunity to show one at least. There’s an excellent choice at Blasco’s, all the different variations on a pink theme, so many grape varieties, but not a lot of difference in price – they are all, like the whole Blasco selection, very good value for money.
We decided on Pireneos 2014 (remember, 99% of Spanish rosé wine should be drunk young) whose label has the photo of a beautiful horse. At first the wine was a little shy to reveal itself, a red rose bud about to break into flower, but initially timid, demure!
The onion skin colour of this wine would have been called ‘classical’ in years gone by, and on the palate it appears to be a rosado that would prefer to the a red! There is a certain meatiness and for a rosado quite a mouthfeel. I really enjoyed this wine with Jamón Serrano and some semi and curado cheese, though I’m sure it will become a go-to rosado for Paellas and other rice dishes.
Our first red, Monteabellón, was from Ribera del Duero, and typically it was big in fruit. For me, a little unbalanced as yet, its semi-crianza five months in oak have yet to mellow some tannic notes, though with food, it’s drinking nicely. Buy it now and sit on it for six months to a year and then it will show its best.
It was an unfair comparison, but I wanted tasters to experience a Ribera del Duero and taste it against a Rioja. Pacto was chosen, a crianza Rioja, whose extra time in oak and in bottle made it an easy winner. There is an elegance to this wine. It doesn’t have a huge fruit delivery on the first hit, but hold it in the mouth and you should find those strawberry notes common to Tempranillo based wines from la Rioja.
It’s had 16 months in oak (the minimum for a Crianza from Rioja is 12 months) and there are pleasant smoky vanilla notes to complement the fruit. It’s light enough to be enjoyed simply, with friends, but there is also sufficient weight and richness for it to accompany meat dishes, though I’d avoid gamy foods.
Our final red was another acknowledgement of the wines of DO Alicante, another ‘local’ wine therefore. Again I must thank José for introducing this wine to me! It’s made with a favourite variety of mine, Monastrell, plus a little Cabernet to add extra ageing capability as well as colour and a slight blackcurrant flavour to go with the baked dark plum of the Monastrell.
It’s juicy, with a good acidic lift and a touch of tannin, to ensure long life.
Some dark chocolate blending with the blackcurrant (typical Mon and Cab) creating a slight dark chocolate liqueur sensation. The French 500 litre barrels in which the Monastrell has been aged for 16 months adds depth and complexity.
I’ll be coming back to this wine and more from the same stable, and indeed, I’ll be going back to José Luis Blasco’s Wine Shop!
Plus – there’s a super wine tasting/gourmet tapas evening coming soon at D enia’s excellent Republic Restaurant, on Thursday 10th December. It’s the final Telitec Tasting Tour venue and promises to be one of the best! Please contact me for the remaining few seats!
colin@colinharknessonwine.com or please call 629 388 159 to reserve for the above!
RESTAURANTE TIMON HAS THE BOTTLE!
THE TELITEC/BLU PROPERTY TASTING TOUR HITS CALPE!
It’s a worry. I’m wondering if I may be turning into a bottle fetishist!
Whilst the DO Rías Baixas, Bodegas Palacio de Fefiñanes, Albariño wine inside the bottle is a real treat (showcasing classic white flower aromas and white peach flavours), I have to admit that I also chose this wine because it’s in a magnum!
A magnum bottle of wine holds 1·5 litres – two bottle’s worth, but it’s not the quantity that impresses, it’s the actual bottle! Size isn’t everything, I know, but on occasion, it helps!
I’d say this Albariño was the leading wine out of the five we tasted recently at the jointly sponsored Blu Property Group/Telitec Tasting Tour in Restaurante Timon, Calpe. Both companies have clients along the Costa Blanca, as well as inland, and we thought a Tasting Tour, incorporating the most populated towns would, like the wine and tapas, go down rather well!
We started the event, as we nearly always do, with a Cava. We were there for a celebration, a night out with beautiful views of the Mediterranean, which ebbs and flows almost to the restaurant door. What better celebratory drink is there here in Spain? However Aria, from Bodegas Segura Viudas, is not simply a refreshing glass of bubbles.
That said, the Brut Nature (the driest possible style of sparkling wine) is certainly fresh with a pleasing acidic lift, but there’s quality fruit there too, with a little depth to round off the experience. Made with all three of the classic Cava grapes: Macabeo, Parellada and the oddly spelt Xarel.lo it also has the benefit of having spent 15 months ‘en rima’ (resting on its lees, the dead yeast deposit which gently settles in the neck of the bottle as it is stored, practically upside-down).
Six months more than the DO Cava permitted minimum of 9 months ‘en rima’ adds weight, body and depth to those celebratory bubbles. Served with a smoked salmon & dill tapa – well you can’t go wrong!
Of course, many readers will know that Albariño, from Spain’s north western outpost, Galicia, is very often served with shellfish, though this wine has the body to accompany other dishes too. We followed the traditional route and served it from the magnums (did I mention the magnums?) with a prawn tapa, with which is made a perfect marriage.
A pale golden colour in the glass, the wine immediately starts to give off wonderful fruit-laced floral wafts of aroma – causing, I noticed, some tasters to stop their conversations for a while, searcing for the source of the lovely perfume that had arrived on the tables! You may not find white peaches, or the lighter coloured fresh apricots that can be found here in Spain, but it doesn’t matter – it’s glorious fruit, and you don’t need to define it!
Now if we are taking fragrance – the next wine, a rosado from the famous and highly praised Bodegas Arzuaga, DO Ribera del Duero, really stood out, aroma wise! Ribera del Duero is rightly lauded for its super red wines and well, as rosé wines are made from black red wine grapes, it’s stands to reason that there should also be some very good rosados made there too!
Arzuaga’s Rosae is made from 100% Tempranillo coming from quite young vineyards that are over 900 metres above sea level. Serve it chilled, but not really cold and you’ll find that some charming rose petal aromas float upwards from the glass. It has a delicate mouthfeel and yet as it warms on the palate you’ll feel it to be quite rounded and full flavoured for a rosado wine. The very pleasant surprise package of the night!
Our first red wine weighed in at 15% abv – feeling full in the mouth with some obvious weight. Tres Picos 2013 is from Bodegas Borsao, D.O. Campo De Borja and is made with Garnacha, Spain’s 2nd most planted red wine variety. It’s a bold wine with a deep black cherry colour and some of that fruit flavour on the palate too.
Look also for some black plums and blackberry – there’s plenty of dark fruit in there for sure. Just 5 months ageing in oak has also added some depth and a little complexity. I’d like to taste this wine in a year’s time, when I think it will be softer on the palate, but retaining its fruit for sure.
My magnum fetish was satisfied once again with the final wine! Zuazo Gaston Crianza 2010 is a D.O.Ca Rioja wine was also served from large 1·5 litre bottles. It’s a Rioja wine that comes within most people’s budgets and whilst there is a certain elegance there, it paled a little in comparison with fuller and richer style of the Tres Picos.
Another successful night on the Tasting Tour and several of those present will also be at the next – which is at the Swiss Hotel Moraira, Thursday 12th November starting, as do they all, at 7pm. There are some places left – please contact me to reserve! Please also note that The Teltitec Blu Property Tasting Tour will be at Nox in Javea, Weds 25th November; and finally at Republic, Denia, 10th December!
Contact Colin: colin@colinharknessonwine.com and through his website www.colinharknessonwine.com and you can follow Colin on Twitter, @colinonwine