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Island of One
Callet, Mantonegro and Fogoneu – none of the wines seems to inspire much in the way of awe when made on their own. Words like rustic, simple, local, pale color, light-skinned/dark-skinned describe the single grape wines (hint: if people are talking about how thick/thin the skin of a GRAPE is in their description of WINE, it probably means they don’t like it or there isn’t much known about it; happens pretty often with obscure wines, often for good reason).

Beauty of Blend
But the beauty of these three wines is that their differences blend together really well. And for someone as profligate as your author, blending is beautiful. A bit of a light-skinned light wine here, add in a bit of that dark-skinned wine there, combine with something that has tannins heavy enough to sahara the windpipe, and voila — balance.

WWOD — What Would Olaf Drink?
Certainly there must be more to it than that, but the magic of dancing elixirs and spoonfuls of sugar that we people with kids watch on a daily basis has likely convinced us that all that is required for a truly beautiful blend of wine is the right melody and the right loveable dancing companion.

Taste:Fruity, slightly sweet, smooth — like a Mallorcan Merlot
T0007570_An2_600x2601
Detail Up!* AN/2 – Anima Negre 2012, 200855 (bottle number?) from Mallorca, Spain
* 65% Callet, 20% Mantonegro-Fogoneu and 15% Syrah

Random Googles:
* Mallorca — the Galapagos of Grapes — features these 3 indigenous grapes and many others
* Pliny the Elder — the original encyclopedia man whose work all subsequent encyclopedias were based — praised the wines of Mallorcan as some of the finest during the decades after Jesus was born.
* Selenho, frequent profilee in this blog, gets credit for pulling out two bottles of this AN/2 at Boqueria years ago… and on numerous subsequent occasions. Sommeliers like him are amazing. Friends like him are rarer than Fogoneu.

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carlos vii pedro ximenez alvear

Mermaids
This blog rarely discusses mermaids, but that is changing right now. Somehow, as a native English speaker, I think of mermaids and sirens as two different sea creatures. Mermaids being the really hot, friendly companions of sailors too-long at sea that likely originated from manatees. Sirens are the mythological Greek creatures with beautiful, intoxicating voices but hideous phases that caused Odysseus to lash himself to the mast rather than being sucked into crashing his boat on the two rocks that acropophiles will probably know the names of.

Las Sirenas
In Spanish, there’s one word for mermaids and sirens – las sirenas – and apparently the connotation is more of the ancient Greek connotation, but with some kind of latter-day comely sea maiden overlay. Basically, it’s a lot of overlapping meanings, histories, sounds and sights layered onto a single word. Pretty fascinating how some words have that depth of meaning where they encompass 1+ words of another language.

Eureka!
Anyway, listening to an ambulance shriek by recently, it struck me that this ambulance “siren” probably comes from the original Greek “siren” of the mermaid/sirena type. Never really thought about how those words overlap but it’s one of those connections that seems so obvious in retrospect that it’s incredible it’s taken 30+ years to make that connection.

The same thing happened with this wine. Pedro Ximenez is a hugely undervalued wine that I think makes consistently great (and crazy sweet!) dessert wines from all over the world. I’ve seen them in Spain, Peru, the Canary Islands, Australia and California and looks like Argentina and Chile grow it too.

Selenhos with their Sherry Fetish
It’s no secret among the cohort of friends that sherry is a style the Selenhos adore and the rest of us are unsold on (most of the group) or generally regard with suspicion (me). Fascinating story on the solera and pretty awesome how palo cortado is made, and there is tons of history layered up on sherry, but it’s still a big gamble when ordering it. And, unless I’m with a connoisseur like Selenho, it’s unlikely a bottle will be ordered for my table. Fortunately, for this story, the Selenhos insisted and we ordered the bottle you see above. Sidebar – pretty amazing typewriter ring in the photo courtesy of Selenhos.


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Sherry from Montila-Moriles?
Circling back to the sirena-ambulance connection, this bottle of what I thought was sherry is made from Pedro Ximenez grapes. Thinking sherry, I checked out what Montila-Moriles DO, which turns out to be close to Jerez (land of sherry) but actually separate. Montila-Moriles makes its wines in the same stunning solera system of Jerez (google it – seriously), but the wines from Montila-Moriles are not fortified, unlike their names from the south.

