Navarra Wine Adventure, The First Day (Officially)

So begins the first day on my Navarra Wine Adventure.
After a bit of a blow out on the night we arrived, I found myself in my hotel bed thinking that perhaps I needed to nurse my drinks in order to survive the trip. Whenever a group of wine bloggers get together, things have the potential to get a bit fun. That realization caused me to get out of bed, while still remembering the events described below, and begin my first day in Navarra.

The "#Navarra5" had a blast on Sunday night, visiting various tapas bars around Pamplona. In fact, tapas is not used by the natives of Navarra, they kept reminding me that the term was "pintxos", pronounced "pinchos". As those of you who speak Spanish know, a slight mis-pronunciation of that word could have dire consequences. Pintxos are single-serve bites, sort of like a large amuse bouche. They can be anything from a small roll with Jamon Iberico on it, freshly cooked eel, tortillas (not that kind), cheese and jamon bites in a crunchy shell, even smoked sardines. You go to the pintxos place and order a bunch of small plates, usually for about one Euro or so, wash it down with a glass or two of wine, then head out for dinner or to a show. I love this idea!

The group's favorite restaurant/bar for pintxos quickly became El Gaucho, located only a half kilometer from our hotel, Palacio Guendulain, making it very conveinent. We ended up visiting El Gaucho multiple times throughout the trip, always in search of delicious pintxos, and of course, Navarra wine!

Meeting downstairs in the overcast, cool light of a Navarran morning (September 19th), our van was quickly loaded with camera gear, bags, and wine bloggers. The first stop was 30 minutes away, at the headquarters for the D.O. Navarra. Set in a beautiful postmodern building, this is where Navarran wine is administered. The facility also acts as a research station for Spanish viticulture.




Thankfully there was coffee and water for us all, and we were introduced to the D.O. of Navarra via a slide show from the wonderfully enthusiastic Pilar García-Granero, who is the head of the administrative agency. Some of what was covered includes the history of the Kingdom of Navarra itself, Navarran grapegrowing, and an overview of some of the rules that wine from Navarra must adhere to.

Given a proper sense of context, we were ready to explore the area, starting with the Castle at Olite, where we got a guided tour of the grounds. The pictures below make an effort to capture the beauty and sheer scale of Olite. To view more pictures of my trip to Olite, visit my Flickr photostream.

With that tour complete and the #Navarra5 getting thirsty, it was time to visit a winery! Another 30 minute car ride brought us to Bodega Inurrieta, where we met Jose Antonia Pellicer and winemaker Kepa Sagastizabal who gave us a tour of the winery before leading a tasting of their wines. I've written about Inurrieta previously, one of their wines was in a Wines of Navarra Live Tasting and showed well.

After tasting and discussing the wines, we were treated to a magnificent lunch, with the winery owner himself doing the cooking. Lasting a full two hours, we ate summer greens, piquillo peppers, chickpea soup, steak, and a dessert called cuajada, one of the most interesting things I've ever had.

Stuffed with both food and information, the #Navarra5 journeyed to the next stop, Bodegas Ochoa. That name should ring a bell, I've written about their wines in my Dessert Wine blog post as well as the Wines of Navarra Live Tasting post. Talking to Beatriz Ochoa and Pablo Aguirre, I enjoyed their enthusiasm and passion for the bodega. It also didn't hurt that the wines were superb. We even got to talk (via translator) with the founder himself, Mr. Javier Ochoa Martínez.

In the span of one day, I had visited two wineries producing deliciously accessible wines which are primed for the American market. Considering how we Millennials are growing more adventurous in our quest for good bottles, I really hope my generation starts asking for Navarra wine at our local wine shops. These kinds of wines, priced at around $7-$15, would sell like crazy one wine lovers tasted them. That is a fact.

Back into the van, a somewhat tired group headed back to Pamplona for a few hours of rest before heading to dinner at Enekorri, a restaurant of great renown. In the pictures below you'll see that I ate some amazing dishes, all paired with Navarra wine. The freshness of the ingredients combined with the care at their preparation left me impressed (and full!)

The food was amazing, one of the best meals I've had all year and each dish paired very nicely with the wines. Our host for dinner, Conchi Biurrun, picked wines from all over the region to showcase the versatility that is Navarra wine.

After the meal the #Navarra5 headed back to our marvelous hotel for a much needed break, to rest our minds, bodies, and palates for the next day. On our second day, September 20, we were to tour more wineries and take a walking tour of the city of Pamplona. That blog entry will be a lot of fun, and I promise some wonderful pictures are to come.

Beau Carufel

Tasting Wine From Navarra, Spain.

