Welcome to boiling furnace day! And as it’s going to be so hot today, I thought this week’s WOTW is going to be a red wine. I’m nothing if not contrary…
Simon's Wine of the Week is Bodegas Monfil Garnacha
We drank this rather lovely Spanish red on Friday night, sat in the garden listening to ‘Dog Man Star’ by Suede (on original vinyl of course) and being feasted on by mosquitos.
The grape is Garnacha, more popularly know as Grenache in France (or Cannonau in Sardinia because every grape seems to need plenty of different names to keep people confused). It’s another grape that loves a bit of hot weather so is found all around the Mediterranean as well as Australia and California. Whilst it is getting more and more popular as a single variety, historically it has been used in blends, where it adds red fruit, spice and alcohol to a wine. The most famous blend is a GSM - Grenache, Shiraz and Mourvedre, found all over but most famous in Chateauneuf du Pape (as an aside there are thirteen grape varieties you can use in Chateauneuf so, whilst the most popular blend is GSM, there are plenty of other blend variations. In fact, the greatest of all Chateaneuf, Chateau Rayas, is 100% Grenache).
Grenache tends to be medium-bodied, with high alcohol and is lighter in colour than a lot of red wines.
The wine itself is actually quite dark for a Grenache with a lovely deep ruby colour. On the nose there’s plenty of Morello cherry, red grapefruit, orange rind and cinnamon with perhaps a touch of roast pork (!). It’s lighter in body with low tannins so we chucked it in the fridge for half an hour and it drank beautifully. There’s that lovely cherry again in the mouth with a little confectionary and more sweet spice and just the hint of dried herbs.
This wine would sit perfectly one or two places above a house wine on any list. Whilst we should never judge a wine by its label, it’s got a gorgeous modern label too.
In terms of food matching this would work perfectly with spicy foods, most roasted red meats and roasted vegetables.
Have a great week,
Simon
