Wine Blogging Wednesday #35 - Spanish Wine Under $10

Wine Blogging Wednesday is here again, and this month’s theme is Spanish Wines Under $10. Our host is Michelle, aka Wine-girl, at My Wine Education. WBW was created three years ago now by New York’s own (by way of Pittsburgh, anyway) Lenn of Lenndevours.

We are charged with tasting a bottle of Spanish wine, red, white, or bubbly, that also costs $10 or less. I am not a Spanish wine buff, and I don’t know all that much outside of Rioja. I thought it would be nice to try a Bierzo, made from the Mencia grape, the older uncle of my beloved Cabernet Franc. But Bierzos, like your old uncle, can be rustic and brooding wines that prefer to be indoors by the fire - better suited for another time of year.

Then I remembered a light and inexpensive Priorat that I have enjoyed in the past, but the new vintage costs about $15 – too much. Under $10, huh? I will admit that I rarely buy wine at that price point. I usually don’t like $10 red wine – all too often it’s like a bull in a china shop. So I decided not to pick a random red wine, and instead to go with a white - there are several inexpensive whites coming out of Spain that are supposed to be quite good. And I had the perfect excuse to try an inexpensive bottle of white wine...

BrooklynLady and I took BrooklynBabygirl to a Sunday afternoon picnic last weekend. BrooklynLady made two kinds of sandwiches: tuna fish (the good canned kind, in olive oil) with marinated artichoke hearts and lemon juice, and fresh mozzarella with basil. For anyone interested, A & S Porkstore on 5th Avenue between Carroll and Garfield in park slope makes incredible fresh mozz, basically every few hours. Creamy, salty, YUM. What wine would go well with these sandwiches? Something light with zippy acidity, I was thinking, more briny than exotic fruity. Left to my own devices, I might have brought along a Muscadet.

But no Muscadet allowed. This is WBW and the theme is Spanish wine under $10, so I decided to go with an Albariño from the Rias Baixas region. Albariño is the name of the grape, and these wines are marketed as the fresh seafood wine of Spain. Should go well with a nice tuna sandwich, right? The fresh mozzarella, who knows, but who really cares, it’s a picnic. Any wine should be good wine when you enjoy it in the park with friends and children running around.

I tried Chambers Street Wines, my usual haunt, but there was nothing close enough to the $10 limit. Portugese wines, yes, but no Spanish whites at about $10. So I went to Astor Wine and Spirits, a huge store, and they had a couple of bottles to choose from. I settled on a $12 bottle instead of the Borsao, or the other bottles that had labels sporting happy fish, little beach scenes, or other marketing crap that kind of turns me off. Me cynical? Absolutely. I picked a Martin Codax wine with a simple white label and a clear bottle, and I could see the attractive light color of the wine.

After drinking this wine I learned that, incredibly, it IS possible to think your wine sort of stinks, even at a lovely picnic. Several people, after one small glass, opted for beer instead. I tried hard to like it, but it was tough, really tough. Now I've enjoyed Albariño in the past, so I am not at all slamming the wine in general or the Rias Baixas region. Just this bottle because honestly, this wine was just no good.

2006 Martin Codax Albariño Rias Biaxas, $12 (Astor Wines and Spirits).

Pale straw color with tonic water quinine and wet rocks on the nose. Those smells are echoed on the palate, and nothing more. There is acidity, and the wine is light and sort of lively, but there is no balance at all. Only minerals and brine, no fruit to speak of, nothing to hold your interest. Even with bites of tuna sandwich at a nice picnic, this is not altogether pleasant.

I'm curious to read to roundup, and I hope that someone else sampled one of these popular wines - I want to taste another Albariño soon because I know that the Codax cannot be representative of the wines. Yes, I will have to try another.

Thanks to Michelle for choosing this interesting theme and for hosting.