I recently tasted through ten wines from the Kingdom of Navarra, in Spain. This was another "Live Tasting" using the TasteLive website and hosted by Mike Wangbickler of Balzac and the Wines of Navarra trade group. Frequent readers (all five of you) may recall I've done a few tastings previously with Mike. I think they like me or something, and I ain't complaining!

(img src http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Navarre) 

Over the past year I've been fortunate enough to taste a nice selection of wines from Navarra, encompassing reds, whites, and rosé's. This coming September I hope to visit Navarra as part of a blogger trip organized  by the Wines of Navarra trade organization. There is a big push right now to introduce these wines to American palates, specifically through wine and food bloggers. While I may be a bit biased (being a wine blogger and all), I think this is a good idea.

Below is the lineup, ten different wines from Navarra encompassing traditional varietals and some slightly more esoteric ones. Here's the list for the Wines of Navarra Twitter Taste Live:

1. 2010 Castillo de Monjardin Fince el Cerezo Chardonnay
2. 2009 Otazu Chardonnay
3. 2010 Gran Feudo Rosado (Garnacha)
4. 2010 Senorio de Sarria Vinedo no. 5 (Rosado)
5. 2010 Senorio de UNX Garnacha
6. 2008 Malon de Echaide Tinto Roble (Garnacha)
7. 2006 Maro Real Crianza (Tempranillo, Cabernet Sauvignon)
8. 2008 Inurrieta SUR (Garnacha, Graciano)
9. 2007 Albret French Oak (Cabernet Sauvignon, Merlot, Tempranillo)
10. 2010 Ocoha Moscatel

Out of the above list, I've actually had previous vintages of a couple of wines, notably the 2008 Ochoa Moscatel and 2009 Senorio de Sarria Vinedo no. 5. That Moscatel was sublime while the Senorio de Sarria did leave me wanting more.

Below are the highlights of the tasting for me. I don't think you'll be interested in reading through ten different tasting notes and frankly, some wines were far more worthy than others in this lineup. Seeing the range of quality was interesting to me, as a Californian I get used to the "standard" or baseline quality I get out of even the cheapest (except Charles Shaw) wines from here. That isn't the case in Spain, or even across Europe, as quality can vary and not really correlated to price. So here it is, my top several wines from the Wines of Navarra Twitter Taste Live:

1. 2010 Castillo de Monjardin Finca el Cerezo Chardonnay - Bright straw hued, a nose bursting with granny smith apples and pears, hints of tropical fruit and lemon zest. Off and on during the tasting, I smelled hints of coconut as well. The mouthfeel began as something soft and rich without being too heavy. There was ample pear and apple flavors held back by a nicely framed acid profile which kept the wine clean. I particularly liked the finish, almost Chablis-like in it's mineral driven finesse. Overall, at $12, a very nice bottle of wine. B, BUY recommendation. 13.5% abv.

2. 2010 Gran Feudo Rosado - Made from 100% Garnacha (grenache) grapes from a winery founded way back in 1647, the Gran Feudo rosado is electric pink with a hint of orange. I smelled ripe strawberries and a great mineral note. After letting the wine warm up a bit, I could detect some pleasant herbal aromas as well. When I tasted this rosado I was impressed with the way the acidity and minerality combined to create a bone dry wine with just a fleeting hit of ripe strawberries and raspberries. I think the group tasting was mixed in their reactions, some didn't like the strong acid and mineral profile, but I sure did. B, STRONG BUY recommendation. 13% abv.

3. 2010 Senorio de Sarria Vinedo no. 5 - Also made from 100% Garnacha (grenache) with an average age of 50 years, this was a stylistically different rosé than the Gran Feudo. The color is similar, vibrant pink with hints of orange. The differences were apparent right away, with the Senorio de Sarria smelling of wild roses, strawberries, and melon. A seam of orange zest wound its way through the aroma, adding a delightful facet. This was a heartier, richer smelling wine. If I had to draw one similarity with the Gran Feudo, the Vinedo no. 5 did have a bit of minerality present, but it was much riper and more fruit driven, balancing that ripeness with a touch of acid that kept this rosé in the "dry" category. At $16 it is a good deal and a quality wine. B-, BUY recommendation. 14% abv.

4. 2010 Senorio de UNX - Another grenache here, but a red one versus a rosé. Very red in my glass, this was perhaps the brightest wine of the tasting.For those of you who enjoy fruit-forward red wines, this will make you happy! The nose is all raspberry reduction and blackberry preserves over a hint of green herbs. The UNX makes no bones about it's ripeness, on the palate though there is some refreshing gravelly minerals and more of that green stem to restrain the big fruits. The finish got a bit hot for me, despite the wine being only 13.5% abv, but other than that it's a solid wine for only $8. B-, STRONG BUY recommendation.

