It might just be down to me having the attention span of a gnat or maybe it was the translation from Catalan and Spanish to a heavily accented English; but I rather lost the thread. Roul Lopez engaged us, to one degree or another, with talk of yeast. I know, I know in...
Wine Tasting Video: Spanish Reds – Manchuela, Yecla & Priorat
Cien Y Pico ‘Doble Pasta’ Tintorera 2009, Manchuela (£11.99 Liberty Wines) Really can’t work out whether I like this wine. I can’t fault its richness – it’s full throttle, deep inky wine packed with slightly baked/jammy dark berry fruit, b...
Conde de Monterroso Tempranillo 2010
It's Europa Cup night, with an all Spanish final, so here's an all Spanish wine.
I like Tempranillo, I have quite a clear mental smell-age (like an image, only smelly) of what it should be like. The fresh, oak-free fruit of this took me a litt...
Wine Tasting Video: Assorted Reds – Marzemino, Mencia, Bonarda & Pinotage
Taste The Difference Marzemino delle Venezie 2010, Veneto, Italy (£5.99 Sainsbury’s) Pale and very interesting, with joyful red berry and red cherry fruit and a touch of marzipan, classic chillable summer red, and a great price. S- Encanto Mencía R...
Wine Tasting Video: Assorted Whites – Picpoul, Godello, Weissburgunder, Marsanne
Tesco Finest* Picpoul de Pinet 2010, Languedoc, France (£7.29 Tesco) Fresh clean style with a bracing marine tang, combines a fleshy peachiness with firmer, tauter apple and citrus flavours, and a leafy finish. B+ Crego e Monaguillo Godello 2011, Mont...
René Barbier, Penedes, Spain
Sadly you cant, as a member of the ‘public’ visit this impressive Moet-built and Moet-soon-sold vineyard-surrounded edifice. This is the winery for the René Barbier range of wines, one of the properties of the Freixenet group. One leaves with the impression that here, the slickly professional Freixenet people, are really not...
Freixenet – The Key To Reserva
Freixenet – The Key To Reserva
As a follow-up to a rather enjoyable trip to Barcelona and Freixenet I’ve been delving into the delights of a memory stick. One of the files hidden within its virtual depths made mention of the famed ‘star-studded advertising campaigns’ produced by Freixenet, specifically one from 2007 that I’ve not...
Talking dirty: Rioja soil map
Mosel winemakers love to talk about the blue slate of their soils. A discussion of Chablis couldn’t be had without mentioning Kimmeridgian. Coonawarra has its terra rossa and Rutherford has its dust. But what about the soil in Rioja? As Telmo Rodriguez recently discussed at length, to his lament, the Rioja winemaking process favors process...
Telmo Rodriguez uncorks terroir in Rioja
Telmo Rodriguez was in full cry when I met him in New York City recently. Although the 50-year-old “driving winemaker” studied enology in Bordeaux, worked a vintage at J.L. Chave in the Rhone, and for 25 years has made his own wines across Spain, what was on his mind when we spoke was Rioja: “What...
Wine Tasting Video: Ribera del Duero, Calatayud, Emporda, Cariñena, Utiel-Requeña
Pasión de Bobal 2009, Utiel-Requeña (£11.99 Virgin Wines) Reasonable fruit, juicy plum, cherry and dark berry just heading towards jammy, and with notes of chocolate and desiccated coconut, rounded, warm and spicy, but too simple. B- Torres Celeste ...
Wines of Navarra, more than just rosado wine
I’m quite familiar with the wines of Navarra, they’re all about rosé wines, right? Yes and no. Turns out there’s a lot more to the region then their robustly coloured rosado wines. The Wines of Navarra were in town last week to promo...
