Top Three Reasons why Rioja is my lockdown wine

The news outlets seem to be unanimous - we're all drinking more during our respective shelter-in-place instructions to help contain the COVID-19 pandemic. Online booze sales were reported up by over 240 percent as of April 1, 2020.

My own lockdown buying took place at the well-stocked wine mecca of the suburbs, Total Wine. There, I found myself strolling the aisles looking for both familiar and interesting bottles to get me through weeks of sheltering in place. 

As I poured my way through my wine collection over the last two months, I was struck by how much Rioja ended up in my glass.  This was not intentional, but as I go wine shopping I look for value wines that suit my palate and are dependable - and that's what I love about Rioja wines. Some of the go-to Rioja wines I can find in the Northeast U.S. are Lan, Camp Viejo, Marques de Riscal, Lopez de Heredia, Faustino, Muga, Dinastia Vivanco. 

Here are the top 3 reasons I love Rioja wine: 

Palate pleasing flavor - Red Rioja wines (or tinto as they say in Spain) use the grape Tempranillo.  For me, this is one of the winners in the grape world. It produces wines with dried cherry flavors with a touch of tobacco and spice.  I don't go for jammy, fruit bomb wines; I prefer drier styles - so Rioja is well suited to my palate. 

Excellent food pairing - Rioja wines tend to be medium weight and they aren't so bold that they dominate a dish. Therefore, I drink them with lots of dinner staples, including pizza, roast chicken, all kinds of pasta dishes, hamburgers and more.  They usually have good levels of acidity which is always a welcome aspect when pairing wine with meals. Unless a dish cries out for a white wine, I will very often pour a Rioja with what I'm having for dinner. 

Terrific quality for the price - I find the Rioja wines that I buy offer dependable quality. Unlike with Burgundy, I don't break out vintage charts to make sure I'll like what's in the bottle.  And I can spend between $12.99 - $18.99 and get really terrific wines that I know I'm going to enjoy.  That's one of the top reasons that so many of them end up in my cart. 

I hope that all my wine friends are staying safe and enjoying some home-cooked meals with wines that they love.  And, while I have lots of wines from other countries in my collection, you will often find me in the evening with a lovely glass of Rioja keeping me company as I stay safe at home. 

Stateside, Choose Xunta for Tapas

It’s been exactly one week since I left Spain and my appetite for its food, wine, and spirit has not diminished. So it was with great enthusiasm that I agreed with fellow writing group member and actor Gregory Waller when he suggested Xunta for tapas last night.
After an evening of critiquing each other’s work and reviewing the progress we made in 2008, my writer’s group descended from our cozy upstairs enclave at Solas and headed east on 9th Street. New York was buzzing on this mild Sunday night, but, Xunta was empty. Was it closed?
No need to worry! We poked our heads in and were warmly welcomed. The place was ours, and we choose a rustic wooden hightop and stools near a huge map of Espagne. I proceeded to trace my recent travel route with my index finger for my fellow writers.
Xunta is pronounced Shunta. This is from Galego--a language spoke in Galicia, a remote region in the far northwest of Spain above Portugal. There’s a map of Galicia on the wall, too, so clearly the restaurant has a Galician connection.
We turned our attention to the long, laminated menu crammed with dozens of tapas—not Americanized versions, but true Spanish treats like pulpo and croquettes. We ordered a good assortment: white asparagus in vinegar adorned with a pretty slice of roasted red pepper (a little bland), manchego with quince paste (the sweet quince balanced the salty cheese nicely), green olives stuffed with anchoivy paste (I never saw the stuffing, but these were tasty nonetheless), and sweet and savory Iberian ham slices, all served with slices of dense country bread that we rubbed in pools of olive oil on our plates.
We washed down the tapas with a bottle of Crianza. This one was a 2004 Diez Caballero, a Tempranillo from El Ciego in the Rioja Alavesa, in the northwest of the Rioja region. As a Crianza, this wine has, by law, seen at least 12 months in an oak barrel, as well as additional bottle aging. It’s released three years after harvest. I detected French oak on the nose and suspected there might be American oak as well. Checking their website today I found that this is in fact the case. The wine had good fruit and substantial tannins for a Tempranillo—this one really dried the mouth on the finish. During my time in Ribera del Duero and Rioja, I found that the barrel chosen for aging was one of the factors, in addition to age, that changed the nature of the fruity Tempranillo grape substantially. There were some winemakers devoted to French oak, some swore by American, and then there were those who mixed.
As my friends and I lingered over the food and wine, we talked about life, travel, books and more. Then we raised our simple juice glasses filled with rich red wine and toasted each other, the end of a year of writing, and the holidays.

Live from Logrono, Spain

This is day 6 for me in Spain, and it´s been an incredible journey so far. There will be photos to post later of the great folks I´ve met and things I´ve seen. First impressions: Loved Madrid, it´s a grand capital with wide avenues and graceful architecture. The Prado is beautiful and I loved exploring the galleries, like my college art history class come to life. So far the advice I have gotten from Ryan and Gabriella of Catavino has been spot on. Ryan told me to head to a specific street in the city for tapas and sure enough, they were great and the scene was lively. I met three fun Madridlenas and enjoyed a debate with one about French vs. American oak. I still prefer French, but like when it is not too heavily applied, i.e., not all new oak, and sure mix in some American too.
Driving up from Madrid I was stunned to see snow-covered mountains. My next stop was Aranda de Duero in the Ribera del Duero wine region. This is a small town that has seen way better days. Even the historic archtitecture is crumbling. However, it has lots of bars and restaurants, especially ones that serve the speciality of the area, roast baby lamb, a juicy, super tender dish that pairs so well with the Ribera del Dueros. While in the area, I had the good fortune to have a personal tour of Abadia Retuerta, a sensational modern winery where the wine is truly treated like gold. Nothing every shakes up the wine, no pumping here, every process is acheived through ingenious operations that allow gravity to remove the wine from the tanks and barrels.
I spent the afternoon in Valladolid a lovely city with so many interesting styles of architecture represented that it should be on every aspiring architect´s list of places to visit-I saw a baroque university, a Spanish gothic church, a palace with a platteresque window and more.
Driving out of the area, I was advised to avoid the shorter route as the snow was bad there. Snow? Oh, yeah, 3 hours of driving in it to get to Rioja. And in the mountains. Mountains with jagged black rocks looking down menancingly at me in my little car. Then, when the driving should have gotten better, I got thoroughly lost in Logrono. Thanks to my Iphone´s GPS, I finally made it to my hotel. I´ve grown to like this town very much, which is a stop on the Pilgrim´s route to Compostala. Well, apologies for the typos, etc., it´s rough blogging from the road.