Recently in Spain Category

Before I begin, let me first point out that this wine is all over the map: it presents a fairly wide array of different smells, textures, and tastes. Is that a good thing? Well, it's certainly better than a simple, one-dimensional wine, but is it perhaps the lack of a focused direction that makes this a good wine and not a great wine? Is there a way for humans to intervene in a wine's growth to direct it in a certain way, or is this just a happy accident of certain terroirs?

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Anyhow: on to the wine. On the nose, there's a bit of charry bacon, grilled bread, dusty violet, black berry leaves, smoke, earth, and an underlying sweetness to it all. It may be mataro, but it's not an animalistic, meaty mataro: it's more along the lines of sweet Christmas pudding and spice. With time and air, it lightened up a bit into a more perfume-y display, taking on notes of powdered cacao and blackberry jam.

There's a bit of lively acidity on the attach, quickly subsumed by full, round, rich fruit that tends towards blackstrap molasses and dark berries; on the finish, delicate tannins, again that refreshing acidity, and a long, careful finish that carefully divides its time between smoke, burnt sugar, damask rose, tar, and again that fine wash of tannin. It's a beautiful wine; my only complaint is that it's perhaps akin to watching a movie with a hundred beautiful scenes but no plot to tie it all together. What is this wine trying to tell us exactly?

Bodegas Hijos de Juan Gil
Price: US $11.99
Closure: Cork
Date tasted: December 2007

Pine-Sol, turpentine, and shoe leather came to mind when I first smelled this wine, but then I realized that no one wants to drink anything that smells like the toilets at summer camp. Therefore, let me revise that to pine needles, dirt, rich Corinthian leather, and dark red raspberries. There's also a whiff of smoke, tar, and black cherry there as well - it's a fairly complex nose for a wine this cheap. With some air, it started to tend towards cedar shavings (hamster cage?) and blueberry - very impressive, really.

In the mouth, it's rich, meaty, and chunky, with a prominent streak of savory acidity at the back of it all. What does it taste like? Well, that's hard to say: it's a little bit like lavender and meatloaf, somehow. On the finish, you're treated to firm, drying tannins and then a soft, gentle trail-off of sweet bacon and chocolate. It's all very appetizing and thank God it's Friday night because I'm probably just going to stay at home and polish off the bottle with the neighbors.

Panarroz
Price: US $6.99
Closure: Cheesy plastic cork
Date tasted: November 2007

One sniff and you know for sure that this is the real deal: oxidized, delicious Sherry. It's got an appetizingly dark caramel color that really looks a lot more like brandy than most wines you see these days: there's also a whiff of burnt almonds on the nose as well.

In the mouth, it's luxuriously smooth with a lush sweetness nicely counterbalanced by friendly acidity that all seems just right. On the finish, the flavors repeat themselves: toasted nuts, caramelized sugar, and something like spring wildflowers (honest!) - it's almost like orange flower water.

It's even better with roasted Spanish almonds right before dinner.

Williams & Humbert
Price: US $11.99
Closure: Cork, resealable
Tasted: November 2007

Hrm... almost smells like nail polish remover, albeit with a whiff of black cherries; it's not particularly appetizing. The color is noticeably light - almost like Beaujolais nouveau (hey, what a temporal coincidence!). There's also a weird smell of dusty closet floor in their somehow - like something shredded up the cedar blocks you put there a few years ago to ward off moths. Yecch.

Taste-wise it's no picnic. What little fruit there is is quickly overwhelmed by grating, drying tannins as well as a whack of unwelcome acidity. Hoo-boy. This is no fun at all - it's probably best saved to serve to unsuspecting Midwestern tourists at a "tapas bar" in someplace like downtown Anaheim as part of an "authentic Spanish dining experience." I can't recommend this one at all - I'm not even sure it's up to sangría.

Saludas [but really fresh&easy]
Price: US $2.99
Closure: Stelvin
Tasted: November 2007

The nose offers up a rich, creamy fruitiness that's reminiscent of strawberry paletas, with a slight pepperiness and a hint of grapefruit peel; it took a few minutes for the wine to express any clear flavors, though, so it may be best not to serve this wine straight from the refrigerator - give it fifteen minutes or so to warm up a bit. In the mouth, there's a definite spritziness which seems somehow appropriate; it's quite full in the mouth, with a good amount of sweetness nicely counterbalanced by the CO2 and moderate acidity. Although it's overall too sweet to be a truly fine rosé, it works quite well for what it is and is a nice halfway point between, say, a pink Bandol wine and "my teeth are melting" white Zinfandel from California. Overall, the effect is basically liquid strawberry shortcake: easy to drink, and nicely refreshing on a warm summer's day.

Serve with chiles en nogada, I reckon.

Bodegas Realeza [but really Acciona, owners of Hijos de Antonio Barceló, S.A., presumably under contract to fresh&easy]
Price: US $4.99
Closure: Stelvin
Tasted: November 2007

Straight out of the fridge, the first whiff out of the bottle is of simple strawberries and pepper, pleasant enough; there's also a hint of something unpleasantly funky, a dark note that seems out of place. In the mouth, the first thing that hits you is a lot of undifferentiated fruit sweetness, which calms down into something like blood orange peel, but the wine is unbalanced and flabby, with not nearly enough acidity to counterbalance the sweetness. It's all a bit thin as well, with a finish that isn't particularly pleasant - it's kind of like eating Triscuits that someone's already licked all of the salt off of, combined with strawberry fruit leather stolen from a lunchbox someone found behind an abandoned schoolyard. So what do to with this wine? I think the answer's pretty clear: make sangría. The wine quality's OK, but it really needs some additional flavor there to detract from its flaws.

Saludas [but really fresh&easy]
Price: US $2.99
Closure: Stelvin
Tasted: November 2007