Wine tasting at Delhaize this morning

This morning I went shopping in Delhaize and was happily amused by the fact that there was a wine tasting event ongoing. I could, of course, not resist joining in and trying of few of the wines.

I tried the white Trio (Sauvignon Blanc), a Riesling not to remember, and the Sunrise Chardonnay (I already bought the Sunrise Carmenere last week). The Trio was the best ones of these whites (in my humble opinion).

After that we moved on to reds. I started with the Santa Digna Carmenere 2008, which showed a lot more body than the Sunrise Carmenere, but which also means it is not for everyone to enjoy easily (although I did). After that we jumped immediately to Torres's Celeste (DO Ribero del Duero) which was just perfect. It is a crianza wine (ie 12 months in oak), 100% tinto fino (aka tempranillo) and is just delicious, especially for its reduced price of 12.75Euro.

Like all crianza tempranillo wines you either like them or not as they have quite a specific taste. In this one the tannins are not too heavy (having been tempered by the oak), and there was still quite a lot of fruit left in the wine (2006 vintage). The alcohol level is quite high (14.5%), but it doesn't show in the aroma's nor the taste of the wine.

Less important, but still fun is that the bottle itself looks impressive as well, with a very nice label that has some stars on it.

After tasting this wonderful wine I was talking to the wine-specialist and we both agreed that Spain still has good price vs quality which is most of the times not true for France. To prove our point we tried a 20Euro bottle of Chateau Poujeuax 2001 (Moulis). This wine was not comparable to the Celeste in taste (also because it it already much older), and I actually did not like it at all.

My most expensive taste (until now)

Friday evening we joined some friends at the winetasting at Puerta Del Sol wines in Deure. As usual most of the wines we already knew (as we visit them regularly).

Some (not so new) highlights are the Gran Brut Allier Cava (expensive for a cava, but due to the aging in wood a real feast) and the excellent Marti Fabra Vinyes Velles (many explicit but very good taninnes).

At the end of the tasting we were welcomed to a table with a few more exclusive wines ...
First of was the Genium Costers 2005 (>30Euro/bottle) which is really a very, very, very nice priorato wine, but unfortunately it shows in the price. The taste is quite exquisite with a lot of depth and each sip gives you another impression.
To top this Genium Costers (that I tasted before in the shop) the owner of the store decided to give something extra ... after going to the back for while he returned with one of the 5 remaining bottles of Ribas de Cabrera 2001 ...
This wine has a list price of 64Euro, which makes it the most expensive wine I've tasted to date (although I already know this record will be broken on the 8th of October, more about that later).
Is this wine worth its price ? I don't think so ... it was an excellent wine, probably even better than the Genium Costers, but I don't think I've reached the level of taste or aroma awareness that makes me appreciate the price. I will not say that I will never buy this kind of wines (maybe as investment, rather than for drinking ;-)), but for now I don't even consider it.

A nice spring evening and some white wines

Today was a wonderful day here in Belgium and temperatures easily reached more than 23 degrees which caused also the evening to be quite warm.

After dinner (Mc Donalds with the kids, thus no wine involved), we decided to sit in the garden some more and open up a bottle of white wine.
We chose bottle of Castelo de Medina Verdejo, which is an excellent white wine from the Spanish Rueda DO. This is a wine with a lot of body and the necessary sours to support it, not as alcohol driven as some other Spanish wines (only 12.5 degrees alcohol).

After sipping our glasses for a while we got a visit from my parents in law, although they do like white wine they are more fan of classical French Sauvignon Blanc wines like Sancerre and the likes ... back to the cellar to get a bottle of Sancerre.

Unfortunately this first bottle (a bottle from Delhaize we once received as part of a gift from I don't remember who) had turned bad and basically had no taste at all in it anymore.

Back to the cellar again, this time to emerge with the last bottle of Domaine du Salvard - Cheverny 2006, which is an excellent alternative (although it is a blend Sauvignon Blanc / Chardonnay) to sometimes a lot more expensive Sancerre wines.

At the end of the evening we finished these two bottles and felt quite happy to have spent such a wonderful evening in the garden.