Posts Tagged ‘red wine’

New Spanish Wine Appellations

Wednesday, May 7th, 2008

monte aman church
MAPA, the Spanish Ministry of Agriculture, Fishing and Food has announced Ribera del Arlanza and Tierra Del Vino de Zamora as Spanish wine appellations. The two regions are now official wine D.O. (denomination of origin).

Being in the Wine biz I, of course, immediately after having read this ran to my map of Spanish appellations to try to figure out where these two regions are situated. The D.O. Ribera Del Arlanza is situated some 40km south of Burgos city. The main grape variety (95%) is …tempranillo (tinta del pais), not so surprising. Then the second most planted grape is Garnacha (2%). There is a little bit of Mencia, Cabernet Sauvignon, Merlot, Petit Verdot and Albillo for their rosé wines. For the white wines they use Viura, but very little white wine is produced. (more…)

A Day in Briones, La Rioja

Thursday, April 3rd, 2008

briones

  • After weeks of miserable weather I felt I needed a break and get away for the day. And what better place to go to than La Rioja? From Bilbao, where we live, it only takes about an hour to get into the heartland of the wine district. So I packed my wife and two kids in the car and off we went to Briones, in La Rioja Alta. The bodega chosen for the day was
    Miguel Merino. (more…)