Guggenheim at Bilbao
Well, I didn’t make it to the Marqués de Riscal winery…but I ended up at another Frank Gehry building: the Guggenheim at Bilbao. And what a astonishing building this is. Definitely worth a trip to Bilbao.
On the wine side I do not have to report much. We went to El Rogelio, a little restaurant mentioned with a bib gourmand in the Guide Michelin. Lovely food but they need to do something about the poisonous green paint that is used to cover their walls. I ordered an albariño of Bodegas Martin Códax. Plain simple and satisfying wine. Nevertheless, I was disappointed by the small range of white wines on the wine list. Being close to Rioja, it are the reds that get all the attention on the list.
However in a city where fish (merluza (=hake), bacalao (=cod)) is the specialty, you would hope for a more extensive list of white wines. Better next time.
Have a nice wine with fish today!
Bart
Marqués de Riscal and Frank Gehry
Maybe you did not noticed yet, but also wine makers (certainly the big ones) tend to have great building projects. This is a project from the Bodegas Herederos del Marqués de Riscal, located at Rioja, Spain.
This project houses the company’s offices, wine museum, tasting rooms, conference rooms and a luxury hotel with 14 distinct rooms. The architect on duty is the incredible Frank Gehry, known from the Guggenheim Museum at Bilbao. Oh boy, did I wish I had the money to order a house from him :-).
Have a nice wine in a nice building today!
Bart
Passionate Spain - WBW#35 Round up
41 bloggers coming from Australia, Spain, Belgium, Hong Kong, Canada, the US, and Great Britain made this Wine Blogging Wednesday a great succes! Taking into account that a lot of bloggers reviewed 2, 3 or even more wines and you can imagine that there is a treasure of information for people who want to shop for good value Spanish wines (in general below 10 USD).
So kudos to My Wine Education for coming up with this great subject.
The round up of WBW#35 can be found here.
I want to mention one blog, Château Brys. A fellow Belgian blogger with whom I got into contact thanks to WBW. He had set his eye upon a wine from Telmo Rodriguez, a passionate driving wine maker.
Have a nice Spanish wine today!
bart
WBW#35–Poema Garnacha old vine
After a cava and a verdejo, it’s time for some red.
This wine is not to be trifled with. Just take a look at the label and you know this is one of the though guys: 14.5% alcohol, Garnacha old vine and 75cl (oeps, this last one is quite common for a bottle of wine).
A low intense colour, well that is that kind of colour through which you can read your newspaper.
Initially, not super expressive on the nose, but taking into account its alcoholic muscles I chilled it a bit. It starts with a whiff of alcoholic sweetness combined with some animal features, just imagine a visit to a well-kept zoo (yes, indeed, the famous one of Antwerp). After a swirl or two, the fruit is bouncing out of the glass, black currants, black berries and cherries.
In the mouth, this is really a fruit scud, an explosion of black fruits. And wow, this wine has a lot more body than the colour would promise, but hey I know and you know that this wine has trained alcohol muscles…Round and velvety in the mouth, some tannins and peppery in the finale. Also some nice acidity which balances a bit the alcohol. Nevertheless, the alcohol is taking the leading part. Ok, this wine lacks a bit finesse, but it is never a body builder, let’s say it’s a well trained athlete. And a well trained athlete I like have once and a while…in my glass.
Conclusion: Good price value, nice presentation but be aware of the alcohol monster. Chill this wine down to a 16 degrees Celsius and be sure that your hammock is ready so you can take a nap after a couple of glasses of this though guy.
Just one strange fact about this wine: it is made by a Scottish woman and flying winemaker, Pamela Geddes. Yeah, it is not all whisky in Scotland…
Wine: Bodegas Virgen del Mar y de la Cuesta, Poema Garnacha Old Vine, DO Calatayud, 2005
Get it: Mondovino (Belgium – Wijnegem)
Pay it: 5.74 EUR (7.84 USD)
Have a nice Spanish wine today!
bart
WBW#35-Viña Mocen Verdejo Special Selection
This is one juicy beast! A lot of citrus notes, lemon candies, a whiff of aniseed and, on second plan, some herbaceous touches in the nose. Ever rubbed a buxus and then smelled your hand, it is this kind of herbaceous smell I sniff. A fresh and funky nose, that’s for me a pole position start.
In the mouth I get a tingly acidity, very clean and neat and a fattiness that shows good balance combined with the acidity. Again zesty lemon and grapefruit notes and that jazzy buxus feel mixed with some aniseed. This is clearly a “WYSIWYG” wine, what you smell is what you get. Nicy, nicy.
Heavily recommended with some good weather. And after a refreshing glass of Cava…
Conclusion: good bang for the buck! Gimme another glass and quick!
