Wine Focus for June: The wines of Spain!

Montsant L’Altre de Can Blau 2012 – Cellers Can Blau – Alc.14% - (€14), made from Cariñena, Garnacha & Syrah and matured for 6 months in French oak.

This is not my sort of wine. It is a disappointment but not a surprise because a heavy hand with oak is an unfortunate aspect of a lot of Spanish winemaking. Quite full bodied and there is probably some fine red and dark fruit lurking here and maybe Mediterranean spices but at this stage it was dominated by notes of dry caramel particularly towards the finish. Indeed I’m a little surprised that the claimed 6 months in the wood was enough to give such a displeasing result. If this were, say, Bordeaux, I would be fairly confident that the dry caramel would integrate with time but I have no idea whether this will happen with Montsant. Fair with ? future.

Côtes du Roussillon Villages Pur Schiste 2011 - Mas Amiel, Oliver Decelle - Alc.14.5% - (€9), made from Grenache, Syrah and Carignan.

IMO this French Catalan wine really gives a lesson to yesterday's Montsant from Spanish Catalonia made from the same cocktail of grape varieties though probably in different proportions. The main difference here is absence of burgeoning oak which allows the taste of the wine to come through and very good it is. Colour is deep red and the nose immediately shows dense dark fruit with a hint of liquorice. The palate is quite full and dense with lots of dark fruit laced with spice, mineral hints and again a little liquorice and has sufficient substance for the high alcohol to remain unobtrusive. I'll certainly buy more bottles unless the local Leclerc supermarket sells out before I get to it. Very good. QPR!

This wine could also grace the wine values sticky thread and the World Cup OM in honour of France's progress.

Mas Amiel is best known for its range of Grenache based Maury VDNs (fortified dessert wines) which are amongst the best pairings with chocolate. It has launched into Côtes du Roussillon and villages table wines with great success. I used to have frequent opportunities for tasting the range when I was in Belgium.

Interesting comparison of the last two wines, Tim. I have had Can Blau Montsant that I liked and the last one I had, as with yours, disappointed.

2012 Terras Gauda O Rosal, Rias Baixas, Spain. 12.5% abv. 70% Albarino, 20% Loureria, and 10% Caino Blanco. The Loureria has a couple alternate spellings. It is used in Vinho Verde in Portugal. According to Master of Wine Jancis Robinson, Caíño blanco tends to produce wines of high alcohol levels with zesty acidity and mineral notes. (quoted also in Wikipedia)
This wine from white wine grapes was a greenish gold color with transparency. It seems a marriage of white peach and lemon on the nose and palate. It exhibits quite a bit of acid and mineral with some tingle and a little ginger. Pungent and refreshing on the senses. It paired okay with chicken marsala. On the second evening I had it with a broccoli dish with a Swiss cheese topping. I would also suggest pairing it with seafood or other mild chicken dishes and possibly Serrano ham.

Licia Albarino remains probably my favorite Albarino to date. It is a project of Winebow (importer and distributor of international wines) and winery owner Jose Limeres, a native of the Galician town of Pontevedra and the owner of several restaurants in Madrid.

Interesting fact about Spanish wines. One source says that in 2013 Spain actually produced more wine than France or Italy (for the first time ever, due to the rough weather in both of those countries). An Italian website however says that Italy was #1 and Spain was second, edging out France (3rd). Either way, due to poor weather in both France and Italy, and thanks to the fairly new practice of irrigation, Spain produced enormous quantities of (mostly poor quality) wine. They do have half again as much land under vine as France, but due to the almost desert like conditions in the central part of the country--vines planted 10' apart, both directions--the yields are lower. But irrigation has pushed them over the top (or close to it). Now they need to work on quality, with Rioja, Rias Baixias, Ribera del Duero, Rueda, and perhaps a few others, excepted.

C.V.N.E., Imperial, Rioja Gran Reserva, 2004

I'm beginning to realize how clumsy young Riojas can be. I can sense there's good substance here, juicy, potentially complex fruit with a layer of gun smoke and minerals, but it's still obscured by oak and dry, bitter tannins.

Hi,

Our local wine store had the C.V.N.E Imperial, Rioja Gran Reserva, 2004 for tasting vs. the Faustino Martinez Rioja 1 Gran Reserva 2001.
Each of the wines received the 2013 award by a different wine magazine.
I found the Imperial very closed and even less awarding than the previous time I have tasted it a couple of months ago.
I will give it a few more years and I have one bottle from 2005 which I will open first.
The following day I opened the Faustino Martinez Rioja 1 Gran Reserva 2001.
This is a typical good Rioja already showing some maturity with secondary aromas and at half the cost of the Imperial here (at pre Decanter award prices), is a good buy and a very nice wine.

