Another great tasting to give this weekend: Matching wine and cheese. A classic, but a difficult classic as they can actually be quite challenging to match! I picked five wines from different categories and five very different cheeses. The wines were as follows:1. DO Cava – Bodega Raventos i Blanc – Elisabet Raventos – Reserva – Brut – 2000 – 60% Xarel.lo, 30% Chardonnay, 10% Monastrell – 4 years aging on lees, 6,5g/l residual sugar – 12% – 18 euros

We usually bring the wine when we go to Miguel’s family’s house. This time we brought a Gran Elias Mora, a blockbuster wine from Toro. While it was aerating in the decanter, Uncle Constancio offered up an older Rioja. We cleaned out a bunch of old Riojas at Christmas…most of them were way gone…so naturally I was a little dubious.
However this wine is a top end single-vineyard wine from a bodega I know well. It’s also from 1996, not as old at the over-the-hill 92s I was drinking over the holidays.
A pet peeve of mine is that people often keep their wines too long…it seems the word reserve on the label encourages it. The beauty of the traditional reserva system in Spain is that the winery doesn’t release the wine for many years. It is already ready to drink upon release…yes you can keep a reserve for many more years….but it is only the absolute top wines that are drinking well ten years on.
This wine was still drinking well ten years on! It was fading a little, but still ahd lots of elegant, delicate fruit left. It was a pleasant surprise….

I gave an interesting tasting on Saturday contrasting crianza and reserva wines. It ended up being a tasting less about the primary theme and more about Spanish wine palates today. The 16 clients were overwhelmingly Spanish, though there was one British girl.

Spanish wine rules 101: Crianza wines must be aged 24 months before they are released, six of which must be in oak. Reserva wines must be held 36 months, 12 of which must be in oak. These are minimums…often the oak portion is much more significant…some Denominations require more.

An exciting week: I attended a very interesting tasting and presentation at Madrid Fusion on Biodynamic wines. 50 biodynamic wineries from around Europe attended and presented their wines. Nicolas Joly, one of the most passionate proponents of biodynamics, presented his ideas on the matter. It was a fascinating presentation and very timely as the concept is really growing here in Spain. The tasting was fascinating…some really interesting wines, some surprising dispointments too! I hope to post a full report this weekend!

Madeira is a wonderful wine that is often misunderstood, certainly it is little known here in Spain. Whenever I am in Portugal, I try and stock up as it is very difficult to get much here. Recently, I was fortunate enough to taste a series of Madeiras from Henriques & Henriques, one of the top Madeira producers. We tried 3 wines, all 10 yr old single varietal Madeira. The four noble varieties of Madeira are (from sweetest to driest): Malmsey, Bual, Verdelho, Sercial. Wine from the noble varieties must be aged at least 5 years and will indicate the age and grape variety on the label. As with all EU wines, 85% of the contents must be from the designated grape variety in order to put it on the label.

This winery, Finca La Estacada, has often impressed me with their extremely inexpensive, easy drinking wines. The winery is in La Mancha, but is not in the Denominacion de Origen (DO) area and therefore makes wine under Vino de La Tierra (VdT) de Castilla. The category of VdT is quite trendy at the moment and excellent wines are made under it, especially in Castilla Leon and Castilla La Mancha. Under European law, therefore Spanish law, Vdt is not considered quality wine, but rather falls under table wine. It is equivalent to Vin Pays under the French system. VdT guarantees origin but the wines are subject to much less restrictive regulations with regards to yields, aging, and grape variety etc. VdT is being used by wineries outside the officially designated DO areas, but also by winemakers who want more flexibility in making their wines.

Before Xmas, we visited the wine region of Toro, NW of Madrid. This is a region that is famous for its potent red wines made from Tinta de Toro, a local variety of Tempranillo. The region has seen a lot of change over the last 5 years…the quality of the wines has improved dramatically, as have the prices! It can still represent good value, especially compared to its neighbour to the east Ribera del Duero! I hope to do a more in depth trip report to post at a later date.

My husband’s family loves a good dessert wine…so we break one out as often as possible. Often they are not Spanish ones, as the Spanish dessert wine scene can be limiting, but today we had one of our favourite sweet sherries. Pedro Ximenez (PX) is the typical sweet sherry that you see over here. PX is the sweetening grape made after drying the grapes in the sun. The monovarietal wine is thick, syrupy and intensely sweet, especially after long aging. It can be quirt nice but many of them are very cloying. One sip suffices…or it can be used over vanilla ice cream.

Ribera del Duero produces some of Spain stop red wines, but at a price. By Spanish standard, the region is one of the most expensive. I’m always looking out for a wine that represents quality for price…fairly tricky!

This wine is quite good value:

Wine: Montecastro 2004

Winery: Bodegas y Viñedos Montecastro
Denominacion de Origen (DO): Ribera del Duero
Alc: 14.5%
Grape variety: 100% Tinto Fino (local variety of Tempranillo)
Oak regime: 18 months in oak (50% 1st year, 50% 2nd year)
70% French, 25% American, 5% Lithuanian
Price: Around 12 euros in SpainI tasted the 2003 of this wine a few weeks ago and found it a little flat in terms of over-ripe fruit and an excess of tannins. The 2004 much better (in line with the better vintage)…it has just been released, so look for it.