Decanter Spain and Portugal Tasting

27 Feb 2016, Landmark Hotel
These Decanter tastings are always great fun, but it's generally hard to make any proper notes. With around 80 tasting stands it's well over a hundred tasting samples in a few hours so the notes are generally brief and, towards the end of the day, utterly incoherent! As a result, what follows is some brief notes on things which really stood out.

Highlight of the day
The absolute highlight of the day was the discovery of the wonderful wines and ports from Quinta da Romaneira. How had I not come across these before? The estate is owned by Christian Seely, of Quinta do Noval and other AXA Millesimes fame, so it's not exactly been flying under the radar.

The Touriga Nacional 2012 was superb: both floral and meaty notes coming over the underlying fruit. The foreign interloper (Syrah, 2012) was also excellent - a really great expression of the classic syrah characteristics. Also well worth watching out for is the Quinta da Romaneira LBV Unfiltered Port. At a retail price of around £12 it's marvellous value. Christian Seely was behind the stand pouring the wines and said that he takes LBV port as seriously as possible. These are single-quinta, unfiltered, trodden in lagares.

Rioja
I particularly enjoyed the following Riojas:
Valserrano Blanco Gran Reserva Rioja 2009 (Interesting oxidative character)
Ramon Bilbao, Gran Reserva Rioja 2008 (Good, modern style)
CVNE, Imperial Reserva Rioja 2009 (Great modern style)
CVNE, Imperial, Real de Asua, Rioja 2010 (Modern style, very good)
Vina Pomal, Alto de la Caseta Rioja 2010
Vina Muriel, Gran Reserva Rioja 2004 (Very, very good - probably my favourite Rioja of the day. Pretty old school, great concentration, great lenth, lots of tobacco)
Muriel (note, not "Vina" Muriel) Gran Reserva Rioja 2008 (Old schoold, austere, very good)
Muga Prado Enea, Gran Reserva Rioja 2006 (the old classic - a real crowd pleaser)
Bohedal Hebabe Graciano, Rioja Alta 2010 (Very good, but quite hard work without food)
Marques de Riscal, Baron de Chirel, Rioja 2010 (Very interesting, savoury, tomato notes)
Altos de Rioja, Altos R Pigeage Graciano Rioja 2012 (Austere, savoury, meaty, very tannic, but the tannins are well hidden)
Lar de Paula Reserva Rioja 2009 (Classic, meaty and red fruit nose)

Bierzo
Castro Ventosa, Valtuille, Cepas Centenarias, Mencia, Bierzo 2012
Soto del Vicario, Men de Mencia, Bierzo 2007

Sherry
Tragically, there was only one sherry producer there. Fortunately it was a good one - Valdespino. We tried the whole range and it was all good.
The Fino Inocente was a single vineyard fino with 10-years under the flor. I don't think I've ever had a single-quinta sherry before.
The Tio Diego Amontillado (also delicious) was another single-quinta sherry.
The Viejo CP Palo Cortado was a 20-year aged sherry (after a couple of years under flor).
The Cardenal Palo Cortado VORS basically takes the previous sherry and ages it for another 20 years in solera. This was a really superb sherry.

Random collection of other notables
At the Pesquera stand, I enjoyed all the wines. In particular, the Dehesa la Granja 2009 (Castilla y Leon I believe) was really powerful. The El Vinculo and Condado de Haza were also great.

The Agusti Torello Mata Cavas were great. I really enjoyed the "Kripta" 2008 cava (which comes in a crazy-looking Amphora bottle). The Brut Gran Reserva 2010 was also very rich. These cavas have the base wine aged in barrel and lots of lees contact. This is where the creaminess comes from - no MALO.


The Kopke stand was very interesting. Of particular note was the 30-year old White port. This was really good - very high acid, extremely crisp and refreshing.