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.

Have a Merry Christmas, Happy Hannukah, Super Kwanza, Sexy Solstice, etc.

From me to you, be safe, be merry, and drink well.

And if your family gets to be too much, please for the love of all you hold holy, drink the wine first...

Wine Blogging Wednesday #53 – Wine for Breakfast

Well, not exactly wine for Breakfast, but wine that would go well with breakfast. That is the topic of the next Wine Blogging Wednesday, hosted by El Jefe at El Bloggo Torcido, the blog for Twisted Oak Winery. The posts will be blogged on January 14th.

The rules for this WBW are that it can be anything as long as it is a dry still wine. Nothing Sparkling, no rosé, no dessert wine, no mixers (mimosa).

So now the question is, what the hell do I drink with pancakes and syrup? Riesling? I will have to do some research on this one and perhaps ask my friends… well, perhaps not the friends that are 25 and still doing kegs and eggs on Saturday mornings before football games.

Read 465 blog posts today…

I haven’t posted in about a week, mostly because of a combination of on vacation and focused on dragging my lazy butt out of bed, and a bit of illness. I hate being sick and unable to do what I want my body to do…

Last week, Steve Heimoff wrote on his blog that he wanted to clarify something that I wrote about him in one of my earlier posts. No I doubt that Steve is a regular reader, I bet he has a google alert set up with his name. Steve does not hate bloggers. I do not know what Steve hates; he may post about that in a later post. I think I have made amends in my explanation of my post on the comment section of his post. And keeping track of what post is being posted where is getting to me. Maybe time for an aspirin…

So much is happening in the wine world right now. I just got the new research numbers (Gomberg – Fredrikson, 2008 through October) and it is pretty staggering. A quick breakdown:

Shipments to the US – up 1% (lower that the last two years, but still climbing for now)
California – up 3%
Imported Bottled wine – down 6%
Italy – down 6%
Australia – down 8%
France – down 9%
Spain – even
Chile – up 2% (sweet)
Germany – down 5%
New Zealand – down 6%
Argentina – up 33% (WHOA!)
Portugal – up 11% (really? Cool!)
South Africa – down 15%

Looks like Spanish/Portuguese language countries are doing best.

Then there is the Michigan direct shipping law changes; Tom Wark at Fermentation has been following it closely so you might want to just read his blog for more info.

New York’s retail laws are changing, being turned upside-down, chopped up, and thrown out. I’ll let Debbie Lessner-Gioquindo at Wine Goddess tell you about that one.

Each state is currently taking a look at their budgets and seeing where they can squeeze another couple million dollars. The answer is of course going to be alcohol, so stock up on the ridiculous deals going on right now and fill your cellar up for the tough times coming.

Wine Blogging Wednesday Summary

For those that are interested, here is the round-up of all the wine bloggers that reviewed Chilean wines last Wednesday. There were 34 by Tim's count at CheapWineRatings.com. That's quite a few!

I am certainly looking forward to the next one!