JULIO VIOLA...PATAGONIA'S VISIONARY puts "BODEGA DEL FIN DEL MUNDO" on the WORLD STAGE by Philip S. Kampe

JULIO VIOLA is a Real Estate Mogul, by day, and a WINE VISIONARY by night. He is a LEGEND in PATAGONIA, like DONALD TRUMP is in America.

I spent an afternoon with JULIO VIOLA, recently, Thanks to NORA FAVELUKES OF QW Wine Experts (www.qwwineexperts.com). We discussed his vision.

This is what I learned:
+ JULIO VIOLA originally developed housing projects before developing VINEYARDS.
+ JULIO VIOLA studied computer models before settling on PATAGONIA for his vineyards.
+ In 1995,with the aid of the Government, Julio received a loan to help him purchase 3,200 hectares (7,500 acres) of desert, arid land in PATAGONIA. There was no irrigation.
+ Julio went to Israel to study irrigation.
+ Julio built a 12.5 mile irrigation canal to bring water from the NUEQUEN River to his vineyards.
+ By 1999, Julio had installed 3,800 miles of irrigation pipes, creating seven pumping stations.
+ In 1999, his first vineyards were planted for production.
+ On his property, JULIO VIOLA created several vineyards, built complete wineries and sold them as 'turn-key' operations.
+ He maintained the largest vineyard and named it "BODEGA DEL FIN DEL MUNDO".
+ Today, there are seven vineyards which JULIO VIOLA built that produce wine from PATAGONIA.
+ The first harvest at Bodega DEL FIN DEL MUNDO was in 2002, producing 3000 bottles.
+ Today his vineyard produces 11 million bottles.
+ 85% of the grapes are RED Varietals: MALBEC, CABERNET SAUVIGNON, MERLT, PINOT NOIR, TANNAT and CABERNET FRANC.
+ 15% of production is made with White grapes: SAUVIGNON BLANC, SEMILLON, VIOGNIER and CHARDONNAY.
+ PATAGONIA is recognized as a Region, thanks to JULIO VIOLA.

DEL FIN DEL MUNDO means 'The Vineyards at the End of the World"
Drip hoses provide water to the trained 'Low Trellis System' vines. Water comes from the Neuquen River, after the summer melts the ice from the Andes Mountain Range. There are two harvests, February and April. Temperatures can range 50F degrees in one day. State-of-the art technology coupled with 200 stainless steel tanks, 104 concrete pools, 2200 oak barrels and four French Oak Casks of 6000 liters make-up the SOUTHERN MOST VINEYARD IN THE WORLD.

According to DIEGO ARGUINDEGUI, Director of BODEGA DEL FIN DEL MUNDO, The PHILOSOPHY of the vineyard is to " Keep up the quality of our products by using LAST generation(Old World) technology and making the best use of our PATAGONIA terroir".

The wines I sampled illustrate their philosophy. Old world flavor, new world technology.

POSTALES 2010 is a mix of Sauvignon Blanc and Semillon. An intense floral, fruity aroma was coupled with citrus notes. My palate exploded with peach and melons followed by balanced acidity. At $11.99 a bottle, this stainless steel wine is a STEAL!

RESERVA DEL FIN DEL MUNDO "PINOT NOIR" 2008. Aged for 12 months in 70% French oak and 30% American oak, I found this dark fruit, vanilla based wine to open-up gradually, sip by sip. The intense aromas of raspberries and blueberries opened my senses. At $18.99 a bottle, I urge you to cellar this wine for 4-5 years.

RESERVA DEL FIN DEL MUNDO "MALBEC 2007". This wonderful MALBEC is aged for 12 months in French/American oak and explodes on your palate with dark fruit in the mouth followed by intense vanilla and chocolate tones. Balanced and elegant, a near perfect MALBEC. This is possibly the BEST MALBEC in the market for $18.99 a bottle. This is a MUST BUY.

"RESERVE 2006" is a combination of 36% MALBEC, 31% CABERNET SAUVIGNON, 23% MERLOT and 10% CABERNET FRANC. At 14.4% alcohol, this 12 month oaked wine shows signs of high complexity and intensity. It is a world class wine with aromas of currants and plums followed by chocolate, leather and tannins on the palate. "RESERVE 2006" has an exceptionally long finish. At $29.99 a bottle, you feel like you are in Bordeaux.

FIN Single Vineyard "TANNAT 2008". Aged for 18 months in French/American oak, this 14,5% alcohol violet wine is spicy with hints of vanilla, tobacco and coconut. The aroma of strawberries and raspberry jam intoxicate your senses. At $39.99, this full-bodied, complex wine is a good VALUE. Drink it today or hold onto it for 5-6 years.

