Virtual Albariño Wine Tasting!

The good folks from Catavino are at it again! The theme of this month's "Virtual Wine Tasting" - Spanish Albariños! As with all Catavino Virtual Wine Tastings, you don't need a blog to join in on the fun - just grab a bottle that falls within that month's category and post it directly to Catavino's website.

So - Albariño. I'd heard of this white wine before, even have tasted one or two in the past, but didn't have any distinct recollections to know what to expect, or to steer me in my wine selection. So I did a quick search of what Total Wine in McLean had to offer, and my "choice" became quite simple - they only had one in stock. Thus I ended up with a $15 2006 Val Do Sosego Albariño from the Rías Baixas region of Spain.

Albarino and Rias Baixas
The Albariño grape (called Alvarinho in Portugal) is grown predominantly in Galicia in Northwestern Spain, as well as just across the border in the Vinho Verde region of Portugal. As seems to often be the case in the world of wine, Albariños coming from these coastal regions are said to pair quite well with food common to such a locale; in this case, that means seafood. The Rías Baixas DO (Denomination of Origin) is particularly well-known for its Albariños (and not surprisingly, it's seafood!). For additional background info/chatter, check out the Catavino forum set up for this month's tasting where you can read about it directly from the Spanish wine experts (Ryan and Gabrielle).

Tasting Notes
The 2006 Val Do Sosego Albariño from the Rías Baixas was light gold in color with just a hint of green to it. This immediately made me think of New Zealand Sauvignon Blancs, and that association was just strengthened by the nose, and again by the palate.

On the nose, I picked out lemon grass and green apple, and Kris was adamant about pear. On the tongue, the lemon-grass came through, and it had a very nice minerally-ness to it. It had a higher-than-average acidity, which made this medium-bodied wine nice and crisp. I've read this phrase a lot, but I think I'd like to use the term "racy acidity" here to describe it - it just seems to fit.

So, given that Albariños are supposed to pair perfectly with seafood we probably should have attempted to cook up some fish for dinner, but that wasn't in the cards for tonight. On a tip from some blog or another, we instead paired this Albariño with Indian food and I must say - it worked really well. It's always a bit tricky to pair Navratan Korma or spicy lentils with anything wine-related, so I was pretty happy with how to find a wine that could do it.

Overall Recommendation
This wine was *very* similar to many New Zealand Sauvignon Blancs I've had. I was a little disappointed, not because it wasn't good (it was), but because it wasn't that different from other wines I've had. This wine had a very nice acidity to it, but none of the smoothness or slight creaminess I have heard attributed to Albariños, nor did it have the supposedly-distinctive apricot or peach nose. So at $15 a bottle I thought it was a great wine, but I could pay a couple dollars less and get a very comparable Marlborough Sauvignon Blanc that would do the same thing for me. Perhaps I need to try again in case this was an atypical Albariño, although this was the only one carried by my usual wine shop so I'd have to hunt around a bit. But from what I've read from others posting their tasting notes on Catavino, it may be well worth my effort!

Catavino Virtual Rosé Tasting!

I have been looking forward to this tasting ever since I heard about Catavino's Virtual Rosé Tasting a week or so ago. Ryan and Gabriella at Catavino want to encourage folks to explore wines of the "Iberian Peninsula" - for the geographically-challenged, this means Spain and Portugal. The rules that Catavino set for this virtual tasting are pretty simple - pick out a Spanish or Portuguese rosé, and compare it to a rosé from virtually anywhere else. You don't even need a blog to join in on the fun - you can post your comments directly to Catavino's forum!

I chose to compare a Spanish Navarra rosado with a French Côte-du-Rhône rosé, mainly because I conveniently had both wines in my collection - no need to drive to Virginia! I also thought: Northern Spain, Southern France - the wines should be similar, yes?

The Spanish wine was a 2006 Viña Rubican Rosado from the Navarra region of Northern Spain. According to Catavino, Spain classifies rosé wines into two categories: rosados and claretes. Rosados are apparently what we typically think of as rosés - light to dark pink in color. Claretes aren't so much a rosé as a very light red wine. How does light red differ from dark pink? I have no idea - but now you know what I know.

The French wine was a 2006 Domaine Guy Mousset Cuvée Réservée Rosé from Côtes-du-Rhône. I would love to give you more information about it (love to find out more myself!) but I have the hardest time finding out anything about specific French wines on the 'Net. With any American wine, Google to the rescue - I can learn what varietals are in it, probably even find tasting notes and technical data from the winery. But with the French wines - nothing. The only link I could find to this wine is on Cellar Tracker. So, I'm not even sure which grapes this wine was made from. I see this as yet another hurdle French wine has in gaining widespread acceptance with American wine drinkers, particularly younger wine drinkers. We demand more information about our products, and the French wine labels and limited online data are unable to satisfy our demands.

Anyway, on to the good part - the tasting!

I didn't even need to open the bottles to immediately notice a distinct difference between the two: the color. Here are two different shots that highlight this - the French rosé has a light salmon color, while the Spanish rosado has a deeper, redish-purple color.

OK, so I probably should have rotated that top picture so that the rosé was always on the left, rosado on the right, but you get the idea. I found myself liking the color of the rosé more - it just looked more elegant in the glass. You'll also notice from the first picture in this post that the two rosés came in differently shaped bottles: the Spanish rosado came in a high-shouldered Bordeaux style bottle, while the French rosé came in a more gently-sloped Rhône style bottle.

