Manchego

Sixty percent of all cheese made in Spain is Manchego.  It is the signature cheese of Spain and an EU protected DO (denominacion de origen) as Queso Manchego.  Manchega sheep provide the milk for this cheese which comes in four varieties: Fresca (aged two weeks), Semicurado (3 weeks-4 months), Curado (3-6 months) and Viejo (1-2 years).  The cheese may be either a pasteurized or raw milk version.  Ours is usually the pasteurized Curado and often labelled with its specific aging time.

Manchego is legally made only in the La Mancha plateau region in south central Spain.   This arid, windy and cold plateau of Don Quixote fame has long been known to us for its formidable dry red wines that scream for a savory red meat accompaniment.  These are legacy wines that must be appreciated with a meal and without varietal labelling.

Inside its brown herringbone exterior Manchego has an ivory colored paste with tiny pores.  Depending on age the texture moderates between its creamier style and hardness.  Manchego has a pleasantly sharp piquancy featuring fruit and nut flavors finishing with the customary sheep milk flavors at the end.  

If you are looking for something to go with your glass of red wine, this one is textbook.  It is also one of the few that would pair well with many white wines.  Check out the last sentence of the previous paragraph and imagine that taste with your favorite wine.  Salivating yet? 

Kanonkop

Hey red wine lovers - you want a real treat?  Check out the Kanonkop Kadette Cape Red Blend from Stellenbosch, South Africa.  Whether it's a versatile dinner wine you need or just an anytime red, this is it.  The blend is a sixty percent Bordeaux blend of Cabernet Sauvignon, Merlot, Cabernet Franc and Petit Verdot + forty percent Pinotage, the signature grape of that country.  And whoever thought of this mix nailed it big time.

Now ordinarily I would start cribbing from a half dozen wine industry websites to fill out the text of this post but after going to www.kanonkop.co.za, I got more information there than I could possibly use here.  This is the best winery website I have seen.  Please, everyone, check it out and see what is possible if a company wants to share their business with an interested audience.  In particular, the Viticulture and Winemaking headings are where you want to be for getting a toehold on what they're doing.  

My takeaway from the experience? The two headings above show an expansive understanding of the importance of vintages.  The winemakers don't just take what the vineyard gives them at harvest time and make a wine out of it.  Well, they do...but their intention is to capture the unique expression of a harvest.  That starts with the old school, tried and true hand-picking of grapes.  Then, using modern technology, evaluating for sugar content in the juice and tannin content in the skins and making sure the acids balance with the sugars and that the pips are not green.  Now, just to be sure, lets restate the intention - They want to do everything in their power to capture the unique expression of the vintage.

Classy!

Brusco dei Barbi

This is a big red Tuscan IGT wine.  IGT wines are an Italian wine classification created after DOC, DOCG and VdT were shown to be inadequate for wines better than Vino da Tavola but made using methods outside of DOC rules. 

If it's Tuscan, you can assume it's Sangiovese-based and Barbi is, but this one has a Cabernet-like grip to it that makes it appealing for red meat dishes.  The wine is a bright ruby color, has a vivid red berry nose and shows supple fresh red berry flavors on the palate couched in soft tannins.  It's a fresh and fruity, yet structured versatile red that would ideally accompany anything on the grill.  

Barbi also has a pedigree.  It comes from Giovanni Colombini of Fattoria dei Barbi in Montalcino, "where Brunello was born."  Colombini studied modern winemaking extensively in the 1960's and 70's with an emphasis on cold fermentation.  Barbi actually has a pre-fermentation chilling to kill polyphenols and anthcyanins before the twelve day cold fermentation and that shows in the indelibly fresh Barbi.  Hand harvested Sangiovese, Caniolo and Colorino are what go into the wine which goes on to see some time in oak before bottling.

The Colombini family has a seven century history of winemaking.  Their current winery was established in 1790 but the family has been in Montalcino since 1352.  They are one of five today to have a one hundred year (continuous) winemaking history there where they remain a major Brunello producer today.

Lamadrid Agrelo Cabernet Sauvignon

When wine lovers think of Argentina we automatically think Malbec.  Argentina has the best, after all, so perhaps other types from that incredible region don't get the respect they may deserve.  Well, guess what.  We think we found a gem in this little Argentine Cabernet.  

The key word on the label here is Agrelo.  If this was ordinary everyday red wine it would have just been labeled Mendoza Cabernet, which in all honesty would have been plenty prestigious enough.  But Agrelo means so much more.

Mendoza is a huge desert plateau that has become Mecca for large wine companies everywhere.  Everyone wants to have a piece of the prized Mendoza action.  But if you head west in Mendoza into the Andes and higher elevations you enter the Lujan da Cuyo province and within that province you find Agrelo, one of the finest venues for big complex Mendoza reds.

Malbec still rules in this region just like everywhere in Mendoza.  Half of the Agrelo production is Malbec with Cabernet Sauvignon making up a mere thirteen percent of the pie.  Argentine wine law says a varietal wine must be at least 85% of that type so it's reasonable to assume some of that prized Malbec has found its way into the Lamadrid blend.  

