Wines from Navarra
Mar. 11th, 2006 12:18 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
shewhomustWell, that wasn't anything like what I'd expected! Our friend Helen Savage has just organised a series of tastings of wines from the Spanish region of Navarra, and we were half roped in, half eager volunteers, to help at the Durham session on Thursday. The deal was that we would stand behind tables, ensure that customers always had something to taste, open bottles - and at the end of the evening we would have a share of the unfinished bottles to take home. So in as far as I was anticipating anything, I thought it would be an evening's work - interesting and enjoyable work, but a period of looking after other people's pleasure rather than my own, and trying not to make a fool of myself by failing to get corks out of bottles.
What I had not allowed for was that the Asociación Bodegas de Navarra, (who have an attractive but inscrutable web site) had provided fifty different wines from their fifteen constituent members. And we opened them all before the evening began. There were comparatively few customers, but Helen seemed quite content: this would give her a chance to taste the wines before the busier sessions the following day, she said. The result was that the evening was less like work, more like hosting a party: we made sure people tasted as many wines as they could, that they had water and dry biscuits to clear the palate, but also that they had someone to talk to - and we tasted a serious number of wines ourselves! I don't think anyone managed all fifty, though, and there were a number of bottles to be re-corked and carried home at the end of the evening.
On this partial basis, the star of the night seems to have been Bodegas Nekeas: I missed their rosé, but the chardonnay (Cuvée Allier, named for the French oak in which it is aged) was delicious; oaky chardonnay can be very boring, but this had a perfect balance of candied fruit sweetness and that toasty, oaky edge.
Other than that I tried wines whose names appealed to me: the Bodegas Nuestra Señora del Camino, for the association with the Camino, the pilgrim way to Compostella (I enjoyed the Pedro de Ivar Crianza), the Bodegas Ada, because even if you can resist a winery called Ada, you'd have to taste a Minotaur brand wine, wouldn't you? I liked both of their reds, so it must be a good principle.
The only disappointment is that it wasn't possible to try more of the wines - and that I was so enjoying the reds that I missed out completely on one of the two dessert wines.
What I had not allowed for was that the Asociación Bodegas de Navarra, (who have an attractive but inscrutable web site) had provided fifty different wines from their fifteen constituent members. And we opened them all before the evening began. There were comparatively few customers, but Helen seemed quite content: this would give her a chance to taste the wines before the busier sessions the following day, she said. The result was that the evening was less like work, more like hosting a party: we made sure people tasted as many wines as they could, that they had water and dry biscuits to clear the palate, but also that they had someone to talk to - and we tasted a serious number of wines ourselves! I don't think anyone managed all fifty, though, and there were a number of bottles to be re-corked and carried home at the end of the evening.
On this partial basis, the star of the night seems to have been Bodegas Nekeas: I missed their rosé, but the chardonnay (Cuvée Allier, named for the French oak in which it is aged) was delicious; oaky chardonnay can be very boring, but this had a perfect balance of candied fruit sweetness and that toasty, oaky edge.
Other than that I tried wines whose names appealed to me: the Bodegas Nuestra Señora del Camino, for the association with the Camino, the pilgrim way to Compostella (I enjoyed the Pedro de Ivar Crianza), the Bodegas Ada, because even if you can resist a winery called Ada, you'd have to taste a Minotaur brand wine, wouldn't you? I liked both of their reds, so it must be a good principle.
The only disappointment is that it wasn't possible to try more of the wines - and that I was so enjoying the reds that I missed out completely on one of the two dessert wines.
