Wine of the Week – a stunningly tasty rosé

Vines at Bodegas Sierra Norte, Utiel-Requena.

I simply do not want the summer to end and one way to delay the return to normalcy is to keep drinking rosé wine.

Nothing says summer like a glass of rosé, so if you keep drinking the pink stuff it will keep you in a summery mood and fend off the Autumn gloom. Or that is my hope anyway.

Personally I love rosé as it gives similar refreshment to white wine, has some the fruit of red wine and goes well with almost any food.

Pretty much everywhere makes rosés and the very pale Provençal style of French rosé is particularly fashionable right now. However, I love Spanish wine and think that no one makes rosés quite like the Spanish do. The Spanish historically don’t really like white wine you see and so Rosé traditionally fills that lighter rôle.

Spain is awash with good rosés – or rosado in Spanish – so as long as you avoid the very cheapest you will probably be ok. Spend a bit more though and you often drink something that overdelivers on quality and flavour. I have had so many wonderful Spanish rosés recently, from such varied places as Navarra, Txakoli, Rioja, Alicante, Jumilla and Ribera del Duero amongst others, that it is hard to limit myself to just one. However I tasted one today that really thrilled me, so I thought that I would share it with you.

It comes from a wine region called Utiel-Requena, which is inland from the wonderful city of Valencia. I love that part of Spain, indeed it is my spiritual home as all my life my family have had a house on the coast to the south of Valencia – pronounced Bah-lenthia.

Map of the wine regions of the Comunidad Valenciana. This is one of the 17 autonomous regions of Spain and comprises the Provinces of Alicante, Castéllon and Valencia itself.

2018 Rostro Sonrosado Organic Tempranillo Rosé
Bodega Sierra Norte/Boutinot Spain
DO Utiel-Requena
Comunidad Valenciana
Spain

This part of Spain is very beautiful and bursting with good wines, although that has been something of a local secret for quite a few decades, but that secret is now out. The traditional grape of the region is called Bobal, which has been rescued from mediocrity over the last few years and is now making some wonderful wines – more of which next time. However this is made from the far more famous Tempranillo – pronounced Temp-ra-neeyo – the grape of Rioja and Ribera del Duero.

The land is much higher inland – 600-800 metres above sea level – than it is on the coast, so the air is cooler and the powerful breezes off the Mediterranean have an effect too. This allows for slower ripening so gives a slower build up of sugars and good retention of acid. In the right hands that means this area can produce balanced and elegant wines

Utiel-Requena vines at Bodegas Sierra Norte.

For a Spanish rosé this is pretty pale as the wine has just 8 hours skin contact – although I like a good colour on a rosado. The colour comes from the skins and the shorter the time on the skins, the paler the wine.

It’s an enticing medium pink with a little touch of orange, while the nose has red fruit notes of raspberry, redcurrant and a touch of cream too.

The palate delivers lovely flavours of redcurrant, strawberries, raspberries, rhubarb and blood orange with that softening, textural cream component too. The flavour is mouth filling and while the wine is textured it is also refreshing and lively. I hate to admit how quickly the bottle emptied. It goes with anything at all, or indeed is lovely on its own, and it makes a perfect partner to tapas. This is a very good rosé indeed as well as being enormously enjoyable  – 89/100 points.

Available in the UK at around £10 per bottle from All About Wine – more stockist information is available from Boutinot Wines, the UK distributor

Wine of the Week – Txakoli and a final fling of summer

Ameztoi with Getaria in the background, photo courtesy of the winery.

I have just returned from a wonderful trip to Australia and New Zealand and will be telling you about some of my experiences over there in the future.

In the meantime, I have returned to some very warm weather and so sought out some lovely fresh white wine to enjoy with some seafood so that I could properly celebrate this last fling of summer.

The wine I found was a Txakoli – Chacolí in Castilian Spanish – which comes from the País Vasco, Spain’s Autonomous Basque Region. Txakoli is a wine style that I love and have written about before, but until recently it has been considered somewhat obscure. Well now it is becoming much better known and easier to find and I discovered that Marks & Spencer carry a rather a good one. In fact I liked it so much that I made it my Wine of the Week.

Wine map of Spain, see Getariako Txakolina on the Atlantic coast to the east of Bilbao – click for a larger view.

2015 Alaia Txakoli
Amesguren
PDO / DO Getariako Txakolina
País Vasco
Spain

There are three Txakoli DOs, but, much as I like some other Txakoli wines – especially the great Itasas Mendi 7 from DO Bizkaiko Txakolina near Bilbao, try it if you can – UK stockists are here, US stockists here – I am especially drawn to the Getariako Txakolina that is grown on the wild coastline around the beautiful fishing village of Getaria 30km west of San Sebastian. Getaria is a wonderful place almost totally dedicated to hedonism, bars and restaurants line the streets. Much of the cooking is done outside, so the smell of grilling fish is a constant and guaranteed to make you hungry. In many ways it works to go there on your way to San Sebastian as it prepares you for the delights to come.

Getaria harbour.

Fish being cooked in Getaria.

One of the great pintxo bars in Getaria, note the sea urchin and octopus.

If you are a hedonist and like food and wine, then San Sebastian – Donostia in Basque – is a place you must visit. It is teeming with bars and life, the best tapas in Spain – they call them pintxos – and loads of Michelin star restaurants too, if that is your thing.

Txakoli should really be poured from a great hight into a tumbler – get a Txakoli pourer if you can.

My Txakoli being poured in San Sebastian, note the green Txakoli pourer in the end of the bottle, it helps to aerate the wine and they also use them for cider in the Basque country.

For more detail on Txakoli, read the piece that I wrote for Catavino a few years ago, by clicking here.

This particular wine is very clever sourcing by M&S, because the producer, Amesguren, are actually the people who make Ameztoi, which along with Txakolin Gorria, is considered the best producer of Getariako Txakolina. So we know the provenance of this wine is good and this wine has a better label than Ameztoi!

This wine is made from the local Hondarrabi Zuri – I wonder why nobody grows that anywhere else? – and has a light natural fizz from the fermentation, which makes it taste really fresh.

And that is the secret with this stuff, keeping it fresh, light and zesty. The nose is floral and citric and has a touch of the seashore and something saline about it. Then it just dances across your palate, light, fresh, zingy, spritz and yet with waves of flavour, lots of light flavour. Green apples, grapefruit, nettles, lime, blackcurrant leaf are all there, but in a sort of sketched in way, rather than in a fully formed picture. Instead this wine wins with a thrilling mineral and crisp acid finish that just whets your appetite for more – more of this, some seafood and anything else. What’s more it only has 10.5% alcohol, so won’t addle too many brain cells either.

A swankier pintxo bar in San Sebastian.

Try it with grilled prawns, scallops, oysters, sea bream, sea bass, sushi, a Chinese takeaway or on its own, anyway you have it, it’s a lovely wine – 89/100 points.

Available in the UK for £10 per bottle from Marks & Spencer – right now, September 2016 it is only £8 a bottle.
As far as I am aware, Alaia Txakoli is not available in the US, but Ameztoi is well distributed – for stockists click here.

La Cepa, perhaps the classic pintxo bar in San Sebastian.