Amontillado Wine
The wine itself is Alvear “Carlos VII” Amontillado Montilla Moriles DO NV, a name hard to remember even for those used to weird-sounding names from Spain. The key bit of that long name though is Amontillado. Amontillado is a style of sherry in the middle – darker than the lighest style (Fino) and not as dark as Oloroso (the dark, sweet style I prefer). It starts life as a Fino but somehow the yeast protector that usually allows Finos to deliver dies (or is killed off) and the winemaker generally fortifies the wine up in alcohol to keep it from turning too bitter (oxidizing too quickly in wine-speak). That’s the sherry style of Amontillado in a nutshell.

Amontillado, that aha! moment
Cue the ambulance and have a good look at the word “Amontillado.” Looks pretty similar to Montilla-Moriles DO, right? Bingo – apparently, that’s where this style of sherry originated. So even though I was dead wrong about this Amontillado bottle being a sherry now that we know it’s from Cordoba a bit north of Jerez, there’s a pretty strong linkage between these two regions and styles. And the next time I pull out Edgar Allen Poe’s creepy short story on Amontillado and basement terror, it will be thinking of mermaids, ambulances and Montilla-Moriles.

Taste
I don’t recall exactly as it was quite a long time ago but The Wine Advocate description struck me as the most accurate of the 3 descriptions on this website dedicated to this particular wine (copying the description below). I remember sharp smells and earthy taste, really good with the more biting or pungent food and only ok with the blander foods. Lots of nuts too, especially almonds, which again threw me onto the sherry trail.

“From a 25-year old Solera system, its medium to dark amber color is accompanied by a medium to full-bodied sherry revealing loads of pungent, earthy, nutty notes, a slightly oxidized character, and a long, persistent finish.”

Detail Up!
Alvear “Carlos VII” Amontillado in a 25 year solera from Montilla Moriles DO NV in Cordoba, Spain

Random Googles:
* Five main grape varieties are grown in the Montilla Moriles DO: Pedro Ximenez (the most common by far), Moscatel, Airen, Baladi-Verdejo (aka Cayetana and mostly grown in Southern Spain) and Montepila (almost nothing online about this grape)
* Pedro Ximenez (the grape) meet Pedro Ximenez (the wine). Apparently the wine is a dessert wine made from raisins, a fairly labor-intensive process from the sound of it. Sounds kind of similar to how dessert wines are made in Italy (Vin Santo) and Cyprus (Commandaria) with laying out the grapes in the sun so they shrivel up before being pressed.
* Citrus flavors are common in dry Pedro Ximenez styles (kinda surprised by that) and fortified wines are more figs, dates and molasses (which sounds consistent with the ones I’ve tried)

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airenNoche con Zapatos
The Zapatos family texted with a last-minute invitation to dinner yesterday, and when you get an invitation from the Zapatos, you go! Always good food, provoking conversations and the memorable evenings that stick with you. But yes, first wine out of the fridge was this bottle above. Nobody paid much attention to the bottle as we were mostly talking about the week and eyeing the meatballs simmering on the stove, at least at first.

Unknown label
Once the table was set and the wine was in hand (and mouth) though, curiosity overcame social protocol, and we all had a quick look at the bottle. Airen? What IS that? Nope, had never heard of it but seemed to be a Spanish white and flipping to the back the bottle noted its location in La Mancha.

Classic Quixote
Now, La Mancha has a soft spot in my heart going back to college when Mr. Higuita and I collectively owned one CD, the original Broadway production of Man of La Mancha. Don Quixote is, no surprise to anyone familiar with college students, a favorite of idealists and latinophiles. That was me and still is in a lot of ways. Anyway, there may have been a short rendition of Man of La Mancha in the kitchen with the Zapatos when we learned about the heritage of this bottle.


View Castile-La Mancha, Spain in a larger map

Popular, in an unknown kind of way
And it turns out that this particular grape, Airen, is unbelievably popular. As in, more acreage is dedicated to Airen than to any other white grape… more popular than Chardonnay, Riesling, Pinot Gris, or any other white grape anywhere in the world (and almost every red grape too).

Sancho’s Flask Unveiled
This, despite being planted really only in Spain and predominantly in La Mancha. So you better believe that when Sancho Panza was haplessly following around Don Quixote in the bleak La Mancha landscapes, what he was secretly swigging from that flask behind Rocinante’s skinny tail was copious quantities of Airen.

Taste
Quite a bit of fruit on the nose (even with an already-opened bottle!) but the really attractive part was the mild acidic bite and the crisp, really clean taste. Refreshing and a pleasant discovery.

