This week, I have three red wines. All of them are from 2012 and are blended wines to varying degrees. I hope there is something here that you'll find interesting enough to try.
Nuviana
Tempranillo Cabernet 2012 (634386)
Spain
$11.99
This wine comes from Valle del Cinca, or Cinca Valley, in the province of Huesca in Aragn, Spain. This area is one of the wine producing areas in Huesca province. Located in northeastern Spain, the area is positioned just south of the Pyrenees Mountains and has a climate influenced by the Mediterranean Sea which makes wine making both exciting and challenging.
Nuviana is a Tempranillo/Cabernet Sauvignon blend with a colour I might describe as a crisp purple. Red berries are the most pronounced aromas and remind me of red currant and raspberry. Hints of vanilla and sweet spice were also noticeable. This wine is light to medium bodied but still has a nice mouth feel. Red berry fruit flavours dominate and there was more tannin than I expected, but not too much. This wine has a good balance of flavours, acidity and tannin and is a very nice wine to enjoy with dinner on weeknights. It can be enjoyed on its own or as a complement to pasta, pizza, left over pot roast dinners.
Do
Grilos 2012 Red Blend (674622)
Portugal
$14.99
Grilos is from the Do region of northern Portugal and just north of Porto where the famous fortified wines we call Port originate. This red blend includes three grape varietals: Touriga Nacional, a grape used mostly for Port; Tinto Roriz, the Spanish call it Tempranillo and I'm sure most of us are more familiar with it by this name; and Jan, a lesser known grape called Mencia by the Spanish. Whatever these grapes are called they are all indigenous to the Iberian Peninsula.
On the label, there are depictions of crickets. It must be good luck to have a cricket on the table. I don't know the whole story here, but for me it would simply mean someone left the screen door open.
In the glass, it is purple and has some density, which I find promising. On the nose, it has aromas of soft ripe fruit. On the palate, I found it to be medium-bodied with good but light fruit flavours. Think plums and cherries with hints of mocha and a slightly herbaceous quality. Although it has spent six months in French oak I didn't detect any. The tannins are quite fine and the finish has a light acidity. I would pair this wine with ham, pork roast or maybe serve it while snacking on a variety of hard cheeses.
Perez Cruz
2012 Cabernet Sauvignon (126235)
Chile
$16.99
Recently, I attended a wine tasting hosted by several Chilean winemakers. I enjoy witnessing the passion these people have for their work and hear about all of the complexities that goes into the production of wine that we, often without thinking, so casually pluck by the bottle from the shelf and consume.
Chile has a winemaking history that goes back hundreds of years. Its geography helped it avoid the problems that devastated European vineyards in the late 1850s. Chile's location on the west coast of South America -- the Pacific Ocean to the west and the Andes Mountains in the east, the Antarctic currents in the South and its proximity to the Equator in the North -- isolated it from the epidemic that ravaged the vineyards of Europe. This very long and thin country has a long coastline, providing a Mediterranean climate but also has the elevation of the Andes giving it varied climactic growing conditions.
We're familiar with the many wine regions of the country, such as Maipo, Casablanca, Bio-Bio Valley and San Antonio. Today, these regions are being further redefined into sub regions. This reclassification makes sense because the climate and soil can vary quite dramatically depending on a winery's location to either the sea or mountains.
This reclassification is starting to appear on product labels. Perez Cruz Cabernet Sauvignon no longer indicates it is produced in Maipo, it is now more specific stating Maipo Alto. This information tells me the grapes used in this wine were grown further from the sea, at a higher elevation and in different soil types than those on the valley floor. All of this information tells me these grapes were grown in an area that provided ideal conditions for this particular grape variety. While the Perez Cruz label doesn't tell you it is a blended wine, it clearly has a splash of Syrah and Carmnre.
In the glass, I found a purple wine with some ruby highlights but I was most surprised by its aromas. At first, I noticed was the scent of blueberries was which is unusual in a Cabernet Sauvignon. Plum and currant are more the norm and were also present. On the palate, blueberries were very noticeable along with the other black fruits while the tannins weren't big and chewy, but had a more velvety texture along with layers of flavour and an acidity level that gave this wine balance despite its complexity. This wine is medium- to full-bodied delivering a long finish.
Cabernets are always great served with a big red meat dish, whether it's a grilled steak or slow roasted beef roast.
