tiny wine blog: April? It's Spanish Whites.

Fell off a wagon. Or on a wagon.
The month of April doesn't seem to want me to drink a lot of wine. The first half of the month roared in (like it does) and crammed a bunch of pollen into my head and I spent a lot of time "off the juice" - although I hit the Cognac and Scotch.


Spanish Whites
So, as I emerged from my Sudafed stupor and opened windows and looked outside I realized that I needed to come up with a wine to drink this month. Something as successfull as Malbec was last month (it wasn't that sucessful). Just about then my phone chirped and it was that guy Chris. You know, Chris. That guy. He wanted to meet at Tia Pol and needed some help tasting through some white Rioja's he was reviewing for a popular wine magazine in the UK. As an FYI, I will never turn down an invite to eat lunch at Tia Pol.


Viura
Chris had a box of wines made from the Viura grape (AKA Macabeo). Viura is probably best known as one of the grapes used in Cava, the lovely sparkling wine from Spain. Honestly, I am not sure I have drunk a lot of Viura by itself, and I may have been spoiled by this introduction to the grape as all the wines seemed to be super small productions (all the numbers he quoted were in bottles, not cases) from classic vineyards and harvested by unicorns. The wines were great. Crisp yet almost rich. Floral notes and something that I thought was lemon custard/pudding.
Brilliant with all sorts of food and... delicious.

If I was buying these wines, I think I'd go with the older versions if possible. Some of the ones we had were pretty tight and could probably benefit from some age. Also, I had a Viura-Chardonnay blend the other night and found the addition of Chardonnay kind of pointless. So, go for all Viura instead of a blend.


Godello
Last night we had a wine made from the Godello grape. You know, Godello! The grape studied by Roman naturalist and author Pliny the Elder (23 – 79 AD)!
OK, I know zilch about Godello.
I will say it's aromatic - almost like a albarino lite.




The others
There are other white grapes in Spain such as Albarino and Verdejo. They are way more popular that Viura (which I suspect is way more popular than Godello).
Let's drink those next.

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