Friday 14 February 2014

A Crianza from DO Ribera Del Duero




HAPPY VALENTINES DAY!


Alor, so we move on to another one of our favourite Spanish wines, this time with a DO Ribera Del Duero label (Olé!). The name of the wine is Pago De Carraovejas Crianza. Crianza means that the wine must be left to age in a barrel for a minimum of 12 months and another year in the bottle.

It is rumoured that this wine (retailing at c.25 Euros transport included) is popular with the Spanish royalty. How true this is I don't know as the gossip rags I read only tend to focus on Brangelina (will they break up before getting married?) and Mariah Carey (Mimi loves Dem Babies but will fire nannies who are threateningly too good). I do know however, that it was Emilio's brother who introduced this particular wine to him years ago and that Emilio most likely had stashed a bottle or two of this in his suitcase when traveling to Hong Kong, believing that the price/quality ratio is reasonable and quality consistently good. We sampled a 2010 bottle a few days ago (We meaning just Emilio and I, as a reward for sticking to our diet you understand) and found this to remain true.

The 2010 Crianza is a blend of 95% Tinto Fino (Ribera del Duero's fancy name for Tempranillo) and 5% Cabernet Sauvignon (2011 contains 2% less Tinto Fino -  replaced by Merlot). As suggested by the label, we tasted wild berries and agreed it was smooth but could not conclude on its intensity or more to the point, how tannic it was. A discussion of what "tannin" really meant led us to take swig after swig to compare how dry the wine made our mouth feel. Emilio rated it as very high; I found it moderately so. Emilio thinks an apt description of tannin is 'earthy' akin to "dusty" while I identified most with the explanation I heard somewhere of "the bitter taste of drinking cold strong black tea".

The bodega which produces this wine (Pago de Carraovejas) was established in 1988 by a Segovian  chef named Jose Maria Ruiz apparently with the intent of creating Ribera Del Duero wine which would perfectly match his star dish of "Cochinillo". Aside from the Crianza, the bodega also produces Reserva (left to age for 36 months),  El Anejon and Cuesta de Las Liebres. I will talk about these wines in time to come. In the meantime, have a GREAT weekend!

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