The Carménère grape is exclusive to Chile, as this European grape variety became extinct in the 19th century due to phylloxera. Other varieties such as Cabernet Sauvignon, Merlot, and to a lesser extent, Cabernet Franc, Syrah, Malbec and Pinot Noir are also grown. For white wines, Chardonnay, Sauvignon Blanc, Sémillon and Gewürztraminer are grown.

The country has five major wine growing regions: Atacama, Coquimbo, Aconcagua, Valle Central and Sur, making wines that fall into three categories: wines with a designation of origin, wines without a designation of origin and “vinos de mesa” (table wines).

It has a large number of wineries, including Miguel Torres, Concha y Toro and Viña Leyda.

Chilean rosé wine

The bottling process for Chilean rosé wines begins in June (in Spain it usually begins in September), and one of its references, the Santa Digna Cabernet Sauvignon Rosé, is now available for sale in the online wine store INVINIC. This is a wine of great personality: original, young and non-conformist, with the charm of Cabernet Sauvignon vinified in rosé and with a brief maceration of the skins. It has a fragrant, floral aroma and a tempting fruity sensuality. In the mouth it is voluptuous, with a silky fabric and fruity body (cassis, blueberries, blackcurrant) that can only offer a rosé of Cabernet Sauvignon from the Pacific. It is an excellent rosé wine to accompany sausages, empanadas and Italian pasta dishes.

Have you tried it yet? We’d like your opinion!

La entrada Wines of Chile se publicó primero en Blog INVINIC.

Let’s go with the “ingredients” for a good Gin Tonic

Glass

A balloon cup is essential. We must discard the tube glasses! In a balloon glass, the gin aromas stand out with the tonic and are perceived much better. The thinner the glass, the more it will highlight the palate and the view.

Tonic

Premium tonic waters are usually the ones that best complement gin. Of course, they’re usually more expensive too. The point of these tonic waters is that they do not “kill” the gin, but that they are able to enhance the best attributes of each one. Obviously, there are some tonics that combine better with certain gins, but that will require another post to talk exclusively about it.

Some of the premium tonics: Indian Fever Tree, Fentimans Tonic Water, Q Tonic, Boylan Tonic.

Gin

There is a wide range of Gins, but let’s highlight some of different countries:

• Citadelle from France, with 4 distillations that take up the formula of the oldest gin in France, made in 1771 in the city of Dunkirk.
• Hendrick’s from England, which is made with a subtle infusion of high quality wheat alcohol and 8 botanical plants. Many say it’s the Rolls of gin.
• Imagin from Sweden, bluish blue in colour, flavoured with 13 botanical plants and stylish packaging.
• Blackwood’s Strong from Scotland, whose ingredients are harvested by handcrafted farmers from a sustainable agriculture program designed by the prestigious Orkney Agronomy College.
• Gin Mare from Spain, created with selected botanical ingredients in Mediterranean areas of the highest quality.
• Topfergeist Peket from Belgium, of great freshness and finesse and that has the peculiarity that the bottle is of mud.
• Doornkaat from Germany, which reflects the German style of making gin with delicate and subtle flavors.
• Zuidam from Holland, the country that invented gin. It is an exceptionally pure gin, with 5 distillations for the basic brandy and then each of the aromatics is distilled separately before final blending.
• Blue Vintage from Austria, little known but of good quality.
• Junipero from the United States, which owes its name to the fact that the predominant flavor and aroma of a modern gin always comes from juniper (Juniperus communis).

Citrus and botanicals

Careful! Add only the citrus peel that you will use (preferably lime, although lemon can be used). Besides, this should be as fresh as it gets.

Botanicals are optional, and will not always go well with all the gins and their tonics. As a general rule, each gin will have its favorite botanicals that will enhance the flavor of it. But this topic requires an individual post for each gin that we deal with.

Elaboration

• Serve 5 or 6 ice cubes very cold (seems redundant!) in the glass and move them to cool it.
• Then serve the gin, about 1/4 part, at a certain distance from the glass to oxygenate ir.
• Then cut a large slice of the citrus peel and squeeze gently over the ice. Discard this piece and cut another to add it in the glass.
• Stir gently so that the gin is impregnated with the perfume and with the peel we have added.
• Next, serve the tonic water very slowly on the ice to avoid losing the bubble, that is, you have to tilt the glass a little when the tonic is served.
• And we already have our Gin & Tonic perfectly prepared!

