"It's Spanish Wine Day": Notes from Wine Blog Wednesday
Posted by Cathy Huyghe on Thu, Feb 17, 2011 @ 07:32 AM
"It's Spanish wine day," I told my friend at lunch yesterday as I handed him his glass.
"Of course it is," he said.
It's true that my friend wasn't nearly as interested as I was in Wine Blog Wednesday (or #WBW70 in the twittersphere). He wasn't interested, as I was, in the revival of this blogger tradition, or in the idea of organizing a live tasting by time zone, or in participating in this online themed event. After one sip, though, he was certainly interested in the wine in his glass.
As was I. We were tasting the 2007 LZ from Rioja, a Tempranillo with the color of a lightly dusted ruby and a nose of dark berries and rose. Its structure and acidity are impressive, as it packs a punch on the palate that is nonetheless moderated by fine tannins. It grabbed my attention, as we tasted and well afterward.
But that's the point, so far as I see it, of an online wine event like Wine Blog Wednesday: to focus attention, in tighter and tighter targets. In this case, the general focus was on the country of Spain. My friend's and my focus was on the 2007 LZ from Rioja. My focus was on the story of this specific wine.
Before #WBW70 I'd never heard of Telmo Rodriguez, the winemaker behind the LZ label. But now I know that he is described in terms like "hedonistic" and "restores forgotten vineyards to glory." Now I know that, although a native of his family's Remulluri estate, he trained in Bordeaux. And now I know that I can certainly count on him to deliver a Tempranillo that is as fine as it is edgy; that's an an accurate assessment of the wine whether you know the back story or not, but knowing something of Telmo Rodriguez reaffirms its truth.
All of which leads me to raise a glass in thanks to the folks behind Wine Blog Wednesday.