Vinostito at Spit Cork! No Motor Bike and Wine Without Make-Up.

Vinostito at Spit Cork!

No Motor Bike. Wine Without Make-Up.

Antonio Lorente may have left his motor bike in Dublin but he and Vinostito partner Rafa Salazar made it to Cork for the Spit Tasting yesterday in the River Lee Hotel. Naturally enough, the company is know for its strong Spanish focus but over the last four years or more have begun to add wines from other countries to their portfolio. We love wine, they say, and good wine knows no borders. Not all Rioja wines, for instance, are contained within the administrative area of La Rioja.

I am surprised to see the Basque Txakoli wine, with its high acidity, on restaurant lists here and asked Antonio if it was a hard sell on the Irish market. “It was, at the start,” he said. “But now it is more accepted, it is very good for vegetable dishes and spicy food.” Would love to see an Irish server pouring it from shoulder hight into a tumbler by his waist as they do in Hondarribia and other Basque towns!

Sometimes, for whatever reason, a good wine doesn't take off in the market. We asked him if he thought any of their whites were under-appreciated. He pointed to the Bodegas Contreras Ruiz Edalo 2017 from Condado de Huelva. The grape variety here is the little known Zalema and the wine is very fresh, light and fruity. Very drinkable indeed. That reminds me I have a nephew living in Huelva - I may well be sending him a request before his next visit home.

Yours truly with Andrew (from Manning's, Ballylickey). Pic by Rafa!

Xarel-lo, used mostly in Cava and “seldom seen as a still wine”, was the next grape to explore, thanks to Cellar Pardas Rupestris 2016. This blend of Xarel-lo, Malvasia de Sidges and red Xarel-lo, is produced biodynamically and, like the Edalo, it is fresh and also excellent.

Had a short list of Vinostito reds to taste but that expanded - I wonder why! First I was interested in the Casa de Passarella A Descoberta, Colheita Tinto 2014. This blend of Touriga Nacional, Tinta Roriz, Alfrcheiro, and Jaen, from Portugal’s DÃO, had a vivid colour and aromas, great fruit, lovely balance, long finish, quite a charmer all round.

On to the Douro then and Xisto iLimitado Tinto 2015 by Luis Seabra, another excellent red, this produced from a blend of Touriga Franca, Tinta Amarela, Tinta Roriz, Tinta Barroca, Malvasia Preta and Dozelinho. No wonder the supermarket go mad when trying to get all that onto the label. This wine from the Douro though is well worth it!

Now for another of the wines without make-up - forget where I read that but its certainly applies to Filipa Pato Tinto 2017 and to many of the wines here, most of them organic or close to it. Full bodied, black fruit, velvety tannins and acidity all in comfortable alignment. Amazing.

I’d have been happy to stop there and move on to another table but then I spotted the familiar netting and read the label: Rafael Lopez de Heredia Vina Tondonia Reserva 2005. I had visited tis bodega in Haro and was hooked; glad to be hooked by this brilliant wine and there were similar comments to the left and to the right of me.

If you ever do get the chance, buy (as many as you can) of the amazing aged whites from their Riojan winery. They also do an aged Rosé but only when the year is good, so the supply is scarce. Antonio told me they had managed to get some but alas they were quickly snapped up!

And still one more irresistible temptation from this area, the 2010 Remelluri Reserva, a Rioja Alavesa blend of Tempranillo, Garnacha, Graciano. Smooth. Spicy. Superb. We hadn’t worked Rafa much but we had him on camera duty before we said goodbye to Vinostito.

Read about
Nomad Wines at Spit here
Grapecircus here
Winemason here

More on Spit Cork over the next few days. Nomad Wines, The WineMasons and Grapecircus were the other companies involved in the event at The River Lee Hotel.