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Journal Wine Copy for Saturday 18 June By and large I’m convinced that a thirty pound bottle of red Bordeaux doesn’t taste three times better than one that costs a tenner. And if you fork out three hundred pounds for a very special bottle of claret (and a surprising number of people do just that) the differences between it and the thirty-pound bottle will probably be quite subtle. As far as the cost of wine goes, there are few exceptions to the law of diminishing returns. So what am I to make of a bottle of Spanish red that will set me back £32.99? The first thing to say is that it showed a depth of flavour and level of complexity fully on a par with some of the finest wines of the Rhone Valley that I was privileged to taste just after Easter – and they cost very much more. It has the kind of aroma that for once merits the word ‘bouquet’ - each time you stick your nose in the glass you find yet another nuance of smell. My first few sniffs revealed brambles, bilberries, licorice, menthol and spicy oak. Blackcurrants and even more strongly perhaps, black cherries seemed to join in when I got round to sipping it. It has a gorgeously silky texture, with very ripe, but firm tannins and good acidity. It tastes great now, but will undoubtedly continue to improve in the bottle for at least a decade. Liberalia Cinco 2001 is surely one of the finest red wines of Spain. If you’ve got £33 to spare, try it without a second thought. If like me you haven’t, then I suggest you try either my wine of the week, which is a quite amazing bargain, or else splash out on a bottle of Liberalia Cero 2004 at £9.99. It’s made from the same Tinta de Toro grapes (more commonly known as Tempranillo) as the Cinco and is similarly richly complex and satisfying. Its smell will open up better if you decant it half and hour or so before serving (not a bad idea too if you want to enjoy the Cinco now). It’s soft but chewy and packed with ripe fruit: plums, brambles and blackcurrants as well as black olives and cloves. Yes, the Cinco is better, and in comparison with other wines of its class it’s undoubtedly under-priced, but the Cero is a star too, and a vivid illustration of just how good the red wine of Spain’s unjustly underrated Toro region can be. Both of them are available from Spanish Spirit. Contact Oliver at ollie@spanishspirit.com phone/fax 01661 853768, or else head down to 5a Earl’s Court on the Lower Prudhoe Industrial Estate on Thursday, Friday or Saturday between 11.30 and 5.30. The Liberalia Bodega founded as recently as 2000 by violin-playing Juan Antonio Fernandez has already won a hatful of international awards, and has now released a highly unusual sweet wine blended from Moscatel (Muscat) grapes with the distinctive local white Albillo. At £7.49 for an elegant 50cl bottle, it also represents great value. I sampled it over Sunday lunch out with friends. Very pale, with an intriguing smell of honey, pineapple, and cinnamon, it’s certainly sweet and rather peachy, but has lovely fresh balancing acidity and had quite enough character to partner a splendid apricot and almond tart. Strongly recommended (the tart too). Cheaper newcomers to the revelatory Spanish Spirit range include Ariana Tempranillo 2002 (£4.99) a thoroughly enjoyable up-front fruity unoaked red, with soft but juicy plums and bitter cherries and a herby touch and an excellent dry white Rueda, Vina Tejera 2004, which smells of dried flowers, almonds, lemon and honey and has a fresh, clean, spicy ripe apple and citrus flavour. Wine
of the Week Journal Wine Copy for Saturday 10 July 2004 I was enthusing about the delights of pink wine with a friend last week. Apparently I’m not alone in this. Sales have soared over the last few years – as I know from some of the increasingly happy and prosperous people who make it. My friend, who’s got a pretty acute sense of what’s good, said that the best pink wine she could remember was a Rioja Rosado. I had a nose through my catalogues and couldn’t find much, but in the happy way of things, the very next day collected some samples from Oliver, who runs a wonderful little business called Spanish Spirit, based along the Roman Wall at Rudchester. (Hadrian would no doubt have heartily approved. He came from Spain himself.) Amongst them was a Rosado: Rioja Preferido 2003 (£6.29). A classic blend of Grenache with a little Tempranillo, it’s a pretty, almost blue-tinged pink, with a cherry and strawberry smell and taste, a lovely dry mineral edge and just enough acidity to make it juicy. I thought it was delicious, and as good a pink Rioja as I can remember. In a mad moment of unaccustomed generosity, I decided that my friend really ought to have the pleasure of finishing the bottle. She loved it too. A couple of days ago I asked her what she ate with it. As her husband adores avocado, she’d made a chicken and avocado salad and thought that the wine partnered it wonderfully well. Just look what Bill’s cooking this week! Now that’s what I call a happy co-incidence. Preferido is one of the labels of the impressive Bodegas Vina Herminia, whose cool underground cellars house around 8,000 small oak barrels of slowly maturing wine. Not that the Rosado has seen any oak, nor either Preferido Blanco 2003 (£5.79), an unusually fresh and fruity white Rioja, with a real fruit salad of a smell, and a refreshingly clean extra dimension to its taste of green apple and citrus fruits. It was just right with skate and black butter. The third and last Preferido wine from the 2003 vintage is a vibrantly fruity red, again un-oaked and like all the Spanish Spirit range, very competitively-priced, in this case at just £5.79. It has lots of sappy, herby, but above all plummy fruit, and a juicy taste with soft, silky tannins. The effect of barrel-ageing can sometimes rob a wine of its fruit-appeal. Vina Herminia have not, however, fallen into this trap. The fruit in their Crianza 2000 (£7.99) is unbowed, even with twelve months in new American and French oak. It has a characteristic Rioja strawberry and vanilla smell, but is more concentrated and spicily fragrant than most. This leads into a taste that’s truly elegant: gentle and soft, yet juicy and lingering with lots more ripe strawberry. The traditional choice of Spanish wineries for their barrels is American oak, which helps to add the sweet vanilla character to so many red wines. French barrels are also more expensive. Oddly enough then, only American oak was used to mature the fabulous Vina Herminia Reserva 1996 (£9.99) and for a full 18 months. Despite this, it’s deeper, richer and much more complex than the Crianza and with less vanilla! Instead, there’s an abundance of spicy cherry and dried fruits. A great wine. You can get hold of it, and all the rest of the excellent Spanish Spirit range by phoning Oliver on 01661 853768. Wine
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