Herencia Altés - 2011 Terra Alta garnaxia negra (Spain)

Grenache is one of my favorite grapes. "Garnaxia" is the Spanish spelling of the more widely-known French grenache, so you may have seen them used interchangeably. Anyways, grenache is a great varietal that prefers hot, dry climates. It's low in acid, which is good (in my opinion) and it's is commonly mixed with syrah, tempranillo, or cinsaut varietals. It's a bright, floral wine with a lot of fruit power behind it. It's also relatively inexpensive, so everything in combination makes it a really great everyday wine. I'd drink it everyday, without a doubt.

I like this label.

Today's wine is happens to be a 100% grenache wine made by Catalonian vineyard Herencia Altés. This wine was made at very high altitude in the Terra Altes winemaking region of Cataluna, in northern Spain. The soil there is rich in clay, and has a generally dry climate, which as you know is best suited for this grape. I've had this wine for a few years and decided to enjoy it with some prosciutto-stuffed tortelloni, whole wheat penne, a homemade pasta sauce laced with red California chiles, and some sliced white mushrooms sauteed in garlic butter.

So I did the usual thing - put it in the fridge for a few minutes to bring it down to temp, opened it up, and poured some in my glass to mix with the air. It gives off a nice aroma, mostly floral. There are some muted tannins in there, with a little hint of alcohol smells. Nothing really out of the ordinary. I'm looking forward to this wine opening up though.

Pretty color.

The taste is where this wine shines (and I do admit, I've had this before, but maybe a year or so ago, so the taste may have mellowed and changed a bit.) It's got a nice, refined taste of dark fruit and jam - nothing overbearing (unlike Raymond R+Collection's field blend.) The flavor has a good weight to it, and has a very pleasing smoky finish with a slight alcohol-flavor aftertaste. Fruit is the base element here, no surprise given the varietal, and balance is good between fruit and tannins. Very pleasing indeed!

In conclusion, this is just one delicious variant of the grenache varietal that you could find. It's a good grape, is often in blends, but does appear - as this post demonstrates - in unadulterated form that it can be very tasty. It also probably benefited from aging a bit, since a lot of big, jammy, fruity wines don't have that mellowness to their flavor. I've had some that were good, but still maintained a slight caustic alcohol burn that I could have done without. This Terra Alta grape had none of that, and delivered a strong, delicious flavor that paired well with my dinner and would also be fine for drinking really any time at all.