I drink wine everyday. This comes in a few different forms but it’s usually whilst having lunch at home, splitting some bottles between friends or on that rare, beautiful occasion, alone with a good book. Despite the fact that I spend most of my disposable income on wine, I have to be very careful about the sort of wine I buy as it can add up very quickly indeed. That means that, whilst I tend to write about the really interesting, complex and often expensive wines I find, it’s not the majority of what I’m sipping at home. This is really the bread-and-butter of a wine professionals, or anyone for that matter, drinking habits and finding good quality, authentic wine at a reasonable price is always cause for celebration. The problem is of course, that you have to kiss a lot of frogs to find your princess!
We’re quite lucky that in Spain, these wines pop up quite a lot yet they’re not to be taken for granted. If you read my conclusion of our Spanish Value Experiment, you’ll have noted that there were more than a few awful bottles and quite a lot of very average wine mixed into the selection of 24. So, even when I find a wine that doesn’t blow me away, if it’s reasonably priced I try to give it a write-up here, partly because it deserves it and partly because I want to recommend interesting drinking options for other people living in Barcelona.
Normally if I make a wine order, particularly if I’m ordering online, I’ll choose 6-8 reasonably priced bottles and 2-3 more expensive ones. I try to choose wines I’ve not tasted before, so I can constantly explore the world of wine as broadly as possible. In this way, I recently stumbled across two very reasonably priced, delicious wines from Monvinic Store, who are usually on the more expensive side of wine retail in Barcelona. One was a juicy young Dolcetto from Piedmont, northern Italy and the other was a Muscadet-Sur-Lie from Nantes, at the mouth of the Loire Valley in France.
Marc Ollivier Domaine de la Pepiere Muscadet de Sevre et Main Sur Lie 2016
Trust the French to come up with an incredibly long name for what is a very affordable, simple bottle of wine. Muscadet is what I think of as a wine-lovers wine; subtle, refreshing and utterly moreish, yet without ever really setting off fireworks. It’s also a slightly confusing wine as a lot of people assume that the wine is made from some sort of Muscat grape or variation thereof, yet it’s actually the incredibly neutral Melon de Bourgogne, the most planted grape variety in the Loire Valley and, as the name suggests, a grape that originally hails from Burgundy. The best examples come from clay, gravel and schisty soils and are aged for reasonably long periods of time on their lees, in order to add some substance, depth and flavour to anotherwise very neutral wine.
When this works, it works wonderfully well and the wines are the perfect pairing for any sort of light seafood, imbued as they are with the spirit of the nearby Atlantic Ocean. At worst, it’s just another insipid white wine with no real character or interest. Marc Ollivier produces wine very much in the former camp, with his old-vine Melon de Bourgogne mainly grown on granite based soils using organic viticultural practices and aged for anywhere from 4-8 months on its lees before release. Apparently 2016 was a tricky vintage and for the first time, they had to buy in around 80% of the fruit for the wine due to severe frost damage, something I suspect will be repeated for the 2017 vintage as well!
Tasting Note
100% Melon de Bourgogne, mostly bought in from local growers due to frost damage. Fermented in stainless steel and aged on its lees for 4-8 months in large underground vats. 12% ABV
Light in colour and subtly aromatic, this isn’t a wine to make itself immediately known. Light peach, golden apple and honey creep out of the glass, yet there’s something salty and briny underpinning it all, with just a touch of smokiness from the lees ageing. Hugely fresh and zippy on the palate with the same, saline sensation as the nose and a surprisingly persistent flavour intensity. More depth than you might expect for a wine with such light alcohol and yet refreshing all the same. A lovely example of Muscadet. 90Pts
Purchased from Monvinic Store for €10.95
Principiano Ferdinando Dosset Rosso 2016
Whilst the common wisdom is to drink more white and sparkling wines during summer, which I largely do, there’s something about a refreshing, red wine that I simply can’t replicate with other drinks. The trouble is, of course, that so many red wines are robust, with large amounts of tannins, alcohol or both. Dolcetto, the most humble grape variety of Piedmont, northern Italy, is perfect in this regard. Literally ‘Little sweet one’ in Italian, Dolcetto usually makes simple, refreshing wines with surprisingly firm tannins and naturally high levels of acidity and moderate alcohol levels. Perfect!
Better yet, this bottle from Ferdinando Principiano has been made with easy drinking in mind. When I first read the label and saw 10.5% ABV, I assumed there was some sort of mistake. Not so. Ferdinando Principiano is a high quality producer in Monforte d’Alba, making Barolo in a traditional style. Dosset is the old fashioned local term for Dolcetto, and the idea was to make the wine as simple and light as possible, in the style that used to be drank whilst working in the fields. If it’s tasty, it’ll be absolutely ideal for this sticky weather!
Tasting Note
100% Dolcetto from their own estates from their estates in San Martino. Fermented and aged in stainless steel using ambient yeasts. 10.5% ABV
A light purple colour in the glass and actually quite aromatic! Lovely crisp, fresh plum and raspberry fruit, fresh green herbs and a touch of barnyard. Fresh and firm on the palate, with Dolcetto’s noticeable tannins despite the very light style of wine. Uncomplicated, simple yet very refreshing. A lovely Dolcetto 88Pts
Purchased from Monvinic Store for €12.10