The Wine Curmudgeon

Expensive wine 37: Beronia Rioja Gran Reserva 2001

The Wine Curmudgeon loves Rioja. The Spanish red, produced in the northern region of Rioja and made mostly with tempranillo, is food friendly, classy and a tremendous value. One can buy Gran Reserva, the best made of the three levels of Rioja, for pennies on the dollar compared to similar quality wines from the world's other top wine regions. And $10 Riojas are almost always equally as excellent values.

The Beronia ($28, purchased) is a more modern style of Rijoa, which means it's bit higher in alcohol and has fresher, more forward fruit. It's still the classic cherry that Rioja is known for, but a lot more noticeable. And modern though it may be, it still smells like a Rioja (I'd say funky; the correct winespeak is probably spicy or earthy) and it posseses the lively acidity and well-integrated oak that these wines are famous for.

One of the favorite moments in my wine career was a lunch in a small town in Rioja, with a bottle of Crianza (the basic level of Rioja), roast baby lamb and canned white asparagus. I can still taste the way the lamb and the wine went together, and it makes me smile whenever I think about it.

And a tip o' the Curmudgeon's fedora to Laurie Daniel, who judged with me at last week's Dallas Morning News-TexSom competition, and donated this bottle to the cause because she didn't want to cram it in her luggage. Much appreciated, Laurie.

Wine review: Tres Picos Garnacha 2010

The Wine Curmudgeon will say this right out front: I don't like this style of Spanish garnacha. There's nothing traditional about it, and it's certainly not about nuance and subtlety like a great Rioja. Rather, it's about cramming as much ripe, red fruit and alcohol into the wine as possible, producing a jammy, concentrated effort with very little in the way of tannins.

Having said that, this style of wine is immensely popular. Robert Parker adores it, and has defended it against all comers -- even insisting that it is Spanish not only in name, but in terroir. It does very well in the marketplace, too; brands like Las Rocas and Evodia sell well and show up on best-of-lists all the time.

The Tres Picos ($13, sample) is firmly part of this post-modern Spanish wine philosophy. It's dark, heavy, alcoholic (14 1/2 percent), rich and fruity, with minimal tannins and with an almost ashy aftertaste. It's not as well made as the Evodia, which came close to getting into the 2012 $10 Hall of Fame, but it is more approachable than the Las Rocas (which, frankly, has always bored me).

The Tres Picos needs food -- red meat preferably -- to balance all that fruit and alcohol. Again, it's not for everyone, but for people who prefer this style, it's a solid effort.

Mini-reviews 31: Carmel Road, Campodelsole, Wine Guerrilla, Embotellado

Reviews of wines that don’t need their own post, but are worth noting for one reason or another. Look for it on the final Friday of each month (Thursday this month because of the holiday):

• Carmel Road Liberated Chardonnay ($16, sample): Unoaked chardonnay that is fresh, clean and crisp. Holds its 14.1 percent alcohol well, and is pretty much a value at this price.

• Campodelsole Sangiovese 2008 ($5, purchased): As The Italian Wine guy put it: "That $5 wine should be $12. But we don’t know how to sell it to Americans. So we are discounting it while it is still good. Our gift to you." Earthy and old-fashioned; needs food.

• Wine Guerrilla Rebel Cru 2009 ($25, sample): Powerful zinfandel red blend with massive fruit, almost 15 percent alcohol and very little subtlety. If you like that style of wine, you're going to love this. Excellent example of post-modern California winemaking.

• Embotellado Rioja 2010 ($12, sample): Lots of red fruit in the middle. Nothing really wrong with it if you want a fruit forward wine that tastes like Australia but comes from Spain.

Wine of the week: Freixenet Cordon Rosado Brut NV

If most wine drinkers know Freixenet, it's from the black bottle that they see at the grocery store. And the black bottle is decent enough $9 Spanish sparkling wine, or cava.

Sometimes, though, if you're lucky enough, you'll see the black bottle's cousin, a rose cava called Rosado ($9, purchased). It's a step up from the black bottle -- a little fruitier and a little more polished. In this, it sits between two of my favorite rose cavas, the Cristalino at $7 and the Seguras Viudas at $10.

