Wednesday 10 March 2010

Bodegas Ramon Bilbao - wine review

From the pen of Anne Kennedy - Kilburn Wine Circle

I am currently sitting in my study, looking out on the frozen snow lying on the drive, reflecting back on the festive activities and wondering what the new decade will bring.

December has been an exciting month, seeing a lot of social activity with friends and family. This of course included trying many different wines. At Kilburn Wine Circle we were celebrating the club’s 30th anniversary in December, so decided to have a fine wine evening. When we were discussing the event earlier in the year, the committee had a debate about what makes for a ‘fine’ wine and all agreed that it is the more unusual and frequently more expensive wines. As a result, this was what we tasted at our celebration evening.

We had a very enjoyable meeting, but evenings like this reinforce for me that it is more important to enjoy the wine, than for it to be a well known brand or an expensive wine. It is all about your own personal taste, so by developing your knowledge about wines it helps you to decide what grapes, countries, brands etc you do or don’t like and as a result make better wine choices when shopping.

There are many books available to give you more information about wines and wine merchants will frequently have wine available to try. We had a visit to Red Zebra on Iron Gate in Derby, which is now open as a Wine Bar; this gives you the opportunity to try different wines in more social surroundings. We also had a visit to Majestic Wine Warehouse on Ashbourne Road, Derby, before Christmas and had the opportunity to try the six wines they had on display.

We brought a number of wines from Majestic, one of them being the wine I will tell you about this month, as I particularly enjoyed this one over the festive season.

Brand: Bodegas Ramon Bilbao
Type: Single Vineyard, Rioja
Region: Haro, Spain
Year: 2007
Grape: Tempranillo and Garnacha
Alcohol Strength: 13.5%
Style: Medium bodied red
Bouquet: Intensely fruity bouquet, reminiscent of ripe cherries and strawberries
Flavour: Rich, velvety and complex, well structured with a long and pleasant finish.
Price: £7.99 (£6.49 when buying two bottles), Majestic Wine. (NB. Majestic have a policy of a minimum sale of six bottles. These can be different wines).

This wine is ideal with red meats, stews or cheese.

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