Winemaker Notes
Professional Ratings
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Wine & Spirits
The first time I met Luis Rodríguez was around 2005, when we tasted a range of his wines along with empanadas at his small winery in the medieval village of Arnoia, in Ribeiro. Rodríguez is a patient, meticulous man focused on his vineyards. He works with native varieties, tending the vines to produce wines that, at their best, are comparable to the delicacy and strength of great pinot noir from Burgundy. A Torna Dos Pasas 2011 is one of them. Made from a selection of parcels, this includes caiño longo, caiño redondo, brancellao and ferrol; it spends a year in barrel and then another year in bottle before release. This vintage is bright, perhaps the best to date, full of intoxicating flavors of purple fruit, with a strong, earthy, mineral presence and intriguing sanguine notes. The structure relies on fierce tannins that have the strength to carry all that fruit without effort. While this is a wine of great complexity, it is also refreshing and easy to drink. The first time I tried A Torna Dos Pasas, Rodríguez cut a generous slice of empanada to accompany it, an empanada filled with fresh sardines. It’s a great match.
Spanish red wine is known for being bold, heady, rustic and age-worthy, Spain is truly a one-of-a-kind wine-producing nation. A great majority of the country is hot, arid and drought-ridden, and since irrigation has only been recently introduced and (controversially) accepted, viticulture has sustained—and flourished—only through a great understanding of Spain’s particular conditions. Large spacing between vines allows each enough resources to survive and as a result, the country has the most acreage under vine compared to any other country, but is usually third in production.
Of the Spanish red wines, the most planted and respected grape variety is Tempranillo, the star of Spain’s Rioja and Ribera del Duero regions. Priorat specializes in bold red blends, Jumilla has gained global recognition for its single varietal Monastrell and Utiel-Requena has garnered recent attention for its reds made of Bobal.