Detail Up!
Fuente del Ritmo Airén 2012 with 11.5% alc. from La Mancha, Spain

Random Googles
* 14 entrepreneurs came together in La Mancha to create the Allozo winery that makes this wine and quite a few others (and a cognac) – yes, they are interested in elevating La Mancha’s status and yes, they seem certain to do that… even if because the baseline is so low
* 30% of all grapes grown in Spain are Airen – crazy to think about how much wine never leaves Spain
* Read about Airen’s dark past to becoming so profligate and what Franco and Francia had to do with it becoming the most planted grape of any grape anywhere in the world for quite a long time

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Wine with a Warning
Trepat came with a warning from the waitress. “It’s really light, are you sure you’re ok with that?” We had just sat down at Boqueria, site of Spanish fried tapas, boisterous conversations from every table and pitchers of repeatedly-delicious sangria at many tables. But Trepat was on the menu, and it seemed just plain weird. Knowing nothing about Trepat, I said “Yes.”

Warning Received
Turns out, I wasn’t ok with it being really light. At first and without any food to accompany it, Trepat tasted too light, like somebody had thrown some H2O into the Barbera bottle. But with the arrival of the fried food, the Trepat managed to play off the different tapas plates we ordered fairly well. Still not sure it would rank on my Top Light Red list but with the right combination of green onions and lighter fare, Trepat could be a pretty understated and surprising pairing. Particularly for summer.

Warning Ignored
Apparently though, Josep Foraster – the producer of this wine – is one of only two producers to make a 100% pure bottle of Trepat. Because Trepat is typically used for cava, red cava. Strange on a number of levels, this Trepat opens its own rabbithole within another rabbithole. So, yes – there is red cava (who knew?). And Trepat is regularly grown for that purpose in the Conca de Barberà DOC in southern Catalonia, the area where the cava plants grow. Would definitely be up for trying a red cava someday (called “Rosado Cava”), and possibly trying out the Trepat once the weather warms up even more. Crazy how much you can learn from ordering one wine… and ignoring the warning.

Taste
Notes jotted down at the time of tasting – Extraordinarily light, smell of cherries and some raspberry. Hardly any finish. Pizza pizza. Barbera’s weaker brother. (And then, a few minutes later) Much better with food – like a chameleon wrapping around the food.

Detail Up!
Josep Foraster 2010 with 13% alc. from Conca de Barberà DOC in Catalonia, Spain

Random Googles:
* 1,100 hectares of Trepat grow in the world. 1,000 of them are in Catalonia. No idea where the others are located. Random guess – France? California?
* Rosado cava is made from four grapes: Garnacha, Monsatrell , Pinot Noir and Trepat
* Trepat is apparently #200 on the list of most commonly grown grapes. Seems remarkably high in my opinion.

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Bottle Business
Saturday was my birthday and nearly all of the gifts came in bottle form. Sidebar: ever notice how many different shapes bottles come in? Turns out the bottle tells you all kinds of things about the wine. Try identifying where the five bottles above come from (hint: none of them are verdejo. also, my hints are worthless). Check out this link for the answers (and that cool image).

Ciao botellas
But yes, friends and relatives were kinda amazing about the wine this weekend. Most of them were too good to make it through the night and have already metamorphed into bygone memories of summer yore. Some are still sitting in my cellar (better known as the storage cage in the basement), ready for their day at making memories.

Verdejo – Heart of Spain
One bottle even contained a grape not yet on this blog – Verdejo. Spanish as the word Seleño, pasty white in color and with sarcastic minerality, this is Verdejo. It’s the heart of Spain, both in location (from center left on the medical coloring book of Spain’s body – Castile y Leon) and in history (castellaño, another way to say español, comes from the Castile y Leon King who conquered Spain and came up with that weird lispy way of speaking). h/t wineonhigh for the image.

Mountain White
Verdejo used to be made into fortified wine, sorta nutty like a sherry, but at a fraction of the price. There it remained for over a thousand years until the 1970s when wine-making powerhouse Marqués de Riscal started experimenting with white wine up in the mountains. Results have been really good according to the (three) people I’ve spoken with who had heard of Verdejo. Count me in as #4 for liking this wine.

Taste
Tried this one twice – once after “tasting” many other wines, once the next day when actually focusing. what I got between those two was pretty fragrant smell (lost some on day 2), big peach taste with full rounded mouth, medium acidity and stony taste. Big enough that your mom will like it, acid enough that your wino brother will too. Bring to family events.

Detail Up!
Shaya 2009 Verdejo Old Vine from Rueda in Castile y Leon, Spain

Random Googles:
* Verdejo is harvested at night, by vampires. Part of that statement is true.
* North Africa is Verdejo’s true home, pre-11th century when it came to Rueda.
* V is for Value, not just Verdejo. $10-15 for almost everything on the market.

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