As for the nose: the rosado smelled, well, kind of grapey. Actually, if you've ever taken a tour of a winery, it reminded me of the room where they store all of the aging oak barrels - damp, slightly sweet, and a thick grapey aroma. It also reminded me a bit of the smell of port. The rosé had a much lighter, sweeter nose, with hints of strawberries and citrus.

For the actual tasting, I admit - I went full-bore wine geek on this one. I used a wine thermometer. The absolute height of wine snobbery, I know, but I was inspired by Winedeb at Deb's Key West Wine & Garden blog. I always like how inviting her pictures of whites and rosés look - seeing as how she's in Key West, the bottles get a nice layer of condensation on them probably immediately after taking them outside. They also heat up pretty fast, so after she's done photographing them for her blog she sticks them back in the fridge to cool down again before tasting, and uses a wine thermometer every now and then to check and see if they've chilled enough to be enjoyable.

So, I was digging through my kitchen drawer of wine toys, and lo-and-behold: I actually own a wine thermometer! After reading Winedeb's posts, I had to try it out and see how/if the temperature affected the taste of the rosés. After my two bottles were done with their photo shoot, both were at 54° F. Judging from my wine books, this should be the perfect temperature to drink them at: most books seem to say that 50°-55° is right around where you want to serve rosés.

In the mouth, all of the light, sweet strawberry and citrus on the nose of the French rosé completely vanished. I was really just getting textures at this point rather than flavors - medium to full-bodied with some bitterness across the back of my tongue, and a slight creaminess to it. There was something annoying me about this wine though, and after letting it sit in my mouth awhile I decided it was the strong oakiness to it. I've never really been a fan of big oak, preferring "No Oak Chardonnays" fermented in stainless steel tanks to their often over-oaked brethren. So I wasn't too happy when some oak showed up in this rosé, but if you like oaky Chards then this wouldn't be a turn-off for you. The French rosé was otherwise pretty tasty. The Spanish rosado had a very different flavor. There was a tanginess to it, somewhat lemony. It has less body than the French, but more acidity.

By this point the wine had warmed up a bit - 57° F said my trusty thermometer. Both wines now seemed to have a bigger, sweeter nose. I thought I started smelling some vanilla in the rosé, while the rosado had an aroma like a dark red rose. A little bit of fruit flavor also crept in to the taste of the rosado, almost a sour cherry - still quite tangy.

Overall, both Kris and I liked both wines better when they were a bit warmer - warmer than you are apparently "supposed" to serve rosés. I liked to color of the French wine better, but enjoyed the uniqueness of the rosado, and definitely preferred the flavor of the Spanish wine over the French. We had some Parado cheese and crackers as an appetizer, and the rosado went perfectly with this tangy cheese. However, with our dinner of grilled salmon, the French wine paired much better.

Final recommendation - I enjoyed trying these wines side-by-side, but neither offered me what I'm looking for in a rosé. When I think rosé, I think picnic wine - something to sip on a warm summer day while out in the yard or playing croquet or something. Neither of these wines were "refreshing" enough to do that for me. I know, rosés are supposedly the "new thing" in wine, and I'm probably still a little gun-shy from White Zinfandel to have a completely open mind on rosés. I also just don't know enough about rosés to have some idea of what to expect when I pop the bottle. Because of this, I think I feel safer with whites for warm weather enjoyment and meals as I have a better understanding of what the wine is going to taste like.

However, both of these wines were still quite tasty in their own very different ways, and I think I'll keep trying out different rosés this summer. From my experience thus far, I think there are probably better rosé values out there than the wines in this tasting. Both of these wines were purchased for $9 at Total Wine in McLean. For one dollar less per bottle, a couple weeks ago I tasted a 2006 Anakena Cabernet Sauvignon Rosé from Rapel Valley, Chile that fit my "summer rosé" criteria perfectly. I recommend going out and giving that one a shot. Perhaps I'll pick up another next time I'm out, and pair the Anakena off against another Euro rosé, and see who comes out on top!

Virtual Rosé Wine Tasting!

It just keeps on coming tonight - amazing what a wine-obsessed insomniac can stumble upon in one evening! My next big find of the night is a "Wine Blogging Wednesday" type event called a Virtual Wine Tasting hosted by Catavino. (I grabbed this cool 1984-esque graphic from Catavino's site: since I don't know what I'm doing yet in terms of blogging etiquette, please tell me if this is a no-no, rude, or in any way bad!)

Back to the tasting - the theme for this virtual tasting was chosen as a way of encouraging folks to delve a little deeper into an oft-neglected portion of the wine world, rosés. It seems that many American wine drinkers (myself included until quite recently) live in a binary wine world: wine is either red or white. Contemplating a glass of pink wine only conjures up memories of the sickly sweet "White Zinfandel"; a difficult mental roadblock to overcome.

Thus I am excited to participate in Catavino's proposed virtual rosé tasting, which will give me a chance to compare a Spanish or Portuguese rosé with a French or Californian one (of which I am just *slightly* more familiar). Or I could go crazy and try a South American rosé - Kris and I tried a 2006 Anakena Cabernet Sauvignon Rosé a couple weeks ago to welcome in what we thought was the beginning of Spring (and then it got cold and dreary ever since - tomorrow looks better though!). It was only an $8 wine, and we were pleasantly surprised by the "happy fruit flavor" (official wine tasting terminology all the way on this blog), and crisp, balanced taste. I've heard of people liking South American Malbec Rosés, so I may have to check one of those out - I'll let you know how it goes!