Eli

2012 Bodegas Castano Solanera Old Vines, Yecla, Spain. 70% Monastrell (Mourvedre), 15% Cabernet Sauvignon, and 15% Garnacha Tintorera. A custom blend for Eric Solomon. Deep purple color and opaque, the wine has scents of ripe cherries and berries and some dark plums scent also along with oak spice. Perhaps a little heavy on the oak, I didn't like this quite as much as at the first tasting in a Raleigh wine shop. Mildly pleasant the first evening but didn't excite me. My favorite Spanish wine this month was the 1998 Heredad de Baroja Rioja Gran Reserva.

2012 Proyecto Garnachas Salvaje del Moncayo, Ribera del Queiles.

14% alc, $18 Cdn, good natural cork. Newly arrived on the shelf here, very appealing package to the eye.

Young vines, obscure appellation to me. Juicy, raspberry, brambleberry, spice and hint of pepper. Very soft tannins, medium-bodied, very fruity and tad new world but really enjoyed this. Hint of tobacco on day 2 and more berries on the finish. I served slightly chilled with lamb kebabs.

Rioja Imperial Gran Reserva 1988 - Compañia Vinicola del Norte de España - Alc.13%.

This is a lovely, elegant and harmonious wine. Colour was a limpid but not very deep red with some bricking at the rim. The nose was discreet but with some fine red fruit and restrained flowers mingled with hints of vanilla. The palate was medium bodied at most and linear in shape and even lean but provided a perfect vehicle for some lovely bright and decently acid red fruit with a raspberry tinge, fragrant floral aromas, touches of forest floor and a gentle sweetness again mingled with discreet vanilla. Tannins were beautifully resolved but left the right support for the finish. I feared at first that the wine might be too self effacing for some delicious lamb but in the event the pairing was perfect. Really excellent.

IMHO this style of Rioja, along with sherry and Vega Sicilia (which is priced out of reach), represents the best in Spanish wine but it is becoming increasingly difficult to find as many producers chase Parker and WS points with a heavily oaked blockbuster style. To be sure there is lots of exciting new potential around Spain using indigenous grapes in regions like Priorat, Montsant, Campo de Borjo, Bierzo, Valdeorras, etc., which were virtually unknown to the average wine-lover a generation ago, and hopefully enough producers will resist the homogenising recipe of over-ripeness, big oak and heavy extraction to allow the personalitiess of such wines to express themselves.

I bought this wine for this Wine Focus thread but was discouraged from opening it by the body-builder bottle and the description on the back label. Finally I took the plunge. My misgivings were not misplaced .

2012 Bodegas Borsao Garnacha Campo de Borja Tres Picos - Spain, Aragón, Campo de Borja (7/31/2014)
This wine is a caricature of all that I dislike in "modern" interventionist wine-making. Some concentrated (and potentially attractive?) brambly fruit is swamped by a spine of dry caramel and recently cut planks (undigested wood) and the finish is more than spicy - it is burning and abrasive. We were unable to drink more than a glass each. I strongly doubt whether more age would render this wine more drinkable for me but I'm keeping back the undrunk two-thirds of the bottle to see what a day open brings.
Posted from CellarTracker

Judging from CT, this wine has its fans both amongst critics and CT contributors. One of the latter even described it as "easy drinking" .

Goodness me.."easy drinking". Back to the Faugeres Tim.

I forgot to mention that Tres Picos 2012 was Parker's best value wine of the year 2014 .

Interesting conversation about this wine over on the UK board, some appear somewhat keener on this red than Tim .

Tres Picos

24 hours later, I disliked it less than before. Straight from the fridge I could see what some people meant by strawberry notes, albeit somewhat confected like an industrial ice cream. Quite a lot of the wine then went into a spaghetti bolognese where it did a decent job; about an hour later exposed to an ambient 24°C the dry caramel kicked back into the remainder but less aggressively than before with the fruit was more prominent. Almost drinkable with the bolognese and maybe definitely so with something spicier.

[David M. Bueker]

Tres Picos was really good for about 2 or 3 years when the brand first came out. It descended into goop after that.