Introduction to Tempranillo at Aldi

"Pinot noir on steroids" - Peter Leske - La Linea Adelaide Hills

So here's that bottle of wine the last of which I used in yesterday's dinner dish. Which, by the way was very nice - and so simple. Whilst I was making it I was thinking that there was something wrong with the fact that it took about five minutes to put the whole thing together with a finished dish that was - well - special. So give it a try sometime. A link to the recipe is in yesterday's post.

Today I thought I would try and track down the origins of this particular wine and also to look at Tempranillo, which I know is becoming increasingly trendy. I had mixed success.

First the wine. It's called Dominio de la Abadia Roble 2016. It cost a mere $10.00 and was very delicious - even to a non red drinker like me. I think David bought it because of the following write up from the AFR's wine writer Max Allen.

"I’m in two minds about super-cheap supermarket wines. On one hand, I wonder what kinds of margins are being squeezed and what kinds of deals are being done to get these wines on to the shelves at such low prices. I wonder how sustainable it all is. But then I take a sip of this particular red – with its succulent purple tempranillo fruit and typically regional cola-and-leather savoury undertow – and think, isn’t it fabulous that wines like this red are available to curious Australian drinkers at such low prices?" Max Allen

Indeed it is. Aldi by the way often wins awards for its wines. Sometimes you can find out where they come from sometimes not. And yes I wonder whether someone is being squeezed. I suspect only a little in this case. For try as I might I cannot find the Dominio de la Abadia. Abadia means abbey by the way. The label claims that the wine comes from a single vineyard - and I think it probably does, and that it might be the said Domaine, but on the label it says it is bottled by Bodega Bueña Vina.

Bodega means winery, but I now think that this company is not a winery itself, but a sort of co-operative of various wineries around the town of Aranda del Duero. For I did track down an address for the Bodega and it's in the middle of the town, so not a vineyard - it looked a bit like an industrial warehouse. Maybe a distribution and marketing centre?

That said if you go to the Bodega Viña Buena website you will find three different brands of wine in its product range - none of them our Dominio. Here are the three, and I couldn't find the middle one either:

It's a pretty website, and definitely tries to give the impression that it is an actual vineyard, but I cannot find it on the map. Alas the website is in Spanish, which I don't speak, although my French and Italian help a lot. The little section on history more or less just says it was formed in 1987 from a group of wine makers who saw the commercial possibilities of getting their wines out into the world. Which backs up the in town address. Maybe that is where the marketing is done. There are pictures of pretty vineyards though and rows of barrels.

Roble which is the word in small print on the wine bottle label by the way - it's at the top of the bottle - means 'oak'. And indeed the Bodega states that their wines are aged in French and American oak. I don't know for how long but the bottle we bought was dated 2016 and it was bought pretty recently. Aldi still have it on their website, but I bet there isn't much left. Unless there were millions of bottles of it. Word spreads about their super bargain wines. Here's another glowing review:

"This medium-bodied Tempranillo is much better than your average quaffer, with its appealing red cherry, sour kirsch and blackcurrant fruit. There are some smoky undertones which give the wine some complexity. One of the strange things here is my recommendation to decant the wine for 2-3 hours. For a wine of $10? The wine improves to something very balanced, with the firm but fine grained tannins shining and its refreshing acidity." Thomas Ghirgensohn's Australian Wine Reviews: and Beyond

According to the bottle label it is:

"Aged 3 months in a row, this wine offers luscious red fruits and black cherry flavours give structure and freshness whilst note of coco add intrigue."

Well it's all wine snob stuff isn't it, although obviously the translator was not English perfect?

Aranda del Duero is in the Ribera del Duero region of Spain between Madrid and the sea - is it the Bay of Biscay or the Atlantic? It's relatively high and dry and looks like this.

The Duero, maybe Spain's largest river (it flows into Portugal) gives the region its name. And as you can see it doesn't look particularly lush, although it has been one of Spain's best wine producing regions for a very long time.

The description on the bottle says:

"One of Spains truly legendary wine making regions, the pristinely rural Ribera Del Duero in Central Spain is home to some of the world’s best and most exclusive red wines. Biting winters, sun-bleached summers and high altitude work hand-in hand with clayey silky and limestone soils to create the ideal conditions for Tinto Pino, the local name for the Tempranillo grapes which makes the bottle you are holding."

When you look at that picture you see why the Australians might be attracted to the Tempranillo grape - which I think is responsible for some 80% of the area's wine. In 2015 Wikipedia said it was now the world's third most planted wine grape.

It's a thick skinned black grape which dates back millennia. At least 2000 years in Spain, although it is known that the Phoenicians grew it. They used to think it was related to Pinot but now that we have DNA testing they have decided not. It is also prone to disease -n I think because the grapes are tightly packed. It's main advantage - apart from the taste that is - is that it ripens early and so is suitable for hot dry conditions - it ripens before the worst of the weather - although it does like a bit of cool. Temprano means 'early' in Spanish - hence the name, although it is also known by completely different names in Spain and elsewhere.

"To get elegance and acidity out of Tempranillo, you need a cool climate. But to get high sugar levels and the thick skins that give deep color you need heat" Oz Clarke

With the recent popularity of Spanish food came an interest in Spanish wines. Also coinciding with the Australian vineyard community becoming increasingly interested in widening the scope of what they grow. Apparently Brown Brothers were the first to plant Tempranillo, but now it seems to be planted almost everywhere. I suspect that eventually a particular region will become the 'home' of Tempranillo, but I have seen Margaret River, Heathcote, Mornington Peninsular, Canberra, Central NSW and even Queensland mentioned as producing good examples. All considerably more than $10.00

So there you go. Tempranillo is getting increasingly big. And here is a very useful diagrammatic summary, courtesy of Wine Selectors. I see they don't mention the tobacco and leather that I saw mentioned elsewhere though.

It seems to be very suited to Oz because it has:

"all the fragrance and perfume of Pinot, plus a bit more mid-palate flesh, colour and tannin." Peter Leske - La Linea, Adelaide Hills

Somebody said it goes well with pasta.

So off you go to Aldi and thank you to the producers at the Dominio de la Abadia whoever you are.