Live life with fine Spanish wines

Many different studies have proven that women out-perform men when it comes to smell sensitivity.

Some say it dates back to the cave women having to smell whose child was whose and some say female sex hormones have a role to play. I believe some women can have better smell sensitivity because we have been training our nose from a young age. From scented stickers and pens at the age of 3 or 4, picking flowers for mum at the age of 5, then the toy lipsticks and nail polish with different flavours and smells, then body lotions, deodorants, hairspray, and lip gloss etc etc… Choosing a perfume (my God I could be with my girlfriends in a perfume shop for hours trying every single bottle probably 10 times). Then the whole baby thing when you where in a kind of coma just sniffing the baby all day long. This is hard training for your nose.

The other day I read an article which stated that experts believe that women are naturally attracted to men with immune system genes different to their own, and that they use their smell to detect this.

Well, the article is really about that The Pill leads women to choose the wrong partners, and the role that smelling has in the process. But when I read how important the smell is for women when it comes to choosing a partner I once again started thinking about all the women entering the, until recently, very male dominated world of wine. From wine critics (Jancis Robinson) to wine producers (see below) to wine sellers/bloggers as ourselves. Is it only coincidences that I often find women produced wines to be more subtle and elegant than many of their male competitors?

In Spain it is getting more and more common with female wine producers and the last years some of them have started to produce world-class wines.

My all time favourites are Victoria Benevides from Elias Mora in Toro and Victoria Pariente from José Pariente in Rueda. They used to be –Dos Victorias – but have recently split and are now working separately.

“In 1998, two oenologists—Victoria Pariente (a chemist) and Victoria Benavides (an agriculturist)—decided to set up a small winery in Rueda and the very first product they placed on the market was soon seen to be one of Spain’s best white wines. It is José Pariente, made from the local Verdejo variety, and named after the first Victoria’s father who used to own a small bodega while also running the much-loved “España” bar in the town of Rueda. José Pariente is a wine offering marked typicity, and is first in a new generation of Rueda wines that give full expression to the Verdejo grapes.
After their success in Rueda, these two winemakers almost immediately felt the need to make red wines. They chose the district of San Román de Hornija (Valladolid) within the Toro DO, and soon another great label appeared - Elías Mora, named in honour of a friend of theirs, the former owner of the Castilian vineyards that he had tended for 40 years. This Toro wine is also based on a native variety, Tinta de Toro, and is a powerful, fleshy drink with good tannins and excellent fruitiness.”

- Wines from Spain

They both make world-class wines and if you haven’t tried them you have definitely missed out on some of the best wines from Spain.

2 other favourite girls in the Spanish wine business:

Rosalia Molina at AltoLandon (D.O. Manchuela)
Rosalia Molina looked for a place where the conditions for the vineyard were “special” mainly considering the climate changes and that’s how she chose to set up the vineyard AltoLandon in Landete at 1050 meters of altitude. She experiments with a great variety of grapes; Malbec, Syrah, Grenache, Merlot, Tempranillo, Cabernet Sauvignon, Cabernet Franc and Chardonnay
The wines she produces are elegant but intense both in color and aroma. The AltoLAndon tinto is the best one she makes. With mainly syrah and merlot it has a very deep, intense red almost black color, in mouth you sense black berries/fruit such as blueberries, black currant and plums. Over all it is a “spicy” wine with liquorice and berries. The fruit and oak is beautifully integrated. Powerful but with soft tannins there’s something very special with Rosalias wine.

Sara Perez at Orbita Venus (D.O Montsant)

“Sara Pérez is the bright continuator of the great vinicultural legacy of her father, José Luis Pérez, biologist, self-taught oenologist, one of the most respected and followed voices of the wine world, owner of Mas Martinet in the Priorat.
“I owe everything to my father: the direct knowledge that he has given to me and the strength that he has transmitted to me, as well as the respect for what is different, for other ways of thinking and working, and, above all, the sense of freedom to discover my own path”, declares Sara.
A personal path that has lead her to begin her own adventure, La Universal, in Montsant. “Founding my own winery has been the natural result of this personal freedom”, she adds. “The time came when I needed to experience, to learn and to make mistakes without the valuable help of my father”.
Cutting the umbilical cord meant moving away from the Priorat, where she was born, and choosing an area that would allow her to start from scratch “without comparisons or measurements”.”

- Continue to read about Sara Perez at wines from Spain
Enjoy the wines,

Anna

Over the past few months I keep coming across a white wine called Naia in the newspapers, in wine magazines and online. One of my daughters is called Naia and, as it was her birthday recently, I thought I would investigate this wine a little further.

My daughter is called Naia because, as we live in the Basque country, we thought a Basque name would be nice and it’s one of the easier Basque names to pronounce for our non-Basque relatives and friends. (It rhymes with “tie a” as in “Tie a yellow ribbon round the old oak tree”!). My husband and I feel that it has a nice ring to it and its meaning is “desired” or “wanted”. Or, at least that’s what I thought until I started to look at online dictionaries and see that it may actually mean “wave”. I’ve asked a few Basque-speaking friends and they all agree that it does, in fact, have the first meaning. Either way, we like it. (more…)