H is for Jumilla

Of late I find myself drinking more and more Spanish wine. A region that this guy really likes right now is Jumilla in southeast Spain. Casa de la Ermita makes a damn fine product, and is rather inexpensive. In particular I like their tempranillo, mourvedre, and cab blend. It's aged about ten months in American and French oak. I'm not really sure what the difference between the two happens to be, but I can kind of guess.

They also have an even cheaper offering under the mark Monastario de Santa Ana that is simpler, younger and usually made of one varietal (they do wonders with tempranillo). As one would imagine, the Santa Ana wines are rougher and require a good decanting (I just dump it aggressively into a glass pitcher to oxygenate it), but for ten bucks, who cares.

The wines from this region tend to be more full bodied than a lot of the Italian wines in the price range (except for the bigger Bs) and less acidic, which could be because the Spanish tend to age in oak a lot longer (and more frequently) than do the Italians, even in the context of modern S&P.

In other wine news, I'm very excited to try Whistler's G.S.M. It's a blend of gamay (38%), syrah (37%) and mourvedre, aka monastrell (25%). What's interesting to me about this is that gamay is most commonly found in lighter, summer wines with low alcohol. To combine gamay with a big grape like syrah and the backbone provided by mourvedre should be very interesting, not to mention very alcoholic.

On a final Spanish wine note, whites from the albarino grape (tilde on the N) from the Rais Baixas region in Galecia are super neat. Can't go wrong when serving them with seafood or creamy pasta dishes. I don't like very round whites so the crisp mineral qualities of Alberino de Fefinanes (another tilde on the second N) get me excited in ways that make me blush when I am in public and feeling that way.

Granted I don't drink much white on the whole, but this is the only white that I've purposely sought out after the initial taste. These wines are never aged in oak so they retain their brightness. The first time I had the Fefinanes was when I made steamed mussels in a tomato broth with a whole roasted river trout. Really crisp, but fruity enough to avoid clashing with the saltiness of the mussels. Since then I make sure it's always around. I also tried a Dona Rosa RB, but found that it lacked the crispness of the Fef. Away it went.

At any rate, I hope this fills my snob quota for the day.