I found these three wines immensely impressive. To start with, they are all delicious, and moreover, each offers such an immense quality-to-value ratio that the pricing is thoroughly hard to believe. I’d buy any of these three with great confidence.
Read MoreAn arínzano is an agricultural estate that showcases unique vineyards, and this winery was the first estate in northern Spain to be endowed with the prestigious Vinos de Pago classification. The term pago is a nod to the Greek “pagus”, or property. The idea behind these wines is that they are entirely unique because of their provenance, or terroir, in wine geek speak. In sum, pago equals prestige, as the classification is set up.
Read MoreTerras Gaudo 2015 Albariño O Rosal: Waxy, succulent and silky, this is a different class of Albariño. It is astonishingly mouth-filling and creamy for a 12.5% abv wine.
Read MoreThis wine really started to shine on the third day after I opened it. Once fully opened, this wine is a mosh pit of smashed mulberries and smoky spices wrapped up in a velvet coat of smooth, even sumptuous tannins with a fine point of chewiness on the medium finish.
Read MoreGarnacha in Cariñena? Yes, confusingly Cariñena is now more about Grenache than Carignan. But such changes could be expected in a region that – literally – drips with history. In 1415, King Ferdinand I of Aragon declared his love for wines from Cariñena, saying he preferred them “above all others”. (Presumably he was talking about wines made from Cariñena.) In 1773, Voltaire wrote in acknowledgment of a gift of wines from Cariñena, "If this wine is yours, it must be acknowledged that the Promised Land is near."
Read MoreCVNE 2011 Rioja Reserva Viña Real: I tasted one ounce of this wine each day for three days before I wrote a note on that third day. I would decant it at breakfast and leave it until dinner - with zero trepidation.
Read MoreFive generations ago, the Gonzalez Byass brandy legend awoke in the southwestern outpost of Spain’s Jerez. Today, the “everyday” Soberano is distilled in a continuous distillation system while the Lepanto brandies are carefully curated in pot stills imported from Cognac.
Read MoreThis bubbly really surprised! It has chops and can serve as well at the table as it can as a hearty apéritif. Lightly fruity on the dry attack, the palate then fills in with a super pleasant, toasty yeastiness then with a crispness akin to dried bread crumbs on the back palate.
Read MoreSpain keeps surprising us with its nouveau wines and denominations. This wine is pristinely clean and value-priced.
Read MoreFourteen of us gathered in the cozy private dining room. I was promptly charged with choosing the reds. (The happy couple, whose 20th anniversary we were fêting, brought the whites, all from the year they met.) With barely a glance, I plucked a delectable magnum of Frappato.
Read MoreHaving just fled my laptop, on which I’d been tapping all day, I fleeting wondered how this beverage bearing a Darwin-inspired name might inspire the finishing touches of my article in the morning.
Read MoreCellars are museums in their own right, cataloging the weather vintage after vintage and housing the odd, retired grape press and hand-corker. When in wine country, even the most inveterate taster occasionally must back away from the table (or tank) and put down the palette of glass, notebook and pen to rest the palate. Yet, research says it’s not the palate that becomes fatigued so much as the brain. Hence, museums on wine certainly won’t do.
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