Tips

• It is essential that both gin and tonic are very cold, so the tonic should be in the fridge, and most experts recommend that the gin be stored in the freezer, so that when it is taken, the ice does not melt so easily and gin-tonic retains its qualities.
• Never add squeezed lemon as it kills the carbonic gas in the tonic water and, of course, never wear out the tonic before serving it.

Don’t forget that you can buy all these gins and many more at INVINIC.

La entrada How to prepare the perfect Gin Tonic? se publicó primero en Blog INVINIC.

Pairing ideas for red wines

• If you like red meats, we know that well elaborated, robust, powerful and concentrated red wines go well with this food. Therefore, a good pairing could be with Reserva wines from Rioja, Ribera del Duero, Priorat, Somontano or Penedès.
• For lamb or jelly meats it is recommended a young red wine and for chicken meat, the red wine to choose will depend on how it is prepared: if it is roasted goes very well with a young red wine, if it is with a tomato sauce, onion and aromatic plants an tempranillo would be the perfect wine. If it goes with a stronger sauce with mushrooms and roasted potatoes, a full-bodied wine like merlot or a cabernet sauvignon Reserva would be better.
• If you are going to eat pasta with Bolognese sauce or sauces with tomatoes and vegetables, the reds are also a good choice, better a young red or a few months ageing in barrel.
• Red wine goes very well with different kinds of cheese. If you try a table with varied cheeses you can drink Ribera del Duero, Rioja or Penedés red wine.

Some basic rules for serving wine

Obviously, finding the right wine for each food is a fundamental element for an unforgettable gastronomic experience. But we must also be very clear about the following rules when serving different types of wine:

• White or rosé wines are served before reds.
• Light wines will always be served before the full-bodied ones.
• Cold wines are served before tempered wines.
• Wines should be served in a growing sense at their alcoholic content.
• It is advisable to accompany a regional dish with a wine of the same origin.

Do you want to share some more advice with us? We’re all ears!

La entrada Red Wine Pairing se publicó primero en Blog INVINIC.

New Zealand wine is produced mainly in ten regions: Northland, Auckland, Waikato/Bay of Plenty, Gisborne, Hawke’s Bay, Wellington, Nelson, Marlborough, Canterbury/Waipara and Otago Central.

As in Australia, the winemaking tradition dates back to colonial times, when the Englishmen began to produce wine although with little production due to cultural (drinking more beer), economic and legal issues.

New Zealand red wines

They are made with any mixture of varieties (Cabernet Sauvignon, Merlot, and not so often Cabernet Franc, Petit Verdot and Malbec), or Pinot Noir. Recently, in Hawkes Bay there have been wines produced with Syrah, either alone or mixed, and even Tempranillo, Montepulciano and Sangiovese.

In general, New Zealand red wine tends to be of advanced and early maturation, fruity and with moderate oak.

Pinot Noir is a grape variety whose importance in New Zealand is greater than its weight in cultivation indicates. As in other New Zealand wines, New Zealand Pinot Noir is mostly fruity, evolved and prematurely matured in the bottle. It tends to be full-bodied (for the variety), very accessible and oak ripening tends to be moderate. The high quality examples of New Zealand Pinot Noir are distinguished by tasty, earthy flavors of great complexity.

White wines from New Zealand

The Chardonnay and Sauvignon Blanc grape varieties predominate in plantations and production.

New Zealand’s Sauvignon Blanc has been described by some as “lively with flavors of mowed grass and fresh fruit”, and by others as “cat’s pee on a gooseberry bush” (but not necessarily as a criticism).

Other white varieties frequently included are Riesling, Gewürztraminer, and Pinot Gris, and less frequently Chenin Blanc, Pinot Blanc, Müller-Thurgau and Viognier.

New Zealand sparkling wines

We can find excellent sparkling wines made by the “Methode Traditionelle“.

Our recommendation

We recommend that you try any of the wines from the Staete Landt winery. These are wines made in a very manual way, giving rise to wines of great quality and complexity such as: Staete Landt Pinot Noir, Staete Landt Sauvignon Blanc, Staete Landt Chardonnay or the Staete Landt Pinot Gris.

Have you tried any wine from New Zealand yet? Tell us what you think!

La entrada The wines of New Zealand se publicó primero en Blog INVINIC.

Of the more than 655 brands of wines presented, some of the most renowned Spanish wineries stand out.

We recall that these awards are divided into 11 categories, but also awarded the prize for Best Wine of the Year, which has fallen this time in the magnificent Don PX Gran Reserva 1986 of the winery Toro Albalá.

Don PX Gran Reserva 1986: Best Wine of the Year

The Toro Albalá winery stands out for its production of great generous and sweet wines from the DO Montilla Moriles, such as Don Px Convento 1946, scored with 100 Parker points.

