Wine

We stay with Southern Europe this week with the La Montesa Spanish Rioja red wine.

There are things that a red wine needs to avoid in order to come out with the flavors and intensity that makes it quintessential: excess rain, excess cold. On the other hand vines and grapes need some amount of water, a clean air, nice and balanced sunny days, and seasons. Spain is one of the countries on our beautiful planet that can provide this environment. Its people, its food, the culture, all align to make for a great environment for red wines. La Montesa is a good bottle from the Rioja region. It is the second bottle we are buying after enjoying the first and this is our review.

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In the previous post we reviewed the bottle of red wine that the old lady asked for recommendation. It’s not frequent to get random chats with people at the wine section, it made the visit to the store somewhat more fun and something to talk about. She needed to buy one bottle of red and one bottle of white, and this is the white I suggested she gets for her targeted USD $5 price point. It was slightly higher than her target, but this is a bottle I bought many times over the years and had no problem recommending.

This 2015 Portes de Bordeaux white wine is a Sauvignon Blanc. After living in the US for a few years I noticed that US wines tend to lead their labeling with the grape varietal, while wines from Europe tend to lead with the region or the vineyard. Sometimes French wines don’t include the grape type at all on the bottle, even if it’s 100% the same grape and not a blend. But things are changing. It’s becoming more common for wines from France to include the grape varietal and this bottle is an example. It makes it easier for the consumer to get an idea of what they are buying, what the wine might taste like, especially for export markets where people know what a Sauvignon Blanc can taste like, but may have no idea about white Bordeaux.

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Finding an affordable wine that tastes good can be challenging. On one hand, some very expensive wines taste as cheap as cheap wine. High price doesn’t always mean good. The same goes for less expensive bottles: you can find some gems. I’ve gotten this bottle of Albero Monastrel red wine a few times and it’s one of the inexpensive bottles I consider worth buying more than once. Here’s a quick review. Before that, a short story. A month ago, when getting this bottle at Tarder Joe’s an old lady comes to me and asks, out of the blue: are you a connaisseur? I wasn’t sure what to answer as I am no sommelier, but I interpreted her answer as asking for guidance on wines, so I answered yes. She said she needed 2 bottles, one red one white, each at maximum USD $5. In some places you can’t even find one bottle on display for that price, so clearly she was looking for a price point. Luckily Trader Joe’s does carry some options.

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