Wednesday, June 18, 2014

Tired of Sauvignon Blanc. Try Verdejo from Spain's Rueda

When it comes to wines for summertime drinking, I have to admit that I have a strong bias for whites from Spain. In fact, the home to one of my favorite hot weather white wines is Rueda.

The Rueda Denomination of Origin (DO) was created in early 1980, making it the first DO to be approved in the Autonomous Community of Castilla y León in northwest Spain. Winemakers had pushed for the creation of the appellation to promote and protect the area’s native grape, Verdejo.

Verdejo, which has been grown in Rueda since the 11th century, is one of Spain’s best white varietals. It's used to make clean, fresh whites with citrus notes and crisp acidity. Because these wines are often medium- to full-bodied, they can pair with a variety of foods, but I particularly like them with fish.

While wines from Rueda can often be found at wine shops, they are not so common in St. Louis grocery stores. So I was very pleased to find the Bodegas Naia Rueda at the Dierbergs Brentwood Pointe. It was priced at $14.49 in May and is featured in my June 18th St. Louis Post-Dispatch column. Naia is a well-respected winery that produces reliable Verdejo wines that win high points from critics.

Bodegas Naia's winery is located along the southern bank of the Duero River in La Seca just to the east of the town of Rueda. Some of its Verdejo comes from old vines and some strains are more than a century old. The winery also grows smaller amounts of Sauvignon Blanc and Viura.

Among other highly recommended producer is Bodegas Shaya, which consistently wins high scores from critics and which I’ve featured in previous year-end columns about my favorite wines. Bodegas Shaya is a Gil Family Estates wine.

The Shaya winery and vineyards are located in the province of Segovia, but it has an Australian winemaker. She’s Belinda Thomson, who splits her time between Spain and her parents’ respected Crawford River Winery in Victoria, Australia.

Another excellent choice is Bodegas Ordoñez Nisia, made from old vine Verdejo. Owned by the well-respected Spanish importer and wine producer Jorge Ordoñez, Nisia also earns rave reviews from critics.

Both the Shaya and Nisia wines are priced at $13.99 at Randall's in St. Louis.

But if your budget is below $10, it is possible to find a good Verdejo in your price range. It's Trader Joe’s to the rescue. The chain is now carrying the Marqués de Cáceres Verdejo Rueda for $7.99. It's a great deal and well worth trying.

#winesfromspain #verdejo #rueda #CastillayLeón #wine #winewednesday @summerwines







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    Wednesday, June 11, 2014

    Valpolicella Ripasso - A punch in the face, a kiss on the cheek

    I was lucky enough to be asked to run an Italian wine tasting at a private event at Niche a few weeks ago. That meant I got to visit  Niche ahead of time and taste the wines before selecting them. Since I did  have to stick to a budget, I was faced with the challenge of finding the best and most interesting wines within a certain price range.

    As I explored the menu, I came across a wine that was totally new to me: Valpollicella Ripasso. Of course, I have had plenty of Valpolicella in my day....most of it light bodied and easy to drink, but not particularly memorable.  But what was Ripasso? I took out my iPhone and began to google.

    I found that Valpolicella Ripasso is a fruity, complex red wine from the Valpolicella viticultural zone of Veneto, northeastern Italy. Because Valpolicella's wines are generally lighter, winemakers sometimes use various techniques to improve the depth and complexity of their blends. One of those ways is Ripasso -- or repassed -- a method that was developed in the late 20th century.
    In this process the Valpolicella wine goes through a second fermentation  with the skins and lees left over from intensely flavored and highly aromatic Amarone wines. Amarone is considered one of Italy’s best red wines. It is made from super ripe grapes that are dried to produce full-flavored wines that are velvety and rich with just a hint of sweetness.

    The Ripasso or “repassed” method gives the Valpolicella more depth and complexity.Often referred to as “baby Amarones” or the “Poor Man’s Amarones,” these wines can be amazingly rich at half the cost of Amarone wines, that are usually priced at more than $50 a bottle.

    The Valpolicella Ripasso on Niche's menu was the Tommaso Bussola 2010 “Ca’ del Laito,” made from mostly Corvina and Corvinone grapes. It was in the acceptable price range and was a small production wine, about 1,200 cases, so that was promising too. It turned out to be absolutely delicious. The wine was fresh and smooth with a lot of depth and complexity. It tasted of ripe black cherries with spicy notes and a long finish. 

