Back... sort of

There is nothing like going away on a business trip, leading directly into a holiday weekend, and coming back to 800 unread e-mails and 600 articles in my google reader. I have lots to report about my trip, some exciting places I visited, lots of food, and some really interesting cultural differences that I found intriguing. The fourth of July was great, one of the best I remember.

But for now, if you are one of the 800 awaiting my reply, please give me a day or two before you hunt me down.

More photos from Roa

The view from Roa

A few quick notes from Spain:

I have always found that the wines from any country in the world taste better when you drink them on their home soil. So far, Spain has been no exception. The wines I have had (Rose, Tempranillo (Crianza), Garnacha) have all be delicious and perfect for the heat and the cooler evenings.

The heat is HOT, but luckily dry. Not like that sweltering humidity in New York City...

Check out some of the photos I have taken:

Off to Spain!

I know I have been spotty on the posting on my blog here. Well, there is a reason for that…

I AM GETTING READY FOR SPAIN!

That is right, I will be heading off to Spain the evening of June 28 and back on July 3. I will be in the Castilla y Leon region of Spain, home to the D.O. of Ribera del Duero. I will be meeting with the Consejo Regulador de la Denominacion de Ribera del Duero. I am very excited about the trip and I look forward to tasting as much wine as I can!

I am well on my way in my Spanish wine education. There are tons of D.O.’s and more than enough wine coming from Spain.

What is your Spanish wine experience? Are there any particular bottles that stood out in your mind that you have tasted recently?

Recommendations from all sources

When it comes down to it, the best recommendation comes from the person next to you when you are in the wine shop. That is how I came to purchase a bottle of Valduero Crianza 2003 from Ribera del Duero in Spain.

I went into my local wine shop and asked for them to show me a good bottle of wine for a decent price. The guy in the shop, In Vino Veritas handed me this wine and it had a tag on it that noted that the Wine Advocate had rated this wine 92. The sales person really seemed to think this wine was a good one and so I took it. There was little else to recommend the wine over any of the others.

When I got home I went to check out the wine on the other major reviewing sites and I could not find it. I went to the International Wine Cellar, Wine Spectator, Wine Enthusiast, and Wine & Spirits and I could not find this wine listed. Surely, if one of them had rated the wine as highly as a 92, it must be at least listed in the other publications, right?

Nope. I even took a look at Valduero website and the most recent wine listed is the 1999 Crianza. To be fair, I did find some other vintages of this wine listed and rated, but not with any consistency. However, this leads to the question of was the wine tasted and just not good enough to be rated? Is it possible that one reviewer rated a wine in the 90’s and another did not think it worth even a lowly 85 (usually the lowest a wine can be rated while still having its rating published).

It really shocks me how hard it is to find information about this wine. And this is not the first wine I have tried to look up with such poor results. It seems that even the simplest of ideas, that the winery’s website should be up-to-date with the most recent vintages of the wines (an activity that would at most take a half hour once a year), are simply too much for some of these businesses. With the blogosphere growing at such a rapid pace, and wine blogging becoming a part of this movement, company websites have become an important resource for those that cannot travel around the world to discuss the product with the business/winery.

I popped open the bottled and drank to the health of the clerk. It was an ok wine, I think perhaps a little past its prime. It definitely did not age gracefully. Perhaps when the wine was young, it could have been interesting, but at the moment I tasted it there was little left. The main component was a bit of vanilla and prunes. There was some fruit up front, but I found it to be choked off by new oak flavors.

When all was said and done, I can only blame the staff member at the wine store for the recommendation. Yes there was a 92-point recommendation from the Wine Advocate, but it turned out I didn’t like the wine all that much. There could have been other factors why this wine ended up in my hands. It is possible they had not tasted the wine, or had not tasted it lately. It’s possible that it was a wine they wanted to unload and I was the sap that walked through the door.

The moral of the story? Find a retailer you trust and visit them often. Let them get to know you and your tastes. The stronger the relationship, the better wines that they will steer you towards.

And wineries, please update your websites. It is the simplest thing and will help you greatly in your goal of promoting your wines.

Big Bad Bodegas Borsao

In my search for new and more interesting wines I found these on the shelf of my local wine shop. A friend of mine gave be a taste of the Borsao Tres Picos 2004 and I was impressed enough to go find more.