The Don Px Gran Reserva 1986 is a much more affordable wine than the previous one, but with an extraordinary quality. It is a Pedro Ximénez with a 30-year-old cask ageing, which makes it ideal for pairing not only with desserts, but also with a dish made from some sweet sauce. It has 94 points from the Peñín Guide, and 92 points from Robert Parker, so we can consider it undoubtedly as one of the great Spanish wines.

Let’s go see some of the other award-winning wines.

Borsao Tres Picos 2016: best red wine of 2015 and 2016

The Borsao Tres Picos does not stop accumulating prizes. Vintage after vintage becomes one of the best exponents of the fruit that the well worked Garnacha grape can give us.

Tres Picos 2016 seems to have nothing to envy its brother from the previous vintage – Tres Picos 2015-, excellently scored by Parker and Peñín and once again being one of the best references of Spanish wine in the world, both for its quality and price.

Baron De Chirel Vineyard Viñas Centenarias Verdejo 2015: Best white wine in oak barrels

Baron De Chirel Viñas Centenarias Verdejo 2015 is made by the Marqués de Riscal winery, and it is perhaps the best wine this winery makes! Although this is one of Rioja’s legendary wineries, this white wine made from centuries-old Verdejo grapes with very low yields is a “signature wine”, full of nuances and flavours that you will find in very few white wines in the world. Even though it’s not cheap, don’t hesitate to give it to you for your enjoyment at any event.

Here is the complete list of the wines awarded in this 2017 edition of AEPEV.

Don’t miss them!

La entrada The best Spanish wines of 2017 for the AEPEV se publicó primero en Blog INVINIC.

It is a monovarietal of Pinot Noir grapes planted at an altitude of 1000 metres in the Pallars Jussà, in the Pyrenees of Lleida. These vineyards are some of the highest planted vineyards in Spain.

The grapes are harvested manually with small boxes of 10 kg of grapes from their own vineyard. 100% of the wine has undergone malolactic fermentation in barrels.

Tasting notes:
It has a ripe pomegranate color.
In nose it gives floral notes (flower of vine, jasmine…) and red fruit like strawberry and raspberry.
In the mouth it has a silky entrance with good acidity and a long finish.
The aftertaste is varietal with notes of undergrowth.

This wine has not been filtered or stabilized and therefore precipitate may appear. It is recommended to decant it before serving.

Since its first vintage, 2008, the Acusp has been collecting magnificent scores from the most renowned wine critics, such as the great world wine guru Robert Parker, or as the Spanish wine specialist José Peñín.

La entrada Acusp: Another great wine from Raül Bobet se publicó primero en Blog INVINIC.

As always, we will make special mention of their impressions of Spanish wines, since they are the ones that interest us most, although we must recognize that Chilean wines also have their place in the wine world!

Luis Gutiérrez begins by talking about a wine from Ribera del Duero, the Canta la Perdiz 2013, from Dominio del Aguila winery, which with 98 points already tells us its incredible quality.

He continues to tell us about one of the year’s star wines, La Faraona 2014, from the Descendientes de José Palacios winery, owned by Ricardo ‘Titín’ Pérez Palacios and his uncle Álvaro Palacios. This is one of the few wines of the year with a perfect 100 points, the maximum score that can be awarded to a wine. And why does this wine have 100 points? For Luis, the old Mencía grape vines, together with other varieties such as Godello, Alicante Bouschet or Gran Negro, produce fruit of such quality that the resulting wine has so much complexity and is infinitely so good that it could give him no less than that. This wine in particular, and the other wines from this winery in general, place Bierzo as one of the leading Spanish winemaking areas.

Finally, he finishes his review of the best Spanish wines of 2017 with Casa Castillo Pie Franco 2015, something better than the 2014 vintage, according to him. This wine made from Monastrell grapes from Jumilla (Murcia) is undoubtedly one of the best wines in the world made with this variety.

At INVINIC we subscribe to these wines, there is no doubt about that, but we do not want to, and we cannot, forget other great classics of Ribera del Duero or Rioja that this year have taken a step forward and that, for us, have nothing to envy these three great wineries.

And for you, what was the best wine you’ve tasted this year?

La entrada The best Spanish wines of 2017 according to Luis Gutiérrez (from Robert Parker) se publicó primero en Blog INVINIC.

The requirements that the regulations establish to enter the Organic Wine category are within the Generic Denomination “Organic Agriculture”, regulated in Spain in 1989 and whose control and certification is managed through the Autonomous Communities. In other words, organic wines follow the same precepts as in other organic products.