I must confess, I dig verdejo [VER-DE-GÓ]. As of the first time I tasted this grape it put a smile on my face. Actually, this great white grape was on its own responsible for putting the DO (“Denominación de Origin”) Rueda on the wine map. Rueda is located in Castilla y Léon, the northwest of Spain. Just head for Valladolid and around this town you will find the most important appellations, such as Ribera del Duero, Toro and the one on which we focus here, Rueda.
The rise of verdejo all started in the seventies, when Bodegas Marqués de Riscal, a Rioja based winery, was looking to expand towards white wines. Paco Hurtado de Amazaga, owner of the winery, didn’t like much the white viura variety of the Rioja. Too dull in his opinion. Therefore, he was looking into other possibilities. And here he did a great move. He invited his professor and friend, Emile Peynaud
Marqués de Riscal started soon to build a winery in Rueda and was the first to introduce over there steel vats. The result: a crispy aromatic white that soon was going to conquer the world.
Nowadays, you can find a lot of interesting to outstanding verdejo wines. The ones I have tasted and enjoyed are, of course, Marqués de Riscal, Mantel Blanco by Álvarez y Díez, José Pariente of Dos Victorias, Palacio de Bornos, and many others.
Worth noting is that region is also responsible for some great sauvignon blanc wines.
Wine: Bodegas Antaño, Viña Mocen Verdejo Special Selection, DO Rueda, 2006
Shop: Mondovino (Belgium – Wijnegem)
Price: 8.26 EUR (11.26 USD)
Have a nice verdejo today!
bart
WBW#35-Sumarocca, Cava Brut Reserva 2005
My maiden trip for Wine Blogging Wednesday and the subject is Passionate Spain. Well this is going to be my first post for this project, so, I thought by myself, let’s kick of with the first type of wine when having a dinner. Yes, the aperitif, the mouth cleanser and the hungry-maker.
If you want to go for an aperitif, stick to these three ones, in my opinion no others allowed:
- Sparkling wine
- Beer (yes, I’m a Belgian and it is great to be a Belgian)
- Sherry, that is the dry one (manzanillo, fino)
Why that is…that’s food for another post, just take this one -for now- for granted.
So, being in Spain and writing about wine that leaves me two options. And I took the first option, a refreshing bubbly cava. The D.O. (”Denominación de Origin”) Cava is mainly located in Catalunia (for about 95% of the production), the northeast of Spain. I guess you all heard about Barcelona, well, that’s the capital of Catalunia.
Cava is without any doubt the Spanish answer to Champagne. Main difference is the varieties used. The most used grapes are macabeo, xarel.lo and parellada. These three white grapes, each chosen for its particularities, make up the majority of Cava. Macabeo, also known as viura, is late budding and therefore unlikely to being under the attack of spring frosts. This is what they call an “insurance grape”. Even with spring frosts, which can happen often in this region, the wine producer will still have grapes to make his favourite bubbles. To provide backbone and give some alcoholic power as well as flavour xarel.lo is your man. On the other hand, elegance, delicacy and a refreshing acidity are all qualities which can be found in parellada.
Next to this native grapes, a bunch of other grapes may be blended in. Of course there is also chardonnay in white. As red grapes, the following may appear on the Cava stage: garnacha tinta and monastrell (only for Cava Rosé), malvasia riojana, the obscure trepat and, oh yes, pinot noir is recently also permitted (do I smell here some Champagne influences…).
In the bubbles at my side, Sumarroca Brut Reserva, also the three main white grapes confirmed presence completed with just a whiff of chardonnay. The blend is composed as follows: parellada 42% - xarel.lo 24 % - macabeo 27 % - chardonnay 7%.
Just as in Champagne, a second fermentation takes place in the bottle. This fermentation is the one that produces bubbles in sparkling wines. And in the Sumarocca those bubbles are quite delicate, I could just loose hours watching the chain of bubbles play in the glass.
Wandering up to my nose are some great yeasty scents, just think about the perfume when entering a bakery where the fresh made pastry is lying still warm on the shelfs. These are followed by some lemon and white peach impressions. After waltzing a bit (but hold your horses here, just a bit so not to loose those refreshing bubbles) with the glass, also some almonds, you know the roasted ones covered with some salt, aromas are jumping out of the glass.
In the mouth you get instantly that razor-sharp acidity, just imagine a needle with adrenaline directly in your heart. That’s how you feel after a sip of these bubbles, ready, ready for anything, but surely ready for another sip and that lavish dinner.
The mousse has a creamy texture and is the perfect counterbalance for the acidity. I guess you know it by now, I love this type of drink. In addition, Cava in general is giving great quality for the buck.
Wine: Sumarroca Brut Reserva, Cava, 2005
Website: www.sumarroca.es
Shop: Puerta del Sol (Belgium - Deurne)
Price: 8.69 EUR (11.77 USD)
Have a nice Cava today!
bart
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