Hello Friends and Wine Lovers!

It’s that time of day again! During that time of the week! And that time of the year! It’s time for the Timeless Exercise in Tasting Wine and Reading Newsletters Regarding That Thing for Carpe Vinum! This week we’re heading to another edition of the Spectacular Spanish Series: It’s Spain’s Galicia (and friends)! Why do I say “(and friends)”? Can a specific region really have “friends”? I mean, the inhabitants of the region can have friends. And the governments of the regions can say the other regions are friends. Is that what I mean? No. I’m cheating a bit this week. We’ll get to that later. But the main theme for this week is Galicia, so we’ll start there.

Galicia is the region of Northwest Spain just north of Portugal. It’s also known as “Green Spain”, mainly because everything is green there. Apparently, and as a friend had said, once you leave the Green Spain, everything turns brown. I guess that makes the rest of Spain “Brown Spain”. That doesn’t sound too nice. How about “Non-Green Spain”? Works for me. Let’s move on.

Like most regions of the world, the wine or beverages of whatever regions, have a lot to do with the cuisine of the region as well as whatever can grow naturally there. Some things might be a happy accident, but really when you see that the cuisine of Galicia is mostly seafood and the like, as they are surrounded by water, it only makes sense that they have a great selection of white wines from the region. There are several reds in the area but they are few and far between and really, really hard to find. And expensive.

So how am I cheating? We’ll get to that. Firstly know that we’ve got Galicia relatively covered. The most well-known subregion of Galicia is certainly Rias Baixas and the quintessential white wine Albarino. Apparently there is a small amount of red wine produced there, although I’ve never seen it and have no idea what’s in there. That’s of little consequence considering the Albarino is the most popular wine of the entire Galicia region and accounts for most of the export market. At least as far as I can tell. It would be quite easy to fill out an entire tasting with just the Albarino wines, but that doesn’t give a feel of the region.

After Rias Baixas there are a number of other regions of note: Valdeorras, Ribeira Sacra, Ribeiro and Monterrei and then some Txacolina Basque wine from the other end of Green Spain, near the Pyrenees. Last year when I did the Galicia tasting I found a representative from every one of those regions. Since then it’s been apparent the importing market has been bringing in less of the more obscure wines. Either that or I just can’t find them here in town. Either way I only found one other Galicia-proper wine from Valdeorras and brought back the Basque wine from Itsas Mendi that I poured last year.

So here’s where I gotta cheat a bit. Just over the border from Galicia, I mean literally right on the border, is the region of Bierzo. Technically it’s considered part of Old Castille even though it’s closer to Galicia and is seperated from the rest of Castille by a sizeable chunk of land. Also, they use grapes that are more indicative of reds of Galicia than the Castilian red varieties. So I claim this land in the name of Galicia! Besides, we’ve got to get some red wines in here, somehow.

After that I figured since we’re in Old Castille, we might as well grab a wine from Bierzo’s neighbor Rueda. Then, after doing that, I figured since we’ve gone this far, why don’t we make the premium pours from some premium Spanish regions. That’s right, I’m talking Ribera del Duero and Rioja. After all, Rioja is just barely south of the Basque region from which our first wine comes. Okay . . . so that brings our wine tasting full circle. There is a focus on the Northern part of Spain. I guess that’ll do. At any rate, it guarantees a diverse and delicious tasting!

So Friday, June 15th, between 4:30 and 9:00 PM it’s:

Galicia!!!
Itsas Mendi 2005 Hondarrabi Zuri, Bizkaiko Txacolina
Don Oligario 2005 Albarino, Rias Baixas
Bodegas Godeval 2005 Vina Godeval, Valdeorras
Vina Sila 2005 Naia, Rueda
Bodegas Peique 2005 Joven, Bierzo

Rioja and Ribera del Duero!!!
Artadi 2004 Vinas de Gain Crianza, Rioja
Bodegas Arzuaga 2004 Crianza, Ribera del Duero

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 French Burgundy!

M