Spanish Wines are Muy Bien

An evening of Spanish wines on a chilly, rainy March Friday can be just the thing to lift your spirits. No pun intended. My wine tasting club, the Washington Wineiacs, met last Friday to taste, discuss, and learn about Spanish wines. I assigned everyone a different region in Spain from which to choose a wine. Since Tempranillo and Garnacha are the predominant grapes in Spain, it made sense to have our March wine tasting meeting encompass the entire country.

We started out the evening with a bottle of bubbles, a Spanish Cava that was a delicious dry white. It tasted like apples and was amazing for $6.99. Cava is Spain’s equivalent of champagne but obviously much less expensive. We tasted all of our wines throughout the evening while we nibbled on Tapas, Spanish appetizers, to complement the wines.

My personal favorite wine and food pairing for the evening was the Amontillado Sherry from Jerez and a wonderful blue cheese called Valdeón. Valdeón cheese (Queisu de Valdión, in Leonese language) is a Spanish blue cheese from León. The cheese is made in Posada de Valdeón, in the northeast of the province of León, and is wrapped in sycamore maple or chestnut leaves before being sent to market. I highly recommend!

Here are the stats on the wines that we tasted.

Whites:

1) Sequra Viudas Brut Reserva Cava / Dry sparkling white / Predominant grapes that are in Cava are: Macabeo, Parellada, and Xarel-Lo (Chardonnay was authorized to be grown in 1986 and is increasing in popularity).
-From the Cataluña region – On the Mediterranean coast which encompasses a part of southern France and a part of north east Spain.
-Vintage and alcohol unknown
-Price $6.99

Reds:

1) Lorinon Rioja Reserva / Dry red / 85% Tempranillo, 5% Garnacha, 5% Graciano, 5% Mazuelo
-Rioja – Named after the Rio (river) Oja and located in the north of the country, this is the leading wine region in Spain.
-Vintage 2003 / 13.5% alcohol
-Price $18.99
2) El Quintanal Ribera Del Duero / Dry red / 100% Tempranillo
-Castilla Y Leon (Ribera Del Duero is one DO in this region) – In the northern part of Spain’s central plateau.
-Vintage 2006 / 13% alcohol
-Price $11.99
3) Venta La Ossa La Mancha / Dry red / 100% Tempranillo
-Castilla-La Mancha (La Mancha is one DO in this regions) – In the lower, southern half of the plateau.
-Vintage 2005 / 14.5% alcohol
-Price $15.00
4) Red Guitar / Dry red / Old Vine 55% Tempranillo, 45% Garnacha
-Navarra – In the north east part of Spain.
-Vintage 2007 / 14% alcohol
-Price $10.00
5) Beryna Alicante / Dry red blend / Exact grapes / blend is unknown. I looked this one up on the Net and found conflicting information about what the grapes are in this blend. All of the sites I found seemed to agree that Monastrell and Garnacha, and possibly some Tempranillo are in this blend. I saw one site that said there’s Cabernet Sauvignon and Syrah in it as well. So this wine, although my favorite of the evening, is a bit of a mystery.
-Levante (Alicante is the DO) – The collective name for four Mediterranean provinces forming two regions officially known as Comunidad Valenciana and Murcia.
-Vintage 2005 / 14.5% alcohol
-Price $27.00
6) Can Blau Montsant / Dry red / 40% Mazuelo, 40% Syrah, 20% Garnacha.
-From the Cataluña region (Montsant is a DO created in 2001 in this region) – On the Mediterranean coast which encompasses a part of southern France and a part of north east Spain.
-Vintage 2007 / alcohol unknown
-Price $14.00
7) Amontillado Sherry Valdespino Jerez / Amber color and Semi-sweet / Grapes are blends of Palomino, Pedro Ximenez, and Muscat of Alexandria (usually Jerez Sherry is 95% Palomino grapes).
-Andalucía (DO is Jerez – one of the oldest wine-producing towns in Spain) – In the southern-most part of Spain.
-They don’t use vintages as these are blended from different wines from many casks (also known as groups of butts) in a Sherry Solera / 18% alcohol
-Price $31.99

The evening was another wine tasting success and we all learned a lot about Spanish wines. Next month’s WA Wineiacs wine tasting club meeting will focus on two wine regions in Italy. Stay tuned, wine friends!