Give us this day our daily wine!
It was a Methodist church we went to, so we certainly weren’t beseeching the above – and here’s me writing this on a Sunday too!
My favourite published wine magazine here in Spain, PlanetAVino, recently ran an article titled, ‘El Vino de Diario’ – in short, Daily Wine, wines that we drink on a daily basis. I’m sure readers will be interested in the article (though it is in Spanish) – it covers whites, rosados and reds, no sparklers, unfortunately. Prices range from 4€ 9.50€ and I wondered how this fits into your budget – please send me an e-mail with any comments!
For me, wine is a part of the culture of Spain. Yes, I admit to a little bias here, this is the wine column that I’ve been writing since it’s inception over 21 years ago, after all! However, I think that the Spanish would agree – it’s part of the very fabric of community, here on the Iberian peninsular! Therefore, by many of us, it’s consumed every day – though, pursuant to doctor’s orders, following my heart attack in December, in moderation, of course!
Interestingly, in Barcelona many of the good hotels have a bottle of Cava on the go – for breakfast! And I was delighted to see this repeated on the mornings of the formal dinner days, when on our recent cruise – did I mention the Caribbean?! However, I guess that ‘daily’ actually means a glass or two at dinner, and maybe a sneaky one at lunch as well?
All very nice - but it comes with a price tag, of course, and how much we spend on our ‘daily wine’ depends upon our own individual circumstances. It is a definite misperception to think, nay, believe, as some do, that having a knowledge about wine means that you have lotsa disposable money. Whilst some wine types, do, I don’t, that’s for sure, so the article in PlanetAVino, is a useful one.
That said, I’ve been aware since, well, for ever really, that one of the great benefits of living in Spain is that we do not need to spend a lot of money to be able to acquire quality wine. There’s an amazing choice of wine at economic prices, from the perfectly acceptable, to the really rather good! In the article above the columnist has listed about 50 wines, but there are surely many more.
So, at random from that list I selected a bodega that had more than wines included and wrote to them explaining that I was about to write an article about Daily Wines. To my delight, and for research purposes only, of course(!), I received three wines a few days later.
A quick browse through the website www.guadianeja.shopery.com/ inicio will reveal that here we have a bodega that is intent of making wines that are affordable to us all. Their most expensive wine is just over 10€, with their least expensive priced at just 2€, and most others hover around the -4-6€ mark. Well, it’s a good start – but what sort of quality are we talking about here?
Señorío de Guadaneja wines deliver just what we want out of our Daily Wines!
Their white Macabeo 2018 is a fine introduction to this grape variety, native to Spain. Macabeo (Macabeu, in Catalan) is one of the principle varieties used in the production of Cava and has been for so many years the grape synonymous with white Rioja, though in the north it’s called Viura, as many readers will know.
From Macabeo, we can often expect clean, refreshing acidity, with a pleasing green apple aroma and flavour. Señorío de Guadaneja delivers this in abundance, with some background support from baked apple aromas and a little slightly under ripe pear flavour too. Easy drinking, fresh white wine – for daily use!
Ditto, the Señorío de Guadaneja Tempranillo 2018 red. This wine gives a newcomer an instant crash course in what we can expect from Spain’s most famous variety, when it is left to its own devices, without any oak influence. Wild strawberries, a little leafy earth and a soft red fruit finish.
Of course it’s Rioja that made Tempranillo’s name, but this is from La Mancha, a huge wine producing area, where, in truth, one can sometimes be underwhelmed by the quality. This wine goes some way to correcting that perception. Having tasted the wine and made my notes for this article, we sat back and simply enjoyed the wine, firstly with dinner, in fact a vegetarian dish with aubergines as the main ingredient, and then with Netflix!
And here’s the bonus – I have another bottle yet to enjoy!
*Please let me know what sort of figure you usually pay for your ‘Daily Wine’ – just out of interest, no names will be revealed, to protect the guilty!