"SPECIAL BELEND 2007 DEL FIN DEL MUNDO. Aged for 15 months in 100% French oak barrels, this elegant, soft wine is a joy to drink. Powerful aromas of red fruit jam, spice and jelly open your palate followed by a velvety, round, complex flavor that leads you into a long finish. This blend, at $44.99 is a SPECIAL WINE that deserves to be in your wine cellar. The wine is ready to drink and should be decanted or can be aged in your wine cellar for up to ten years. This is anothe MUST BUY wine from the Vineyards of DEL FIN DEL MUNDO.

PATAGONIAS unique cool-climate, desert conditions and special 'terroir' produce some of the WORLDS BEST WINES that are priced under $50. Volume producers, like JULIO VIOLA, have put THE END OF THE WORLD wines on your wine shelves.

Isn't it time to BUY these wines and tell the story of JULIO VIOLA....

Learn more about BODEGA DEL FIN DEL MUNDO at: www.bodegadelfindelmundo.com

PHILIP S. KAMPE

philip.kampe@thewinehub.com

http://www.thewinehub.com/
One of the pillars of TheWineHub is Wine Tourism. Whether you are a wine maker, or a wine drinker, we all enjoy having discoveries...

TheWineHub exists to help you with that. 

Philosophically speaking... "Questions of Taste - The Philosophy of Wine"

Some things that I wish I had said myself. Or not... but they have been said by these guys on "Questions of Taste - The Philosophy of Wine"

• "People who say that they can't appreciate a great wine generally haven't tasted one" - Kent Bach
•  "Yes, expertise puts on in position to have further, cognitive pleasures, but these pleasures are distinct from the sensory pleasure of tasting wines" - Kent Bach
• "We shouldn't confuse the pleasure of being articulate about wine, of being able to describe the distinctive features of a wine, with the non-verbal ability of remembering what they are like, or of appreciating them without being able to say why" - Kent Bach
• "Most wine knowledge does not directly enhance the pleasures to be had in drinking wine but, rather, enhances one's ability to discover such pleasures" - Kent Bach
• "In matters of taste your opinion is sovereign" - Barry C. Smith
• "There is no standard of taste for evaluating the quality of wine, and if there were objective facts to get right there wouldn't be no divergence of opinion between expert wine critics" - Barry C. Smith
• "We assume that other people see what we see and hear what we hear, when they are in the same immediate environment. So why do we not assume that other people taste what we taste?" - Barry C. Smith
• "Visual experience enables me to see a church on the hillside. And whereas the church I see is separate from my experience of seeing it, the taste of the Chablis is not so clearly separable from the experiences I'm having when drinking it. Perhaps it is the closeness of a taste to the immediate experience of the taster that makes taste appear so irreducibly subjective. Must we think of tastes as being in us rather than in the wine? - Barry C. Smith
• "The experience of taste occurs within me, crucially involving my conscious states. So the taste I'm having is not the taste you are having: we each taste separately. Therefore taste is subjective" - Barry C. Smith
• "There's a difference between the quality of a wine and people's personal preferences. A wine may not be very interesting or very well made but some people may prefer drinking it to something more complex" - Barry C. Smith
• "The critic is actually describing a conscious representation of their interaction with the wine, and therefore the score of rating is a property of that interaction and not the wine itself" - Jamie Goode
• "Are two people drinking from the same bottle of wine having a common experience?" - Jamie Goode
• "Our comparisons about wine are highly unreliable: most people have difficulties in distinguishing not only between many vintages but between only three glasses, not even memorized but all present and available for tasting" - Ophelia Deroy
• "Appreciating a wine is global rather than analytic. What we smell or taste is not just the sum of distinctive smells and atomic tastes, but their integrative transformation into a whole" - Ophelia Deroy
• "Wines, no more than people, have definite characters that we come to know about. This depends on the circumstances and their deeds" - Ophelia Deroy
• "Burgundy tastes of red fruit to normal tasters and normal tasters are the ones to which Burgundy taste of red fruits" - Ophelia Deroy
• "Wine is not discovered but made: it is an artifact that can be appraised that can be appraised aesthetically" - Tim Crane
•  "The wine itself has aesthetic value; but what it is for a wine to have aesthetic value cannot be understood without making reference to the experience to tasting it" - Tim Crane
• "Unlike art which contains a message, wine conveys nothing, it has no intellectual or cognitive content" - Tim Crane 
•  "Wine taste is the paradigmatic case of subjective experience: it is highly variable, not only from one person to another, but also within the same individual from one particular occasion to another" - Gloria Origgi 
• "Quality in wines is much easier to recognize than to define" - Maynard Amerine 

Cheers,
LA

http://www.thewinehub.com/
One of the pillars of TheWineHub is Wine Tourism. Whether you are a wine maker, or a wine drinker, we all enjoy having discoveries...