5. 2006 Marco Real Crianza - A blend of 60% tempranillo and 40% cabernet sauvignon, this is some purple juice! My first whiffs brought back memories of cutting Christmas trees in a muddy field, the pine and wet earth mingling together. I also got some great herbal notes, black olives, and very dark fruit. Think blackberry and black cherry melded together in one of those industrial presses like they used to kill the first Terminator. The mouthfeel was thick, chewy and massive. I could taste the Marco Real all over my mouth. Loads of tannin, bittersweet chocolate, cassis, and leather all came to the wet-earth-sandbox. I liked this wine a lot but boy does it need some time in a decanter, or another five years in the bottle. B+, STRONG BUY recommendation, especially at $15 a bottle. 14.5% abv.

6. 2010 Ochoa Moscatel - The final wine of the evening, a delicious dessert wine. After tasting the 2008 Ochoa Moscatel, I had high hopes for this one. When I poured it into my glass I noted a gorgeous light honey color, almost romantic in it's lightness. Right away I could smell the aromas of peaches and pears in syrup, this got my mouth watering! I could also get a bit of apricots dancing their way through the peach and pear. Ochoa has been around since 1845, it's modern incarnation since 1985 when Javier Ochoa took it over. These days his daughter Adriana crafts the wines and is doing a marvelous job. I tasted more of the peaches and pears, mango, and enough acidity to prevent things from getting cloying and gross. I think the only knock was the finish which seemed to fall apart too quickly. That being said, the 2010 Ochoa Moscatel will only get better with a few more years in the bottle. It's $20 for a 375ml, about right for a dessert wine. B+, STRONG BUY recommendation.

I had a great time (again) tasting through this lineup of wines from Navarra, as a wine geek chances like this are of immense value because they help me get to know that area's wines better. I think Navarra is definitely an up and coming wine region, the wines are fairly priced and well made with an eye towards drinkability. I'm not too sure if there are higher end bottlings from these producers but it would be interesting to taste them and compare to high end Napa cabernet, Bordeaux, and Rioja wines. Granted, that's a bit out of my pocketbook's range.

Big thanks to Catherine Seda and Mike Wangbickler at Balzac Communications for putting this together. Catherine is the go-to for your Wines of Navarra questions, as well as being an all around great gal. Check out the Wines of Navarra links I've scattered through this blog to learn more as well as find some of these delicious wines.

These wines were media samples for review purposes.


Beau Carufel

A Winner From Navarra: 2006 Bodegas Ochoa Tempranillo

We go back to Spain tonight, back to Navarra. I opened this 2006 Tinto (Tempranillo) after receiving it about three weeks ago. As I wrote about previously, Navarra has some seriously ancient wine making traditions and is now making a concerted effort to get back into the consumer consciousness as a wine region. As a fan of Spanish wines in general, I was happy to get some samples and see how Navarra compares to more well known regions like Rioja or Priorat.

Bodegas Ochoa Tempranillo Crianza is 100% Tempranillo from a single vineyard, called "El Bosque". Alcohol by volume is a modest 13.5%. Under Spanish labeling laws, Crianza means that the wine (red in this case) must age for at least two years with a minimum of six months in oak barrels. Historically, the Spaniards have use the ageing time to classify wines rather than other methods like the Cru system in France. Of the three major categories, Crianza is the lowest level. That isn't to say it's an indicative of a cheap or sub-par wine though. As it happens, Ochoa aged their Tempranillo for a year in oak and two years in the bottle before releasing it.






One hour went by, agonizingly slowly, after I opened Ochoa. Very nice purple color in the glass, not quite opaque. If red wine has a generic color, I strongly suspect this would be it.

Aromas of cherry pie, dried herbs and leather came to the party tonight. Alcoholic heat tickled my nostrils (I hate that word!) but only just so. This wine needed more than an hour to open up, which I found oddly pleasing. Wine like that always carries itself more elegantly and often tastes more structurally sound, it has gravitas even.

Dried cherries, tannin, and a touch of oak all rounded out by a streak of classic Old World minerality. The '06 Ochoa is very well put together wine and now, four years after it was made, is perhaps drinking at it's peak. Admittedly I'm biased towards Old World wines, just ask my wine-geek friends. Still, for someone who is more familiar with New World wine, the Ochoa Tempranillo is very accessible and a good way to get acquainted with wine from Navarra.

For a wine geek like me, it's hard not to be impressed by the structure and balance considering the Suggested Retail Price is $14.50. Easy B for me and a BUY recommendation, it isn't often we get to find such an affordable Tempranillo with some bottle age on it. Try pairing this wine with some Iberico cheese shaved over an omelet that you've put some fresh tomatoes, jalapenos and mushrooms into.

This wine was a sample for review purposes.

Beau Carufel