A Toast in Spain

“Qué guay. ¡Este vino me encanta!”
(Cool. I adore this wine!)
These are words I don’t hear often in Spain — coming from a native and directed at me. Usually it’s me on my knees, thanking a local for a super tip on a wine list, or for an insider connection to a friend and winemaker in Spanish wine country. But when I bought a 2005 Borsao Campo de Borja Crianza for less than six Euros at the corner store near my sister’s apartment in Madrid’s Plaza Chueca and served it to her Madrileño friends, they were exclaiming in Castellano over the big, soft, minerally Borsao’s price-quality ratio. But I wasn’t picking in the dark: I often by Borsao in the states, especially its old-vine granache “Tres Picos”, a “top” cuvée in every way but price, usually about $11 US.

For another wine we enjoyed after we were done putting my sister’s new baby to bed, click here:

2002 Heras Cordon Rioja “Vendimia Seleccionada”: this wine, which some expat friends of my sister’s broke out for me because they heard I liked wine (how nice it is to have your reputation precede you!) is made by the famous Vega Sicilia people of Ribera del Duero, only at their outpost in the Rioja region, and at a fraction of the price of the collectible Vega. We found it to be a great example of old school Rioja with its smoky and animal notes — only with a hint of fruitiness we’d usually associate with a modern wine.