Sangre de Toro – not superfluous

We had another Torres wine last night – Sangre de Toro which translates as “Blood of the Bull”.  It tasted better than that.  Made with both  Garnacha and Cariñena grapes it was  $7 here in the US of A. It’s $12 in Ontario but it’s a decent wine at that price too. The blend of these two grapes make for an easy drinking wine typical of Spanish wines that not made with Tempranillo.

What I really liked is their web page which is full of detailed information about the wines without the splashy superfluous stuff. Click for the Sangre de Toro webpage. I really wish that you could find out this much info about all the wines you buy.

What my tree-hugging, carbon footprint neutralizing,  Guelph neo-hippie friends will love is that Torres is committed to minimizing their negative effect on the environment.  “There’s no such thing as a good wine that does not respect nature” – Miguel Torres.

Okay, maybe the other reason I bought it was to get the cute little bull figurine that comes with the bottle. I’ve attached it to my key chain so that it can poke me in the thigh when I put them in my pocket.
TORRES SANGRE DE TORO
LCBO 6585
Price: $ 11.95
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Confused by Wine? Descartes can help

Does the world of wine look like this to you?  These are only the wine regions in Spain for Pete’s sake! It seems so confusing but I can help. Or rather, René Descartes can help.

René Descartes used the philosophical method of Reductionism to analyse a problem.  Reduce the problem to its simplest elements – but no simpler. Look at the map below and see what  Descartes can do for you!  I call this approach the Cartesian Wine method and with apologies to all my friends who teach Math, it’s going to catch on much faster than Cartesian geometry. Here is the map of Spanish Wine 101.

It’s simple – and you can even leave out Rias Biaxas if you’re not going to drink Spanish white wines.  For that matter I can take or leave Montsant – but give me my Rioja, Priorat, and Ribera del Duero. Using this method it is easy to understand Spanish wine.  And if you have to make it even simpler then drink Rioja – LAN is my recommendation de jour.

LAN Crianza is on sale in Ontario for $15 this month and #44 on the WS top 100

 If I may quote Monsieur Descartes, “ Je pense bois, donc je suis.”

“Rene Descartes was a drunken fart, I drink therefore I am” (Monty Python)

Red Guitar of Spain

 

Red Guitar Wine from Spain is my newest value red wine – Olé (Spanish for “there you have it” – loosely translated). It is a classic Spanish Rhone style wine –  Tempranillo and Garnacha – and is very tasty – Olé. Normally I like Spanish Rioja wines that remind me of a dry, hot summer.  However, this one from Navarra is refreshing and interesting -Olé.  Rich and smooth but not too easy or sweet with medium tannis and a slight funky odour that isn’t unpleasant.  Besides, I like the funk – Olé. 

The website has a great musical flash intro page at redguitarwines.com (click the hyperlink to listen).  The Red Guitar that is playing is fun to listen to and my wife likes that fact that at no time does a Gypsy King start singing at you – Amen and Olé.

 

RED GUITAR OLD VINE TEMPRANILLO GARNACHA
LCBO 54007 | Price: $ 12.95

Whenever the winemaker has a great description of their wine I use it – they know more about it than I do -   Red Guitar brings the style and excitement of Spain to life. From grapes grown on up to 100 year-old vines in the ancient kingdom of Navarra, Red Guitar delivers rich flavors and remarkable complexity in every glass. It is a wine that sings of the land of the bullfight, tapas, and the art of living well.

Sherry for Christmas

 Are you drinking Sherry this Christmas?  Maybe this photo will inspire you to start a Spanish tradition.  A nice dry (seco) sherry pairs well with fruitcake, gingerbread houses, and candlelight.

GONZALEZ-BYASS ALFONSO SECO OLOROSO

 

The Cask of Amontillado

I hope my brother likes me.

He has promised me a tour of Alvear’s winery in Montilla, Spain, this summer.  But if I’ve learned anything from literature (and I probably haven’t) then I need to be sure I haven’t insulted him gravely – recently.

The Cask of Amontillado is a great short story by Edgar Allan Poe.  It is a story of revenge and murder - set in Spain - with a Cask of Amontillado as the bait.  You may recall that Amontillado is not Sherry, but it’s darn close ( read Amontillado – Surely that’s a Sherry).

The story begins, “The thousand injuries of Fortunato I had borne as I best could, but when he ventured upon insult I vowed revenge.” Oh Edgar Allan, I think you know that the only thing more frightening than a raven is revenge.

