The flavor of barbecue smoke in wine of Estrémadure
Discover the of Estrémadure wines revealing the of barbecue smoke flavor during the olphactive analysis (nose) and during the gustative analysis (mouth).
Extremadura is one of the 17 administrative regions (officially "autonomous communities") of Spain. It is located in the Southwest of the country, on the border with Portugal. It is separated from Andalusia in the south by the Sierra Morena mountains, and from the Central plateau and Castile by the Sierra de Gata range. Extremadura is sparsely populated, but has an abundance of wildlife, such as deer, otters and even lynx.
Its wild black pigs, which feed on acorns, will become the famous "Jamón Ibérico" (Iberian ham). It is not, however, famous for its wine, although viticulture has been going on for centuries. The basic wines produced in the region have not traditionally attracted the attention of greater Spain, let alone the outside world - not least because the local wineries lacked modern technology. However, the DO Ribera del Guadiana title was created in the region in 1999 to bring together six Vino de la Tierra zones and represent the best that Extremadura has to offer.
I’d like to say we took advantage of the lockdown and its related commotion to do a stock-take, explore new avenues, turn over intriguing stones, widen and deepen our drinking, taking careful notes as we went. Sadly, no. I won’t say we got stuck in a rut, but we did tend to stick with comfort wines – and “comfort”, in our case, means familiar. Regular readers of this quarterly column can probably guess the labels on the resulting empties. We have a wider range of comfort foods, I’m afraid, than ...
With a production capacity of 691,000 litres, the Quinta do Ataíde winery in the Vilariça Valley will be exclusively used for unfortified wine production. The investment sum is triple the amount initially estimated back in 2018, and the winery is a key part of the company’s strategy to double premium unfortified wine sales by 2030. ‘Since the original plans were announced, we have decided to significantly increase the size of the facility as a result of our confidence in the growing demand ...
When I started my nomadic winemaking project, in 2018 at Niepoort Vinhos in Portugal’s Douro region, I had no idea how large a part Spain would go on to play – I certainly never intended to make it the locus of my project. So how did it happen? Yes, there was an element of chance and taking opportunities where they arose. But also, among the talented winemakers to whom I pitched collaborations, I sensed an openness and a readiness to collaborate which seemed particular to Spain. Held in June las ...