The most important rules in relation to this certification are two: that the farm or industry where the product has been produced or processed is subject to controls and inspections are carried out and, secondly, the non-use of chemical products.

In relation to the latter, it is necessary to know that in the winemaking process it is necessary to know that mineral fertilizers are forbidden in the cultivation and harvesting of the grape, and only those of vegetable origin (e. g. pomace shoots,…) and animal origin (compost and manure) are used. In crop protection from insects, pesticide use is prohibited, with the use of pheromones or more resistant strains to prevent pests. In the fermentation phase, natural yeasts will be used and, finally, small amounts of sulphur dioxide and tartaric acid will be allowed as preservatives and acidity correctors.

Once the difference is clear, the advantage of these wines over the rest is the guarantee that they will not ingest any type of chemical component, so it is aimed preferably at a sector with a great interest in the prevention of health and environmental conservation.

As for the people most reluctant to consume this type of wine, we must point out that quality depends on many factors and not exclusively on the production method, so we can find different types of organic wine, and therefore also exceptional wines.

Because organic wines can also be of quality!

La entrada Organic wines… Different wines? se publicó primero en Blog INVINIC.

Characteristics of Grenache

This type of grape has different varieties of which two stand out: the “tintorera” and the “tinta”. The first is that which mainly makes this blending paper, since it has very appropriate characteristics for this purpose: a coloured pulp and high tannin content.

However, it is the Garnacha Tinta variety that has turned out to be the second most cultivated red grape variety in the world and in Spain, since it is found in more than 240,000 hectares of the country.

To be more precise, geographically, Garnacha is found mainly in Navarra, Catalonia, Madrid, part of Levante and La Mancha. As a historical curiosity, in Murchante, Navarre, in the mid-1970’s all the vines of this type began to be planted in order to cultivate other foreign vines; however, in a few years they had no choice but to replant them again due to the great demand of this variety.

Focusing on the representative characteristics of its strain, what stands out the most is its resistance to drought, pests and diseases. As for the grape, it is black, with thin skin and juicy flesh. These characteristics mean that, in general, its wines are vigorous, with a scarce colour and maroon colour, its body is not very acidic and, if they come from sunny places, they are wines with a high alcohol content.

The property that harms it is its high oxidability and rapid maturation, which causes the difficult vinification in wines that are not suitable for aging, and therefore in some areas are made with this varietal rancid wines or dessert. However, from old vines and in suitable soils great wines have been obtained.

Some of the best wines made exclusively from Garnacha grapes

These are some of the best Spanish wines made with Garnacha grapes that you can find. If you can afford it, buy one at least!

• L’Espectacle 2008 Magnum

With 96 points from the Guía Peñín, this magnificent Montsant wine comes from centennial Grenaches.

• El Reventón 2012

Another amazing Pérez Landi wine with 95 points from the Guía Peñín.

• Santa Cruz De Artazu 2010

Perhaps the best wine of Navarre, this monovarietal of Garnacha is made by Artadi, a guarantee of quality, as shown by the 95 points of the Guía Peñín.

• Aquilón 2004

The 96 Parker points speak for themselves. An explosion of aromas and flavors for this DO Campo de Borja wine.

La entrada Garnacha: second most important grape in Spanish wines se publicó primero en Blog INVINIC.

It is recognized for its production of “ferrous” red wines, due to the high content of this mineral in its soils. British settlers were the first to settle in Barossa Valley in the early nineteenth century, and the first to make their own wine. These historic vineyards, which still exist today, have never been affected by phylloxera and produce fantastic wines that are currently highly valued.

The grape varieties that are mainly used to make the Australian wines are: Shiraz, Cabernet Sauvignon, Merlot, Chardonnay, Sauvignon Blanc, Sémillon and Riesling. Up to 130 varieties of grapes are used to make wine, and almost all have been brought from France, mainly from Italy and Spain. It should be noted that 75% of the wine is exported to other countries, mainly the United States.

The Australian wine region is divided into four states: South Australia, Victoria, New South Wales and Western Australia, although the southern region is the largest wine producer.

Australian wines are best for drinking young and the shiraz grape is the world-famous. It is a solid and austere wine, while refined and elegant. The cabernet sauvignon wine is fresh and pure, with intense fruit aromas, emphasizing its careful elaboration and regularity in the consecutive harvests. The white wines, especially the Sauvignon Blanc, are soft and fresh, of high quality.

Do not miss the opportunity to try some of these amazing wines!

La entrada Brief introduction to Australian wines se publicó primero en Blog INVINIC.