To make a short story short -  Fortunato’s pride in his ability to tell Amontillado from Sherry is the bait and his downfall. He ends up intoxicated and bricked into a wall in the depths of the wine caves. I supposed in a very real way the bricks are his downfall.

There are several lessons from this story:

1. Don’t be sure you know everything about wine.

2. Don’t drink too much on a wine tour.

3. Fortunato is an ironic name (not bad for a PE teacher).

4. The saying  “keep your friends close and your enemies closer” is just stupid. Look what happened to Fortunato.

Los Molinos Gran Reserva – everyday Red

aka How I fell in love with the Red Brick Café

This is really a wine tasting note but there’s a great story in it so just bear with me and read on.

Just after the Red Brick Café opened in Guelph I walked in to find that they also served wine!  Excellent.  I was very surprised to find that their house red was a Gran Reserva. Who serves a Gran Reserva for a house wine when you can make a killing on Citra or some other $6 bottle of non-offensive red?  I had to meet this owner – who turned out to be Shelley - who turned out to love both her café and wine – who turned into a friend – who now let’s me select the wines for her café.  So really this wine found me a café, a friend, and a wine gig.  Pretty cool.

LOS MOLINOS GRAN RESERVA
LCBO 620971 | Price: $ 14.70  VALDEPENAS – selected because it was Red Brick Cafes first Spanish house wine

A Gran Reserva ages 5 years – 2 in American oak barrels and 3 in the bottle before release.  This aromatic wine from a tiny area in La Mancha tastes of moderate smooth tannins and vanilla. It is medium bodied with flavours of red fruit.

Unlike Rioja wines, here the tempranillo grape is smoother and takes on quite a bit of oak.  It’s a great price for a Gran Reserva and tasty too (and people can say “oooh a Gran Reserva”, and you can be all “its just a little something I picked up”, and they can exclaim “that’s so totally  thoughtful” … etc. etc.)

Torres Coronas Tempranillo – everyday red

In a letter Ernest Hemingway, the original “Most Interesting Man in the World”, once called Spain “the last good country left”.   While that may be debatable, (I can see my Italian friends in a fit of rage now) what is not debatable is that Spanish wines are certainly earthy and true to their roots – the Tempranillo grape.

TORRES CORONAS TEMPRANILLO
LCBO 29728 | Price: $ 13.25
CATALUNYA

Description  -  Catalunya is nestled between Barcelona and France - a great wine region.  The first sniff is dry but swirl it in the glass to get the aromas of fruit.  This wine is spicy with strong tannins, dark berries, and a longish finish.  My brother in Spain tells me that a good Spanish wine should taste like a hot, dry summer – this one does.  If you don’t think so then take it up with my brother. It is great with caper-stuffed olives as tapas.

Say it out loud!

The Red Brick Café Wines are Great this December and it’s not just how they taste. They are also fun to say out loud – not usually a selection criteria for me – it just happened.

White Wine

Strewn Riesling / Gewurztraminer from Niagara.

Riesling is my favorite white wine but really what is great about this wine is that I can’t help but smile when I say Gewürztraminer (you have to click here to hear it). Thank goodness for the internet.  Could anyone really pronounce it based on the dictionary help (ɡəˈvʏɐtstʁaˈmi:nɐ)?  Seriously, does anyone consider that helpful?  Personally I like to say it in a lower guttural German sound or yell it like Dana Carvey and Steven Carell in Germans Who Say Nice Things.  That just make the  funnier when you know that the translation of Gewürztraminer is “perfumed Traminer”. Cute huh? Also, I woüld like to üse the ümlaüt whenever I remember (ü).

Red Wines

Georges DuBoeuf Beaujolais-Villages from France 2008

Georges DuBoeuf is the King of Beaujolais wines and his Beaujolais-Villages is a step up from Beaujolais vin ordinaire. This is a chance to practice your pretentious French accent.  DuBoeuf, as we all know, really just means “of Boeuf” (Kenn’s regular language joke)– the French have such a way with names.  This Beaujolais is smooth and very quaffable.  You could easily gulp this wine if you were in a hurry.

Bodegas Castaño Hécula Monastrell from Spain 2007

This is also fun to say at a wine tasting– “Now try the Hécula is from Yecla”.  Yecla is a great value wine region in Southeastern Spain near the larger region of Jumilla.  It is a great wine with manly tannins but she’ll like it too! The Monastrell grape is the Spanish version of the French Mourvedre so it probably will remind you of a rustic wine from the Southern Rhône region.  Hécula from Yecla? – heck ya.