The wine is made with trepat, a Spanish grape used only for cava, and garnacha, the Spanish version of grenache. Hence some soft red fruit (strawberry?), as well as a little yeastiness and lots of bubbles. In this, it's an excellent example of how a multi-national producer can turn out a cheap wine with character.

The Rosado will handle New Year's ably, whether it's for toasting on Saturday night, for brunch on Sunday morning or for sipping anytime this week. And it's an excellent food wine; I drank it with oven fried chicken and it was delicious. Highly recommended, and a candidate for the 2013 $10 Hall of Fame.

New Year's sparkling wine 2011

How confused are Americans about sparkling wine? Very. The Wine Curmudgeon was in line at one of Dallas' upscale grocers last week, and the woman ahead of me in line had all sorts of expensive produce and meat -- and six bottles of $9 Freixenet black bottle cava. That almost certainly never would have happened if she had been buying regular, or still, wine; then her cart would have had the required 92-point bottles.

Or, to take it to the other extreme, a very well-known TV chef advised her viewers a couple of weeks ago to make mimosas -- the 20-somethings' favorite hangover remedy -- with $40 sparkling wine. Which would be the equivalent of making sangria with one of the $40 reds I review in the monthly expensive wine post. Which would seem certainly seem like overkill.

What's the reason for all this confusion? Because sparkling wine is seen as even more confusing than still wine, and still wine confuses us enough. Sparkling wine is more difficult to open. We're only supposed to drink it on special occasions, and never for dinner in the middle of the week. And it has bubbles!

But sparkling wine doesn't have to be this way. In fact, other than opening it, bubbly is not much different from still wine. It's made with the same grapes, it's made in much the same way, and it pairs with food just like regular red and white wine. Best yet, quality labels are available at all prices, even for less than $10.

After the jump, what you need to know about bubbly and my suggestions for the New Year's holiday.

Wine of the week: Protocolo Blanco 2009

The Spanish have been making vin ordinaire for what seems like forever, but given that Spanish wine has traditionally been overlooked in the U.S., the only cheap Spanish table wine that most of us know is Sangre de Toro.

Which is too bad, since the company behind Protocolo does a more than decent job as well. The red was a little boring -- mostly fruit that had been too heavily handled, though not nearly as overdone as some. The Blanco ($7, sample, 12 1/2 percent alcohol), on the other hand, was a nice little surprise in the midst of holiday wine tasting. It's made with two Spanish grapes -- airén and macabeo, which is also used to make cava. The Blanco had a little lemon fruit, some earthiness and even a bit of minerality, though not as much acid as I expected. This was probably because it was a previous vintage; even so, it held up well.

Chill this and keep a bottle handy for wine with dinner (chicken comes to mind, though takeout that's not too spicy would work, too). It's mostly a warm weather wine, but I'm not going to pass up a chance to drink good cheap wine just because it's cooler in December.

Wine review: Naveran Cava Brut 2009

The Wine Curmudgeon has been drinking cava, the Spanish sparkling wine, for more than 20 years. In all that time, there has been just one label that has been crappy. This consistency of quality is mind-boggling, since wine is difficult enough to do well and cava is among the most difficult of wines to make.

The tendency, given this string of success, is to take cava for granted. And, in fact, I didn't expect too much from the Naveran ($15, purchased), which I bought for dinner last weekend. I figured it would be just another well-made cava, and probably not worth the premium I paid compared to the seemingly endless number of world-class $10 cavas that exist.

So imagine my pleasant surprise when this wine delivered more than $15 worth of value. It was another knockout cava, with lots of crispness, plenty of tight bubbles, and some sweetish apple fruit. In this, it was a fuller, richer wine than the $10 bottles that I like, and well worth the extra money. I drank it with oven fried chicken, and it paired beautifully. But drink this on its own, for toasting the upcoming holidays, or anytime you want a nice glass of bubbly.