There are only two viticultural appellations on the island of Mallorca, D.O. Binissalem Mallorca and D.O. Plà (Pla i Levant), and AN is not in either one of them. This winery was started on a shoestring in 1994, when Cabernet Savignon was in fashion amongst the Priorat set (and Priorat was where winemaker Francesc Grimalt cut his teeth). Callet grapes were easy to find and cheap on the island, but it took courage to think about using them. The winemakers wanted old vines and something expressive of the local terroir, however, so they were determined to work with it. Long cultivated throughout Mallorca, Callet took a back seat to it’s more stately indigineous counterpart, Manto Negro. It’s a problematic grape to vinify, with it’s weak color, low acidity and sugar. Coaxing an extracted flavor-bomb out of this stuff is no small feat. And since most Callet vines are left to reproduce sexually on Majorca, not clonally (which is weird enough in this day and age) there are 1000s of strains of the grape – making the winemakers job that much more difficult. There wasn’t a whole lot of knowledge of the varietal in oenological circles when these guys started – and they’ve done a lot of experimenting with long macerations and extended exposure to oxygen. In fact, this very bottle went back into the cement tanks after it’s time in barriques for two months prior to bottling. They had been gradually upping the percentage of the Callet used in their wines until 1999, when they managed to pull off a 100% Callet. (The 2004 is 95% Callet- buttressed with 5% Manto Negro and Fogoneu.)

Since the days of the vagabonding Roman naturalist, Pliny the Elder, Mallorcan wines have been compared to those of Italy rather than Spain. The analogy holds – this is like something excellent from you might find by a careful Italian winemaker working with indiginous grapes, such as Sicily’s Arianna Occhipinti. The wine is medium weight, and the light that filters through it betrays the potent concentration of flavor. Lifted, bright red fruit qualities on the nose. Lingering finish with vanilla, wild spicy notes. Firm acidity combined with integrated tannins means this lively, finessed wine pairs with almost anything. It’s $45 to go for the full weirdness of the AN (with it’s high percentage of Callet), but you can drink the excellent AN/2 – which is blended with a substantial amount of Syrah but still feels wild and unique – for about half of that.

The king of manly Rosés in our opinion is Tavel AOC.   King Philip IV drank the stuff on horseback and declared it the only wine worth drinking – and this from a somber Spaniard who is on record for only laughing in public three times in his entire life.  Tavel can be a full-bodied monster that stands up to aging.  Known for candied aromas but often having surprising gravitas, Tavel’s masculinity is evident in it’s color and intensity of flavor.   But unlike a lot of ham-fisted new world attempts at big rosé – a contradiction in terms that denies what is nice about pink wine in the first place – it maintains it’s lightness, it’s minerality, and it’s refreshing acidity.  For the most part we agree with BTYH that the best rose’s come from France, but if we have a soft spot for dark, macerated asskickers it’s because it appeals to the dude in us (at least, those of us at the UnCorker who are dudes.)

That brings us to one of our favorite $10 summer treats – the Parés Baltà Ros De Pacs.   Spain, and in particular Rioja, is on the forefront of serious rosés, and if you have $30 with which to go pink you can try one of the undisputedly macho offerings from Vina Todonia or Lopez de Heredia.   But if you want to pound a few glasses out by the grill head to this modernized producer from Penedès.  An intense cranberry color promises something floral and sweet on the nose – and then it hits you with a blast of salty, off-dry, minerality on the palate.   It’s made with Merlot and Cabernet Savignon, put through a natural gravity press.  The fermentation is stopped short so that some residual sugar and a fresh quality from the must is retained.  Did we mention this is certified organic? Delicate, this is not.  Girly-men, beware.

The wine is 100% Monastrell grown on old, low yielding vines still planted on native root-stock… which is very, wonderfully weird given the havoc that phylloxera reaped elsewhere in this region. The wine is vinified in “traditional ways” – and aged exclusively in old oak barrels and in bottle. Now keep in mind that “old oak” is also referred to as neutral oak, meaning that it doesn’t impart that much in terms of flavor components into the wine unless someone is stripping down the wood and re-toasting it alot. Therefore the wine really has only one purpose in those old, mellow barrels, and that’s getting itself oxygenated – which is oak’s other great role in the winemaking process. And just how old are we talking here? Because oak isn’t easy to keep sterilized – which over time introduces all kinds of wonderful fungal and bacterial possibilties into the equation.

