Carpe Vinum Friday Flights! Spain’s Catalonia!
Hello Friends and Wine Lovers!
Welcome to another Carpe Vinum Friday Flights Announcement and Notes of Impending Wine Sampling! I’m really excited about this one! We’re heading back to Spain again! It’s quickly becoming one of my favorite regions for wine, which might seem obvious considering how often we feature the Spanish wines in these Friday tastings. So to make the best of our time and tastings, maybe we should familiarize ourselves a bit more with Spanish wines past the “Hey! Spanish wines, in general, are really, really good!” phase and more into “Hey! Spain is a really big country with many different regions producing distinctly individual wines that deserve special attention! And they’re really, really good!” phase. So, to that point, we bring you: The Spanish Wine Series, Episode 1: Catalonia!
Catalonia is the far Northeast section of Spain, right along the Southern border of France on the Mediterranean. It is one of 17 autonomous communities of Spain with the region’s capital city being Barcelona. The region is also home to the city of Figueres, the birthplace of one of my favorite artists, surrealist Salvador Dali. (If you’ve noticed, my mousepad here at the shop is one of his paintings. Well, it’s a print of one of his paintings, adhered to a mousepad backing. . .not actually one of his paintings. That would be rude. And fairly impractical.)
The most highly esteemed of the Catalonian wines is the legendary Priorato. As the story goes, the region’s full name is Priorato de Scala Dei or Priory of the Stairway to God, named such by monks after a shepherd in the region saw angels coming down a ladder from heaven, some time in 1163 AD. And, indeed, the logo of Priorat that appears on the bottles has angels and a ladder on it. Ah, yes. . that’s the kind of interesting trivia that I like. How’s the wine? Divine! They’re Grenache and Carinena based wines, and the international acclaim of their quality is constantly driving the prices up. There are still a few holdouts of good value, though. I got one of those in the tasting, as well as a white Priorat, which I had never heard of before. Apparently it’s on par with white Chateauneuf du Pape, and that ranks pretty high in my book.
Just across the road from Priorat we find Montsant, which is an up-and-coming wine region that may soon rival the Priorat. Also being Grenache and Carinena based wines, they are of similar style as that of the Priorat, but perhaps with a bit more of a wild side. Not too far away from that we find another Catalunya wine we can’t forget: The legendary Cava region, the home of Spain’s sparkling wine. I think the weather has warmed up enough to be able to pour one of those, eh?
Not to cut it too short, but the rest are delicious as well. It’s a nice cross section of our first Spanish regional study. It’s tasty AND educational!
So Friday, April 28th, between 4:30 and 9:00 PM it’s:
Spain’s Catalonia!!
Heretat Mas Tinnell NV Brut Reserva, Cava
Mas Marcal 2004 Catalunya Tinto, Terra Alta
Vall de Baldomar 2003 Costers del Segre
Cellar Els Guiamets 2003 Isis, Montsant
Scala Dei 2004 Negre, Priorat
Catalunya, Cataluna!!
Falset 2002 Laurona, Montsant
El Si del Moli 2004 Blanc, Priorat
A stellar deal at $10 for the First 5, $6 for the Extra 2 Premium Pours!
Hope to see you here!
Seize the Wine!
Next Friday tasting is the Italy’s Tuscany!
M