Wine & Words

…being some notes on our wine experiences during our vacation in January.

Upon our arrival at the rented house just outside of Xativa, the owners had left us a bottle of “one of the local wines.” It was Baron de Turis Tinto Garnacha 2006 with a Valencia DO. It was a nice thought, but the wine was rather thin and uninteresting. Turns out we saw it at the local Mercadona for less than €2! Cheap plonk, indeed.

On our first day of wandering in Xativa, we found an underground parking lot, then set out toward the center of town. Just around the corner from the parking, Tassalet Bodegawe found Bodega Tassalet, a small wine shop, with its delightful owner, Angel Aznar Serra. His first language is Valenciano, the local tongue, which like the better know Catalan further north, claims to be its own language but looks to me like a mix of Spanish, French and Italian. He did, of course, like all the locals, speak Castellano, and that’s the language we used in our discussion. I immediately told him that we own a wine shop and that I’m interested in good local wines. He took me to the section that has DO Valencia, DO Alicante, DO Utiel-Requena. He showed me a Valenciano and I asked him if it was Crianza. He explained that Crianza is a designation only for Rioja and elaborated on the Riojan system of Joven, Crianza, Reserva, Gran Reserva, etc. depending on how much time is spent in oak barrels. He scoffed at this, saying the Valenciano wines were very well made, spent only as little time as needed in oak, etc. I told him, “Me gusta vino; no me gusta roble (I like wine, not oak)” at which he laughed and agreed. We picked out several wines to take home with us that day, and I said we would be back many times during our three weeks’ stay. He was very please at that and gave me his business card, which has on the back of it a listing of evaluation levels of the various Spanish DO’s along with a rating (in Valenciano – “Collites de Vin per Anyades” – ranging from E=Excellent, through MB=Molt Bona and B=Bona, to R=Regular.

Valencia DO

The first wine Sr. Aznar Serra showed me was one he said was the best value in the shop. It is Les Alcusses 2005 (Celler Del Roure, Moixent), a DO Valencia tinto made of mostly Monastrell. The wine is rich and smooth, deep in color. We served it with tapas of cheese, olives & peppers. Perfect for the full-bodied wine. The name of the wine is taken from an ancient Iberian settlement in the area (Moixent/Mojente) , and the bottle label has Iberian writing that looks like cuneiform. You see this wine in restaurants and shops all over Xativa (even in the gift shop of the Castillo on the hill), as the locals are justifiably proud of it. If I could bring one wine home to the shop, this is the one it would be. A real treat.

Also from Moixent is reposo 2006 (€5.50). This features a label of a line drawing on a red background of a man sitting outside under a tree, a small table with wine bottle and glass nearby, and a gato sleeping on the top of a wall. It’s a nice little “by itself” wine. A bit heavy for food (14.5% alc.). I don’t know the grapes in the blend, but it seems to lean on Monastrell for its rich jamminess. It’s from the Pago Casa Gran winery in Moixent. We drove past the large, square bodega building when we drove through Moixent, but there was no one there.

The vineyards for the Moixent wineries are west of the town in the broad valley of the Riu Cañoles. The soil is almost white, being made of sandstone and lime. They use different trellising systems, I assume for the different varieties. There are also orchard trees in the valley (peach & cherry). These seem to be fitted with drip irrigation, while the grapes are left to struggle on their own.

Some great values were the wines of Daniel Belda, Valencia DO (Fontanars del Alforins). We had the 2004 Tempranillo Crianca (10 months in oak barrels) and the CS04 (Cabernet Sauvignon 2004) Crianca, also 10 months oak. These are both very well made wines in classy, Euro-modern packages for around €7. The Tempranillo had 13% alc. and a production of 15K bottles. The CS had 13.5% and 80K bottles. We also had a Verdil from DB. Sr. Serra said this was “similar to Verdejo,” but I thought it was inferior to the great Verdejos we get from Rueda. It was green and tart, almost like a verjus, and Yvonne ended up using part of the bottle for cooking.

Marques de Caro Blanco Alto Turia 2006 - €2.50! This was tasted in the third round of Sr. Serra’s recommendations. A light, clear, simple wine, made from the Moscatel grape. I don’t really get the flowery nose he said would be there, but it is dry, as promised. This would be a great accompaniment to light flavored seafood, salads, etc. “Alto Turia” refers to the upper Turia river. This is the river that used to run right through the city of Valencia; but after many devastating floods, the city diverted the river around the city and turned the old river bed into a miles long city park with soccer fields, public gardens…and the same arched highway bridges that crossed it when it was flowing with water. (Cherubino Valsangiacomo, S.A., Chiva, Valencia)

Castillo de Liria 2006. We got this blend of Bobal and Shiraz at the Mercadona Supermercado in Valencia. It’s an interesting blend of the signature grape of Utiel-Requena, Bobal, and Shiraz, which I saw very seldom used in Spain. It’s interesting that they call the second grape Shiraz, rather than the more common European designation, Syrah. It may be a vestige of the anti-French attitudes that are common, particularly in Catalunya and Valencia. 12.5% alc. makes it seem like a dinner wine, but the soft blend makes it very nice for drinking on its own. Interesting that the back label information is in Spanish, English, French and German – hitting all the wine-drinking markets. The message that the wine contains sulfites (now required on all EU products) is in 18 languages, most of which I didn’t recognize. “Sisaldab Sulfitid”?! (Vicente Gandía Plá, Valencia)

L. Olaechea Crianza 2002 (€6.00) Made in Fontanares by the winemaker whose name is on the bottle, this is a blend of Monastrell, Merlot, Cabernet and Syrah aged 12 months in French and American oak, from organically grown grapes, unfiltered, 14.5% alcohol. With all that, it should be huge. It’s not. Pretty average. Maybe it was a bad year.

L’Antigon Vino Rosado. A grocery store rosé of Garnacha and Bobal from El Villar. The blend sounded interesting, but the wine was a bright magenta, slightly sweet concoction like the worst of American blush wines. Oh, well.

Alicante DO The Alicante DO is actually in the Communitat of Valencia, so these are considered local wines in Xativa. The Laderas de El Sequé 2005 (€5.00) was an easy-drinking blend of Monastrell, Syrah and Cabernet, with full flavors of all the grapes but a reasonable 13.5% alcohol level to keep it from being overripe. I could drink this one every day.

From Alicante DO, Sr. Aznar Serra recommended a Chardonnay (they pronounce it with a hard “tch”), Enrique-Mendoza Chardonnay 2006 (€7). Though it is from vineyards at 550 meters, it’s still very ripe at 14% alcohol. Serra said this is his favorite Chardonnay, though he agreed with me that he thinks most California Chards are over-oaked. This one is full bodied, with a mouthful of tropical fruit and a tart, clean finish…more like a big Aussie Chard than like the clean elegance of Burgundy.

Bodegas Gutierrez de la Vega Rojo y Negro 2004. At €10.00, this was one of the most expensive wines of the trip. Not, unfortunately, one of the best. I bought it on Sr. Aznar Serra’s recommendation. It was a new one, just in, and he told me he liked it so well when he first sampled it that he finished the whole sample bottle himself. He was really excited about this wine. I recognized the enthusiasm. I’ve also had new wines I was very excited about and was anxious to share with customers I knew would enjoy them. The wine is 100% Garnacha (which they call Giró in Valenciano), so I expected something luscious and grapey. Instead the wine was very dry and a little tight, more like a Tempranillo to go with a meal.