|
Husband and I went to a great wine tasting at a local wine shop last week. The tasting featured four South American wines and six Spanish cheeses. We've been enjoying South American wines for a while. In fact, last fall we had our own Malbec tasting party that was lots of fun. Malbec is probably the most well known varietal from South America. That's why this tasting was interesting - only one of the wines was a Malbec the other wines were a Sauvignon Blanc, a red blend, and a Tempranillo. The wines were also split evenly between Chile and Argentina. We were really surprised to find Penalolen, Sauvignon Blanc (Limari and Casablanca Valley's Chile) on the list and we were even more surprised at the wine itself. We liked that the wine was oak free, absent of residual sugar and not overly acidic. We've enjoyed New Zealand Sauvignon Blanc ever since exploring the Marlbourgh region during a visit in 2000 but Chile was certainly not on our list of places to get Sauvignon Blanc. We also really enjoyed the Maquis "Lien" which is a red blend of Syrah (50%), Carmenere (23%), Cabernet Franc (12%), Petit Verdo (8%) and Malbec (7%) from the Colchagua Valley in Chile. Surprisingly Syrah is the primary component. Syrah is definitely not the first thing that comes to my mind when considering South American wines but it seems that the South American wineries have produced Syrah for quite a while but only recently have started exporting it. The wine is full-bodied with plum aromas. We really liked it and felt the blend was very balanced and gave a clean finish. We were less enamored with the other two wines. The Tempus Alba, "Preludio", Tempranillo, 2005 (Mendoza, Argentina) was our first try at a Tempranillo. Tempus Alba produces some highly rated Malbecs so it may be that we are just not accustomed to Tempranillo but whatever the reason it seemed to lack complexity and really didn't offer us much in comparison to our other tastings. The Malbec was a Andeluna "Tupungato Reserve" from Mendoza, Argentina. This wine was good but we felt $20 was a bit costly for what it offered. We've had lots of other Malbecs that were better yet only ranged from $9-$15. Sure $20 is not a huge cost but this Malbec didn't really stand out from anything else we've had to justify the added cost. We also tasted 6 different Spanish cheeses. These included Iberico, Ibores, Mahon, Manchego, Urgelia and San Simon. My favorites were the Urgelia and the San Simon but they all were great cheeses. I find it interesting that Spanish cheeses are always paired with South American wines. I know Argentina and Chile produce some cheeses but I haven't found any in my local shops. We enjoyed the tasting and especially enjoyed learning of the different varietals from South America. If anyone else has some non-Malbec favorites from South America - or some South American cheese they'd recommend I'd love to hear about them.
|
Stumble It!
Digg This!
Save to del.icio.us!
