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If you only act on one piece of advice from me this year, it must be this. Buy Spanish white wine. The choice is great, the varieties interesting and the winemaking is now clean. The three main Spanish white varieties are Albariño, Verdejo and Viura. We tasted all three and our favourites were the Verdejo wines. This is definitely a grape to look out for. It’s most similar to Sauvignon Blanc in character, smelling of elder and cat, with a great green, crisp acidity. Albariño is fat, peachy and perfumed, rather like Viognier, and Viura tends to make more savoury, rather than fruity wines, which are often oaked. Broadly speaking, Viura is used for white Rioja and is an ingredient in Cava. Albariño and Verdejo are predominantly grown in the North West of Spain, particularly in Rias Baixas and Rueda, respectively.
Our favourite wine was Dreaming Tree Verdejo 2005, which is £5.99 from Morrisons. There are a lot of good reasons for visiting Morrisons wine aisle, and this wine makes it worth driving out of your way. It has a catty, green smell, but Dennis also found passion fruit. It has a zingy mouth feel, and is an intense mouthful. The acidity is fresh, but it doesn’t bite. The flavour is long and full. Delicious.
Marques de Riscal Rueda 2004 is £5.99 from Sainsbury’s and smells of gooseberries. In the mouth it’s fuller and more spicy than the Dreaming Tree, with warmer alcohol. We wondered if it had a touch of oak, since it had some texture.
Palacio de Bornos 2005 is £6.05 from Waitrose. It smelt of over ripe fruit, which may have lost it points. I found elder and elder flower, but some mentioned drains. It had lovely crisp acidity and Dennis was reminded of lime and unripe apricots.
Our fourth favourite was Sainsbury’s Taste the Difference Albariño 2005, which is £5.99. We’ve drunk an awful lot of this over the summer. It is a really good wine to have in because it goes with everything and guests actually notice what they’re drinking, stopping their conversations to ask what it is. It smelt of lemon and pineapple and was noticeably fat and full in the mouth, with hints of fresh peach.
Fifth best was Torres Viña Sol 2005, which is made predominantly from the Palomino grape, used to make sherry. I have to admit that I have, in the past, steered clear of this wine as I’ve found it flat and bland, but it has improved. It smelt floral or even tropical. It tasted dry, with a lime pith finish, but this finish did linger.
Martin Codax Albariño 2004 is £8.49 from Majestic or £6.99 if you by 2 before 31st August. It’s an impressive wine in a tall bottle, but there is little point in paying this much, when the Sainsbury’s wine is at least as good, cheaper and easier to buy. It smelt creamy, full and rich with more colour and a hint of vanilla. It was fat and full, with an intense aftertaste that Dennis described as apricot kernels.
The Co-op's own Spanish Vino de Mesa is called Espana and is only £2.99. Vino de Mesa, or Table Wine is practically as low as you can get, except for EU Table Wine, which can be a blend of basic wines from several EU countries. It did have a whiff of sulphur on the nose, but the taste was perfectly reasonable.
Our least favourite was, strangely, Marks & Spencer's Valencia, which is also £2.99 and surprised us because we expect M & S to steer clear of this sort of rubbish. It smelt of Gloy glue, cardboard and later smelt of absolutely nothing. It tasted of water with wine flavouring, but not quite enough of it. Karen described it as flaccid and it reminded Betty of wine you used to get in pubs out of the same tap as the fizzy drinks. Not even worth cooking with.
Top Three
Dreaming Tree Verdejo 2005 - Morrisons - £5.99
Marques de Riscal Rueda 2004 - Sainsbury’s - £5.99
Palacio de Bornos 2005 - Waitrose - £6.05