2008 Paco & Lola Albarino Rias Baixas

Now with a shorter, hopefully easier to read format! No more commentary at the top, I'll use different, non-review posts for that. Up here you might see a little blurb about why I picked this wine or maybe a shout-out to a friend and fellow blogger. I'll try to keep the look cleaner and more accessible. To all of you with Valentine's Day plans, congrats and I hope everything goes great. For us single people, there's always next year. This year I'll be opening a bottle of wine, watching a comedy, and probably ordering Chinese food.

 

2008 Paco & Lola Albarino Rias Baixas

  

I really, really, really love Albarino. There, now you know I'm biased. However, I did pay for this wine, so that should help even things out. For $13, I've yet to have an Albarino as delicious and well put together. Just the right amount of acid which framed beautiful notes of apricot, green apple, grass and lime. Served with a decent chill on it, this stuff went great with the shrimp stir-fry I did. That apricot is fleeting but adds just enough of a lush mouthfeel on the mid palate to prevent this wine from getting too close to a Sauvignon Blanc. I'm really big on varietally honest wines, this is one for sure. When you smell it, you get a well integrated set of scents (say that five times fast!) that include perfume, grapefruit, herbs and maybe pineapple too. Did I mention how much I love Albarino? 

Since I give every wine a grade, Paco & Lola get a solid A. Earlier I'd tweeted about this wine and given it an A- but I changed that after it warmed up a touch and got more complex. Everything is so well integrated that despite the range of flavors, it never feels clunky in your mouth. You could even sip this on a hot day and realy enjoy it's refreshing qualitites. I'm going back to buy some more and thanks to Mark at San Diego Wine Company for turning me onto this little gem.

Well that was fast, I feel like I'm somehow shortchanging the reader by not writing more, but I'm willing to try this format out. Entries will be short and tight, hopefully giving the right amount of information to those seeking a new wine to try. As always, thank you for reading and I look forward to your comments.

Beau Carufel