July 11,2007

My First WBW (Spanish Wines Under $10)

recently consumed

Wine: Quinta da Alorna Ribatejano 2004 ($9.95)

tasting notes

First participation in Wine Blog Wednesdays, woohoo!! The wine I chose took about the least amount of thought I’ve put into a wine purchase in a long time. It was 10:05 (5 minutes after Holiday Market was supposed to close) and my trusted wine guy was nowhere in sight. Which reminds me, I should post my Organic EE essay that I wrote on my fabulous local wine guy, Tony, because he deserves some major props for pointing us to some majorly great wines. Anyway, I trust Tony enough that I felt comfortable grabbing anything (especially in his beloved Spanish wine section) and rush out the door before they kicked me out.

I had half the bottle of the Quinta Da Alorna last night, and the other half tonight. My first few sips had a searing acidity that made the inside of my nose burn. I was a little fearful at first, as that feeling often leads to sour grapes on the tongue in many wines under $10. However, the flavor opened on my tongue and left me with a delightfully fruity aftertaste. Each sip (as the wine opened and my tongue got used to the acidity) tended more towards the rich fruit that seemed to coat my tongue and linger. I’m not a fabulous super-taster by any means, but I definitely got some black raspberry (little sweet, little dark, little tart) and mild spice.

Second night, I really didn’t give any thought to pairing although the back of the label gives a fabulous little multilingual guide, something you don’t often see in foreign wines. So supposedly the wine goes good with game, roasted meats, and soft cheese. Not giving ANY thought to pairing, even with last minute wine purchases, is also very unlike me, but I had a craving for salmon. So we drank the wine with baked salmon in red pepper sauce with some fresh steamed vegetables from our garden (don’t I sound grown up). While the salmon was a bit mild for the powerful punch of the Quinta da Alorna, the fleshy texture made it a good match. The wine was so smooth and gulpable the second day, I think it really could have gone with anything. Oh, except dark chocolate… didn’t really go too well with that. Perhaps a very dark chocolate might have worked better, but I think this wine is just too acidic for desserts. I’m a pretty big fan of dry red wine and chocolate, as I find Port too rich and sweet most of the time, but this wine had a quality unlike your typical Cabs and Zins that made it not cocoa-friendly.

Final assessment: Great Value
We moved to Dancing Bull Zinfandel right afterwards. For a similarly priced wine, it tasted far cheaper. Perhaps I’m getting too used to the flavor, now that Dancing Bull is our standard back-up wine (we can get it really cheap at Sam’s), but I swear it tasted like strawberry starburst and not in a good way.