So what makes the Agrelo terroir so special?  At 1,000 meters above sea level Agrelo soils are erosion from higher Andes altitudes making them rocky enough for good drainage while also enabling tap roots to access nutrients and minerality below.  This region also has the diurnal temperature shift so essential for acidity to balance the fruit in rich red wines.  And it has a fortuitous rain shadow, a mountain providence of shelter from excessive rain.  Since there is plenty of water from runoff from above, water is not a problem.  

Think about a case of this one, folks.  It could go a long ways to getting you through the holidays. 

When Buying Red Wine

Datassential (whoever they are) surveyed 4,500 red wine buyers for what they are looking for when they purchase wine.  Here's what they found.

56% are concerned about the degree of sweetness/dryness.  

50% want to know what style the wine is made in.  (lighter, richer etc.)

49% want a description of the flavors.  (fruit, oak etc.)  

39% want to know the food affinities of the wine.  

34% want to know a brand name or producer.  

24% want to know the place of origin of the wine.  

22% want to know the alcohol content.  

16% are concerned about the wine's acidity.  

And 11% want to know nutritional information.  (organics vs additives)

Datassential says most red wine buyers enjoy their wine with the meal but entertaining is a close second.  They also like the fruit-forward style with a sweetness/dryness balance that works for them.

For us, food pairing is paramount so everything else must work to that end.  With that in mind, the wine style and place of origin should at least be considered as a factor for the enjoyment of a meal.  Thanksgiving is coming up and the traditional holiday dinner is a sweeter meal, so for that one, the wine doesn't need to be bone dry.  With regard to the last four considerations on the list; alcohol content, branding, the nutritional stuff and acidity; those are all really personal decisions that should be respected by all of us. 

4 Monos GR-10 Tinto

Here's where you find out just how ignorant I am.  This Spanish red has been on the shelf here for about a year with very little action on it because I frankly didn't know what it was.  Spanish red, I thinks.  That's all you need to know.  Spanish red.  So it's got to be good.  So I thinks.  

Svetlana writes her own orders so when I asked her to send me a couple cases of Spanish and Portuguese wines, more 4 Monos came in the door, which was fine since everything she sends me is good.  It just means I need to get off my butt and learn what the stuff is so I can sell it.

4 Monos is literally 4 Monkeys, the project of four winemakers who, while hiking the GR-10 trail from Lisbon to Valencia, found the vineyards for this wine around Madrid, the midpoint of the trek.  Being winemakers they recognized the worth of the high altitude granite soils of the Sierra de Gredos region within the Madrid DO and thus began their project.

This organic red is a blend of mostly Garnacha with Carenina and Syrah blended from vineyards up to eighty-five years old.  Those grapes are hand harvested and whole cluster pressed before fermenting with wild yeasts from the vineyard.  For aging, the wine sees nine months in oak with some time in foudres and concrete. (Foudres are larger oak vats commonly used in the Cotes du Rhone.)

The wine is a pale ruby color with floral aromatics of lilac and violets.  On the palate it shows fresh focused raspberry and cherry fruit with spice and soft tannins.  Being Spanish wine, its display is balanced and complex with typical Spanish earthiness and acidity.  Food affinities are wide open but definitely something with a meat sauce/gravy might be nice.

And there you have it...I thinks.

Bronco

George McConnon is an importer of fine estate bottled wines from Slovenia.  George is also a veteran of thirty years in the California wine industry, spending about six years with the Bronco Wine Company.  Bronco is one of the largest in the world so we asked him to share a little bit of what that experience was like.  But before we get into that, lets learn a little about Bronco since it's not exactly a household name.  

Bronco was established in 1973 by brothers Fred and Joseph Franzia along with their cousin John Franzia.  The Franzias were nephews of Ernest and Julio Gallo and probably got their start in the industry through them.  Like Gallo, Bronco has its headquarters near Modesto.  

The money to start Bronco came from an unlikely source, Coca-Cola, which purchased the existing Franzia winery of that time.  So the Franzias join the long list of wine industry families that have sold their name which means the Franzia boxed wines in the grocery stores have no relationship to the Franzia family.  They are now owned by The Wine Group which purchased them from Coke.

The selling of a winery name is actually all the buyer wants.  Usually these larger players don't need the vineyards or the actual winery.  They just want an existing profitable brand name.  It's just the way it is in the industry now.

George McConnon says Bronco now markets wines under 319 labels including notables like Rosenblum and Charles Shaw (Two Buck Chuck.)  They are the largest vineyard owner in the world with seventy thousand acres in vines.  Many of their wine labels weren't active at the time of their purchase or never were an entity before being created by the company.  

Bronco is vertically integrated owning five huge wineries with bottling and storage facilities across the state.  They turn sixty-one million gallons of grape juice into 125 cases of wine a day or sixty-five million cases a year.  George says if a grocery store wine label shows no wine appellation other than just California, it's probably from Bronco.  He said that with a smile so it's an overstatement but it also reflects his over all appreciation for the company.  He said the Franzias were nice folks and treated him well.

Allegro Moscato is a sweet white from California currently promoted by Bronco.  That one is in stock currently as are several other California appellation wines that may also be from Bronco AND George's fine Slovenians are also here.