An Ode to Spanish Wine

Happy Friday.

I trust you all had a lovely Thanksgiving and are using today to recover on the couch…allowing for just enough time to read this dispatch from HQ.

I wanted to share what I had to drink last night.

I’ve talked about wine before but have never really dived into specifics outside of some vineyard visits.

For my money, wine is high up the Human Proof ladder.

It is one of the purest expressions of history we have.

Forged by time, land, weather, and most importantly…people.

If you’ll allow me, I’m going to dive a bit deeper and share some insights you might appreciate.

Let’s get into it.

Thanksgiving typically calls for Pinot Noir, which is a lighter and more fickle grape than most. It is planted almost everywhere now, but there is a pretty large delta in quality. Perhaps more-so than any other grape, it reflects the land and environment where it’s planted.

I am learning to enjoy Pinot, but I wanted to try something different for Thanksgiving this year. Turkey Day is a bit of a tricky pairing because the table usually consists of the entire spectrum of flavors and textures from savory gravy and stuffing to sweet cranberry and candied yams.

After some deliberation, I decided to go with 2 Spanish wines.

Spanish wines are undoubtedly the best “bang for your buck” in the world of wine.

They punch way above their price point but do not garner the same respect or attention and French, Italian, or Napa bottles.

Huge W for the savvy consumer in today’s economy.

The Grandaddy of Spain is the Rioja region, where the Tempranillo grape dominates beautiful, powerful and aromatic wines.

These are some of the most food-friendly wines on the planet.

The producer: R. Lopez de Heredia was founded in 1877 and is renown for their traditional approach that includes building their own American Oak barrels and aging their wines up to 6 years before bottling (most wine is barreled no more than 3 years.)

I found a 2012 Vina Tondonia Reserva (single vineyard bottling) for $40 a month ago and couldn’t grab it fast enough. This wine drinks like an $80 bottle - easy.

2012 was a drought year, which means lower yields and hardened grapes, leading to concentrated, structured wine.

The best part of this wine is the nose. Because of the 6 year barreling and old-school methods, the glass is full of “tertiary” flavors. Think: leather, tobacco, spices, dried leaves…these appear as a wine ages and the fruitier notes subside. I love this stuff.

However, it drinks way lighter than it smells. it’s barely medium bodied with very high acid and a silky finish. For Thanksgiving, this is a perfect combo. The notes compliment the savory dishes while the acidity cuts through the fat.

It’s not big and bold like a Cab. It’s not light and fruity like a Pinot. It’s the best of both.

If the Vina Tondonia is the elder statesman, the Peixes de Estrada is the cool, edgy teenager who doesn’t care about rules or tradition.

Similar price, but completely different experience. You can tell just by looking at the labels.

This wine was given to me from the somm at Antica Terra. Here is what he said:

“This wine is fun to drink and shows off an edgy side of what is delicious. Sometimes somms use the term ‘crunchy red fruit’ to describe a wine that has crisp acidity, bright fruit, and a red wine worth drinking with a slight chill. The wine has both red grapes such as bastarda, granacha, Mencia and white grapes such as dona blanco, palamino, and godello. They are all fermented together, and the wine is aged for 12 months is neutral demi-muids (large barrels). It’s super pleasurable to drink and would work in almost any occasion, with food, or without, good company is all that matters. I wouldn’t suggest aging this wine past a year or two, it’s in the camp of drink now.”

The more time you spend around Somms and wine lovers, the more you understand that they are always on the hunt for what is new, refreshing, and exciting.

They’ve seen, tasted, and appreciated all the icons, so they’re always digging deeper.

This wine certainly goes one-deeper.

Fedellos do Couto is a group of young Spanish winemakers who are the darlings of the wine world.

This bottle of theirs comes from a rugged, harsh region of Galicia that is not even recognized as an official wine region by the Spanish Government.

It’s a field blend of red and white grapes. Whole clustered - stems and all.

On the nose: iron, blood, olives, fresh meat. Weird, but not in a bad way.

On the palatte: pomegranate, cranberry, red fruit.

Low tannins, so it feels smooth and almost chuggable.

It should be served chilled.

This bottle was the highlight of the night. It was so different and unique compared to anything anyone had tasted. It dominated the conversation.

At first, people weren’t sure, but by the end, people were asking me if I had any more.

These are the types of experiences I live for.

You can sit around a table in Los Angeles and explore two very different stories and human-proof approaches to wine from a country on the other side of the world.

It’s engaging and invigorating. You can smell it, taste it, see it, imagine it…

I have an unreasonable love affair with this type of thing and hope this helps even one of you.

If you enjoyed this deep dive, reply here and let me know!

Enjoy the Holiday Weekend.

RP WEEKLY!!!!