MIPTC #6 - Envinate Albahra 2020

Hey y'all! Happy Friday! It must be five o'clock somewhere in the world (I'm thinking perhaps in Sri Lanka or Kalkuta?) so let's get our wineing on, shall we?

This week, we're having a very fine bottle from a fine region I sadly drink too little of: Spain.

Now, you might have a preconceived idea of what "Spanish wines" taste like. I can also confidently say that it is most likely wrong.

Why? Because this great country of winemaking is anything but homogenous when it comes to its wine. From glassy, ethereal Albariños to potent Rioja to fun and festive Cava, you get so much variety in Spain that it is absolutely impossible to generalize as to style. There's also a very big range of quality levels, from simple big box wines all the way to the really top shelf stuff that rivals with the most prestigious stuff France puts on the market.

Here, we are looking at a lovely young, racy and even flirty young red from the Levant region, which is basically the easternmost region of the peninsula on the Spanish Mediterranean coast, including the Valencian countryside.

Now, this might seem like a great place to be born a grape: who doesn't love a sun-drenched coast on one of the most scenic seas there is...? Well, you might want to think about this one twice. In fact, the Levante is one of the world's most extreme terroirs— we're talking the hottest, most desolate and drought-prone growing conditions of any wine region that touches up against the Mediterranean Sea. These grapes are clearly not on vacation. Rather, they're constantly fighting for survival. This is therefore not for the faint of heart, and explains why the traditional varietals grown here are tough, thick-skinned varieties with a track record of making robust wines. Most white grapes are actually considered too delicate!

You can therefore imagine the kind of wine style we normally see here: rough-edged, tannic and hyper-concentrated wines caused by the very high sugar-to-juice ratio in the grapes themselves (more sun and less water mean a higher sugar concentration, which then means more food for yeasts to turn into alcohol, which results in more potent wines). Will this particular example stay true to the style or will we be somewhat surprised?

It's time to find out!

To start, I'll say that the label clearly affirms the identity of this wine as a Mediterranean wine. We see too little of this otherwise very evocative term: the wines of Eastern Spain, Provence, Sardinia, Corsica and Coastal Italy do indeed have a similar DNA due to their proximity to the sea, and it's about time we celebrate them as family.

The Skinny

• From: Albacete, at the southeastern tip of the Castilla-La Mancha subregion

• Varietals:  70% Garnacha Tintorera and 30% Moravia Agria

• Price: $23 CAD (killer value)

• Feature: Natural wine

Tasting Notes

On the nose, we get a lovely surprise from the get-go. This is not heavy or cloying wine at all, but a very fresh and vibrant collection of aromas. You immediately get blackberry juice, along with some plumy notes and something a little zestier more along the lines of wild strawberries. As you get more into it and the wine gets more air, a whole new foresty dimension immerges with laurel, pink pepper, anise, licorice and cinnamon. I know this may sound like a lot, but this is beautifully integrated into a wine that does not seem heavy or congested at all: just a whole lot of good stuff in a very elegant package.

On the palate, you get what the nose promised: a striking balance of complexity and uncomplicated elegance. Soft and textured, the wine has subtle round tannins that play elegantly with its berry-forward nature. The acidity keeps things fresh and never cloying with a kind of come-hither feeling that keeps you salivating towards your next sip. No alcoholic burn as you find so often in Levante wines. At only 13%, this is barely noticeable on its one and very elegantly integrated. You can also enjoy a surprisingly long finish on this one: this lingering aftertaste of laurel-infused blackberry jam is a clear sign these folks know what they are doing and are offering it at a surprisingly cheap price.

Cutting To The Chase: Does It Please The Cork?

I guess you can tell by now that I really liked this, right? I really did, y'all: this was a splendid, clean and fun-loving natural wine I'd warmly recommend you try and hunt down a bottle (or three). Food wise, this would be at its place near the grill but shows good potential pretty much everywhere where light to medium reds would make sense. Not so sure about ageing potential as the tannins were already quite integrated in youth but it's such incredible value you might as well try to lay a bottle down a few years... Tell me what happens then!

Cork score: 3.5/5 (extra .5 mostly because this is the kind of stuff I'd happily pay 40$+ for).

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*Here's the lowdown on the scores, by the way. Essentially, I don't believe in 100-point scales for things as subjective as wine. Simply put, I just don't think one can credibly justify a 1% or even a 10% increment between two wines. I therefore choose to go a bit more basic. Here's how I break it down:

• 1/5: Seriously faulty, terrible, undrinkable;

• 2/5: Flawed and/or of bad quality. This is the type of stuff you should probably cook with and not drink;

• 3/5: Decent. This is where most entries will end up. These wines are clean and well-balanced, but not particularly memorable and/or exceptional. They are recommendable, but not an experience per se;

• 4/5: Exceptional. I sadly drink few wines that get this rating, but my purpose is to drink more. This denotes a memorable bottle that brought up some kind of emotion in me. This left a mark, and odds are I am now busy recommending it to everybody I know;

• 5/5: Perfect. I think I have probably tasted less than 5 bottles that would have qualified for a 5/5 in my entire life. This denotes an absolutely incredible wine that will imprint a definite memory for years to come - a true experience in itself.