Here is the argument part of the post. The crux. Old style winemaking leads to flaws. Oxidation. Reduction. Brettanomyces. TCA (“cork” taint) are among the most common. And all of these flaws have huge impact on flavor – often reducing any talk of terroir to marketing oriented fantasy. But depending on the intensity of those flaws and the way those flaws combine with one another, it can be a formula for a distinctive and even wonderful wine drinking experience. Immediately on the nose it’s apparent that the Raspay Reserva ‘Brut’ has a strong, oxidative quality. Given it’s slightly dull, brick-red hue it’s a bit of shock to get such a prounounced sherry-like first whiff. Then the flavor is hard to place – almost sweet, but not quite. A lot of secondary aromas -such as a black, ripe quality that would be called stewed or raisiny in lesser wines, but comes across as ripasso-like here. With some time open and after some food (we had spicy sausage & roasted tomato), comes this lingering briary fruit quality (blackberry, cassis) and a strong cocoa’d finish. The wine feels very complete and balanced, with integrated tannins and even a sweet-tart acidity showing. Given that we paid $23 for this, who is complaining? At this price point – too high to be a daily drinker and too low to make big demands- one can really only ask one thing from a wine… don’t bore me. This one is weird, wonderful, and packs an incredible punch for the price.

Of course, the more you hear about the story, the more the romance of this place builds. Ribeira Sacra has among the shortest entries in Jancis Robinson’s Oxford Companion to Wine – it tells us only that the area is new (founded as a DO in 1996), in the state of Galicia, and specializes in red wines. And that Galicia otherwise being the home of white wine, particularly the internationally popular Albarinho variety – this seems to be enough to put it on the radar as an up-and-comer region. Ribeira Sacra is known for terraced, difficult terrain – which precludes modern conveniences such as tractors and means that farming grapes is an expensive, manually intensive labor of (barely profitable) love. Sort of a Cote Rotie without the Syrah. D.Ventura is tiny – they farm about 3 hectares of Mencia grapes on single row trellised vineyards carved into the hillside. The winemaker is Gerardo Mendez – who is that rare Spaniard who despises new oak and even goes so far as to experiment with cherry and chestnut wood. This is a region that is boldly producing anti-blockbusters – and the D.Ventura delivers on this understated promise.

Because of elevation (1300 meters)  and a blustery wind called the cierzo, winters are cold here, with temperatures dropping as low as 23 degrees Farenheit. This produces the occasional dusting of snow, which must be a real novelty by Catalan standards because the Vinos Pinol website is splashed with images of their various bottlings playing in the stuff – sort of like Southern California children on a snow-tubin’ day-trip up to Big Bear.  This is a low-end effort for these guys, but promising, and we’re definately interested to try something higher up in their product line.

The La Huella de Adaras is made by a conscientious Priorat winemaker named Ester Nin, and is stunningly priced at around $12 (in US) & $10 (in Europe) Widely available, this is emerging as the work-horse bottling that is redefining the region.  It consistently has gotten good press, and deservedly so.   The grapes are Garnacha Tintoera(60%), Monastrell(30%), and Syrah(10%).  The wine is a crianza, but sees no  wood.  It’s aged entirely in steel or cement containers and in bottle.  Results are a medium bodied, fresh wine with surprising minerality and zippy angular tannins.   Fragrant nose of thyme, eucalyptus, flint, lavendar and secondary aromas from the dark, briary fruit.  Good juicy acidity and heat from the 14% alcohol. Notes of cocoa and spice.  A bit rough around the edges initially, and with too much time (such as on the second day it’s been open) it’s perfumy qualities become overbearing – but with this amount of outsized personality – it remains one of the great steals in budget wine.  We’re reviewing the 2005 because it has a good reputation and there is still plenty of it out there, but you’ll also find the 2006 (which we missed).  The 2007 is just hitting North American markets so check back to the UnCorker for an updated review shortly.

That’s when we discovered the Vall Llach Embruix Priorat, the “undiscovered gem” from the Priorat region. Undiscovered? No. Sold out? Likely. Mostly grenache and cabernet, this is an another affordable back door into priorat. “Bewitching” blackberries and mature red fruit on the nose, with a brambly minerality and enough acidity to get us through the pau amb tomate and iberian ham that eventually arrives at the table. The vineyard is owned by popular Catalan singer Lluis Llach, who is apparently a great wine lover. This wine alone was enough to justify a $9.99 iTunes download of his “Les Seves Primeres Cancons.” Try the two together, on some soggy winter day, and smell the Costa Brava.