    I included the wine in the tasting and everyone loved it. So then I tried to find it at wine shops, with no luck. However, I did find the Giuseppe Lonardi 2010 Valpolicella Classico Superiore Ripasso at the Wine Merchant for $21.99. I invited friends Nick Garzia and Guillermo "Guillo" Rodríguez  to help me taste.
    ripasso
    Nick had a great reaction.

    "It's like a punch in the face and a kiss on the cheek," he said. And he meant that in a good way.

    But Guillo was not impressed. "For that price, I'd rather have a nice Chianti Classico," he said.

    The wine, which I reviewed for my St. Louis Post-Dispatch column, starts out with tart cherry and plum flavors that are very intense. But then it ends with a smooth, almost sweet strawberry fruit on the finish.

    While I thought the Bussola Ca' del Laito was a better wine, this was still quite good. The Lonardi is a medium bodied red that’s a blend of 75 percent corvina, 20 percent rondinella and 5 percent molinera. It 's definitely turbo charged from the second fermentation with the remainders of Amarone wines.  Because this Valpolicella Ripasso is so strongly flavored, it needs food. It would go well with robust meat dishes as well as aged cheeses. It also has a good acidity that would make it a pair for tomato sauce.
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    #wine #valpolicellaripasso #amarone #StLouis #chianticlassico #winewednesday
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    Sunday, June 1, 2014

    Everything's coming up rosés

    I can remember when I used to think all pink wines were sweet. After all, the range of colors suggests everything from cotton candy to cherry flavored Lifesavers. So for many years I refused to try dry rosés.  They frightened me.  I thought they would taste like White Zinfandels.

    While I can't remember the exact year that I gave in -- sometime between 2001 and 2005, I do remember precisely where I was. It was a restaurant in Manhattan, where I was living then. I was meeting my friend Marjorie Shaffer for a drink at Marseille, a Mediterranean restaurant on 9th Avenue near my apartment. Marjorie and I loved to visit good restaurants and sit at the bar. We learned a lot by chatting with the bartenders, who often let us taste different wines before we ordered.

    Those were wonderful days in which Marj and I explored our great love for food and wine. She went on to write the book Pepper: A History of the World's Most Influential Spice (Macmillan). And I wrote about food and wine for Reuters, before moving to St. Louis where I began a weekly wine column for the St. Louis Post-Dispatch.

    On that particularly warm evening at Marseille, the bartender encouraged us to try a dry rosé from Provence. I'm ashamed to admit that I was hesitant. The guy had to convince me, but I'm so glad he did. Now I'm totally hooked.  Not only was this the most beautifully colored wine I'd ever seen, but it was so incredibly refreshing. It was just the perfect thing to drink that night.

    Then I moved to St. Louis in June, 2005. Dry rosés were far from plentiful. Sales folks at wine shops told me there was just no demand for them and it was difficult -- as it had once been in my case -- to convince customers to try them. But thank goodness, things have changed a great deal since then.

    For example, in early June I enjoyed a flight of dry rosés at Remy's Kitchen and Wine Bar with colleague Saraann Parker. We particularly liked the Borsao from Spain's Campo de Borja. It's made from 100 percent garnacha (grenache).


    Even some of grocery stores have quite a selection and new rosés are constantly coming on the market.

    A case in point is Schnucks, a regional grocery chain based in St. Louis. During a recent visit I found a surprising number of them from different wine growing regions including the M. Chapoutier Belleruche 2013 Dry Rosé Côtes du Rhône and the Marqués de Cáceres 2013 Rosado Rioja. Both are featured in my June 3 column. 

    Many dry rosés are quite affordable, often under $15. Since the selection is greater during the summer months, now is the time to try  dry rosés from different regions and made from different red grapes.  One of my favorites is from Spain, the Muga 2013 Rosado Rioja, which I found locally at the Wine Merchant. It's made mostly from garnacha with viura and tempranillo.  Another good Spanish rosado is the Las Rocas.

    There are also plenty of delicious domestic dry rosés. Some I've enjoyed recently include  two new releases, the River Road 2013 Rosé of Pinot Noir and Simi  2013 Sonoma Country Dry Rosé, made mostly from Cabernet Sauvignon with some Malbec and a little Pinot Noir.

    Depending on where you live, retailers may only maintain a good selection through the summer, so stock up when you can. These are delightful wines any time of year, but they are particularly good on a warm afternoon. Remember to serve them chilled and to look for the most recent vintage, as they lose their freshness with age.

    #rosés #wine #pinotnoir #tempranillo #grenache #rosado #sonoma #malbec #cabernetsauvignon #cotesdurhone #rioja #garnacha
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