At In Vino Veritas I found the Tres Picos Garnacha 2006 and the Borsao Red Wine 2007 on their shelves and decided to try them. I looked online to look up the winery and found the Borsao website and I found two. Seems that they do not yet have a US focused site, so all I know is that the winery is based in a place called Borja and that the winery is spread over 2,500 hectares (over 6177 acres). I actually have no assurance that the data there is up to date, but oh well. I know just how hard it is to keep a website updated, even though it should be a simple once a year (at least) event.

The label has the stamp of approval from Jorge Ordonez, one of the largest importers of Spanish wines to the US. His company’s name is Tempranillo Inc. and I have searched high and low for a website of theirs. If you have found one please feel free to show me that I did not search hard enough. I guess I could look on the business card of one of the reps I have met that work there, but I feel that must be cheating.

The first wine tasted was the Borsao Red Wine 2007. It is the lower line than the Tres Picos and should be drunk young. I found it to be a little sharp for my tastes. The wine is 75% Garnacha (Grenache) and 25% Tempranillo, although I felt it definitely sided over with the bright Tempranillo flavors rather than the spice and pepper I expect from Garnacha. The nose was very bright, promising a lot of acidity with plenty of vanilla thrown in. The taste was close to sour with a blast of fruit up front and then cleaned out by a shot of acidity. For me, this wine was slightly overbalanced, but I only paid $8.99 for it so I am not too upset. There were 15,000 cases imported, so there should be no problem finding this wine.



The other wine I had, the Borsao Tres Picos Garnacha 2006 is another extremely approachable wine. When I tasted the 2004 I found it peppery, nicely balanced and very enjoyable to drink. The 2006 was just as balanced with rich roasted meats in the nose and mouth. It is 100% Garnacha, started its fermentation in steel tanks and then spends 3-4 months in new oak. One note that stuck me was smoked bacon, all over the place. There was also some nice cracked pepper and blackberry. I would definitely suggest finding this wine, especially for $17!

Vinicola del Priorat

Wow it has been a long time since I've posted. Not only that, I need to get back to the whole reason I started this blog, to learn more about wines through tasting them.

I am on a Spain kick, so bear with me. I do it because I know very little about Spanish wines and I think the best way for me to learn (and anyone to learn for that matter) is to taste the wines and try to find out as much information about it as I can.

So, without further ado… Priorat.

Priorat is a county in Catalonia, Spain located in the South West corner of the country. It covers 1,800 hectares (almost 4448 acres) with 74 wineries, producing 2.5 million liters of wine annually.

The wine I chose to help me along, the Onix Classic 2006, made by Vinicola del Priorat. (I try and include the company name as much as possible, even if it is just a corporate designation.) This wine is 50% Garnacha (Grenache) and 50% Cariñena (Caringan).

I looked so hard to find information on this wine, this region, The most I have found is that Priorat produces Quality Wines Produced in Specified Regions (QWPSR). Isn’t that one of those acronyms that you’ll instantly remember? SHEESH!

The QWPSR are governed by the Consejos Reguladores, which oversee all aspects of winemaking in their designated area. QWPSR are broken down into several groups (from top quality to bottom quality): Vinos de Pago (Estate Wines), Denominacion de Origen Calificada – DOCa (Qualified Denomination of Origin), Denominacion de Origen – DO, Vinos de Calidad con Indicacion Geografica (Quality Wines with a Geographical Indication), Vinos de la Tierra – VT (Country Wines), and Table wine. It so happens that the region is what is being classified, so in this case, wines from Priorat are DOCa.

A strange observation on this particular bottle, it says Denominacio D’Origen Qualificada. My understanding is that this is a regional dialect translation of DOCa.

Will all wines from this area be of high quality? No. But if the Consejo Reguladors are doing their job, and the winery is doing its job, then the wines from this area has a fighting chance to be decent.

Ok, enough academic gabbing and more about this wine.

It was good. Not amazing, but I didn’t expect to be knocked out by a $15 wine. There was definitely some oak aging on the wine since I found a lot of vanilla and cedar wood on the nose. There was also some brighter notes of strawberry with a little bit of black pepper. It tasted of bright red fruits, cherries and strawberries. But quite a bit of tannin, with more pepper on the mid palate. At the finish I got a hit of vanilla and cinamon.