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rioja
Imagine you're a pilgrim in the 900s. Yes, the 900s not the 1900s. You set off from France from Paris or the volcanic town of Le Puy-en-Velay or St-Jean-Pied-de-Port in the Pyrenees. Your mission is to view the relics of Saint James in Santiago de Compostela on the Atlantic Coast in Galicia. There are songs, stories, prayers as you walk. There also has to be wine because it's a long, long trek, but where to get it from? The pilgrims encountered several wine regions as they walked, and one of them was Rioja. Producers discovered the pilgrims too, and sold...
always on the look-out for the unexpected
In a wine world dominated by the same grape varieties made in more or less the same way, it’s always exciting to discover something different. More unusual, esoteric varieties are often connected to the history of a region, made by experimental mavericks, and stand out for the individuality of the wines. Take, for instance, Fran Ascencio and his Urogallo winery (named after a spectacular looking local bird) in Asturias in northern Spain. Asturias is a cool, wet, beautiful region, between Basque Country and Galicia, rising from the Atlantic Ocean into the Cantabrian mountains. It’s most famous for its cider as...
unusual white varieties
blackpoolmatt's wine club likes to find unusual wines that you're not going to easily find in most retail outlets and as there are so many producers around the world making wines from unlikely grape varieties there are lots of choices. Producers make wine from lesser-known varieties to stand out from the crowd (how much Chardonnay does the world need?), but also because they feel different grape varieties can express a sense of place in various ways. This can happen in two ways: returning to grape varieties which have been neglected but long planted in the region, which is how Rías...
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