Aside from Sherry, Spain is best known for its elegant, vanilla-scented, aged Riojas made primarily from Tempranillo, and the massive, rugged, deeply concentrated, wines of Priorat anchored primarily by Garnacha. But times are a-changin’ and innovation is busting out all over in Spain, with modern fruity styles of Rioja challenging the old oak regimes and new regions popping up like Starbucks.
Here is one example from Navarra, a very old wine region but for many years under the radar and only now beginning to gain the attention of the wine world.
This wine is innovative because the minor blending grape Graciano (50%) gets equal billing with its more famous partner Garnacha (50%). Spanish Garnacha can be very ripe and alcoholic. But when blended with the searing acidity and perfume of Graciano you get a wine that is both fleshy and taut.
Spicy cherry and blackberry fruit flavors play with gentle floral and herbal aromas before it explodes with vivid acidity and a lovely graphite minerality, all supported by sleek tannins. Intense and bold but not heavy, it has a lifted quality that leaves a refreshing impression with very little overt oak.
Fermentation happens in concrete vats. The wine sees 12 months in French, American, and Hungarian oak.
Navarra is in Northern Spain near the lower slopes of the Pyrenees, and features arid, shallow soils, and great temperature extremes between day and night, a harsh landscape that produces small yields, but very concentrated fruit.
New directions in wine call for new directions in music such as this lovely blend of classical, folk, and jazz themes by John Hollenbeck’s The Claudia Quintet
Score: 91
Price: $17
Alc: 14%
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