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We all know, and in my case, love, the wines of Rioja but reds from the rest of the country are often overlooked. I thought it was time we tried some alternatives. Having said that, they’re mainly made from the same grapes as Rioja – Tempranillo and Garnacha, which is France’s Grenache, but the wines are quite different. Rioja is shaped by two factors. Firstly, it’s not a particularly warm place being high up and quite far north, so the grapes have noticeable acidity. Secondly, there’s a lot of American oak used, which gives the wines its beautiful sweet, vanilla smell. The wines we tasted were pretty good and in some cases they were astonishingly good value, but American oak wasn’t very evident.
Our favourite wine was Fuentespina Tempranillo Crianza 2004, which is £10.99/8.99 from Majestic. It’s from Ribera del Duero, which is a top region, and it smells beautifully of smoky, fragrant, black fruits. It has some texture and spicy vanilla with toasted and also creamy coconut. We loved it.
Gran Sangre de Toro 2003, which is only £6.99 from Waitrose, was a great surprise. Torres is a huge brand and in the past I haven’t had much success with it. It was beautifully fragrant with vanilla and had good structure, with enough tannin to give it definition, without being hard. There was fresh acidity and delicious fruit.
We were very pleased to uncover our third favourite wine and find that it was Asda’s Non Vintage Valencia, at £2.98. What a great buy this is! It had dark, ripe plum aromas and although it wasn’t complex it was really a very nice wine and left a good taste in the mouth.
Palacio de Eza 2004 is £7.49 from Oddbins. It had dark fruit flavours and we wondered if there was some Cabernet in there. Sadly, it was spoilt for me, by having stupidly high alcohol. It’s 14% and it got my lowest mark, but the panel aren’t quite so put off by lighter fuel and so it did fairly well. At least you know you’re getting a balanced view!
Sainsbury’s Old Vines Tempranillo 2006 is £3.49 and is a perfectly reasonable wine. The smell is spicy and appealing and it’s young and fruity. I found it a little sour on the finish, but at that price it’s hard to be cross.
I loved the Durius Natural Reserve 2005, which is £7.19 from Tesco and the panel were very happy for me to keep the bottle for my own consumption. There was a touch of something vegetal on the nose, which Lorraine thought was curry and the taste was dry, but quite animal. I’ve discussed Brett with you before – it’s a fault, but there’s a lot of its animal, farmyard flavour around, particularly in the more interesting wines of Europe, but some people don’t like that level of funkiness.
El Prado, at £4.19 from Somerfield tasted like unripe plums and the Co-op’s Tierra Sana Tempranillo was sweet, commercial and easy.