TheWineHub exists to help you with that. 

12 German Quizzes

This week we made available 12 German quizzes for you to play!

It would be great to hear which ones you liked, hated, did really well, sucked...  :)

Click on the link to play: http://www.thewinehub.com/learn/quiz

Have Fun!!!

Cheers,
LA

http://www.thewinehub.com/
One of the pillars of TheWineHub is Wine Tourism. Whether you are a wine maker, or a wine drinker, we all enjoy having discoveries...

TheWineHub exists to help you with that. 

Are you on google+? We are...

           A quick look at the first pieces of the project.

Sharing is a huge part of the web, a part that we think could be a lot simpler. That’s why we’ve been working on adding a few new things to Google: to make connecting with people on the web more like connecting with them in the real world. We hope you like what we’ve cooked up so far. And stay tuned, because there’s more to come.  

You share different things with different people. But sharing the right stuff with the right people shouldn’t be a hassle. Circles makes it easy to put your friends from Saturday night in one circle, your parents in another, and your boss in a circle by himself, just like real life.         

We are really enjoying our experience over there... 

If you want to connect: https://plus.google.com/111736689735286263019/posts

If you not on google+ yet, please send us a message - contact@thewinehub.com and we will get you an invitation, ok?

Cheers,

LA

http://www.thewinehub.com/
One of the pillars of TheWineHub is Wine Tourism. Whether you are a wine maker, or a wine drinker, we all enjoy having discoveries...

TheWineHub exists to help you with that. 

Why Terroir Matters – Blog by: Jordan Harris – Tarara Winery Winemaker

A couple of days ago, as a part of the WBC11 pre-conference tour, I had an opportunity to meet Jordan Harris. He is the Tarara Winery winemaker and here is his article "Why Terroir Matters":

"This past weekend we released the first of our Single Vineyard wines at Tarara and they got great response, but there was one very common question, “If this wine is from such and such place, that means you don’t grow all your grapes here, why is that?” The reason is simple. There are so many great vineyards around Virginia, and we want to make wines that express many of their beautiful sites. To limit only to our own Estate vineyard Nevaeh leaves us falling short on so much potential. Not that we don’t absolutely love Nevaeh, but we have a goal of expressing the terroir of several world class vineyards, instead of focusing on different varietal expressions from one sole vineyard.

There are many places all over the world that can make incredible Cabernet Franc, Viognier, Chardonnay, Merlot, Syrah, Cabernet Sauvignon, etc. All of these varieties have their own characteristics that are the norm as part of the grapes genetic make-up. I believe there is a place for all of these wines, hence we continue to make some Chardonnay, Viognier and Cabernet Franc as varietal wines, but our real excitement comes from the wines that are defined by their place, not their grape variety.

With the wine industry becoming more and more homogenized, every winemaker has to ask themselves the question, “Are we happy being the middle of the pack, or do we only want to accept the best?” Like every industry in the world, wine has many advancements that have been made. Most of these advancements help us to produce great, but often simple wines consistently. We can control the water content in the grapes through Reverse Osmosis, accentuate characters through select yeast strains and enzymes, add several different tannins derived from oak and grapes at exact levels from powder form, and there is even access to concentrates for flavor and color. None of these things can help to accentuate terroir. The only way to let terroir speak is to do a great job farming and stand back and let the wine make itself.

I am certain that as much as I love our Chardonnay, Viognier and Cabernet Franc varietally labeled wines, there is likely to be another wine labeled with the same variety that is just as good. Now with our Nevaeh, Honah Lee, and Tranquility we have something to offer that very few can. The terroir of the vineyard!!! The Cabernet Sauvignon and Tannat blend of Tranquility has a lean palate, with abundant floral and red berry fruit aromatics, firm tannins and a great backbone of acidity. Really, when tasting it, it is a wine of its own. Same goes for the nervy acidity, balanced by extremely ripe fruit characters and a streak of minerality from our Nevaeh blends.

Single vineyards and terroir inspired wines are nothing new. If you look around the wine world, a huge portion of the wines we look at as benchmarks are exactly that. The “Chateau” wines of Bordeaux are estate grown wines that are defined by their site. No one could ever argue the Chateau Haut Brion and Chateau Clarke are similar wines. They may have similar winemaking techniques, but Haut Brion is…well grown on the Haut Brion vineyard. Getting into Burgundy, all the wines are either Chardonnay or Pinot Noir (OK, technically Auxerrois is allowed in lower level wines and Sauvignon Blanc and Gamay make an appearance in lesser appellations like Saint Bris). What differentiates these wines? The vineyard!!! Arguably the most sought after wines come from Domaine de la Romanee Conti. They make several wines ranging from Romanee Conti and La Tache (as their monopole wines) to Echezeaux, Grand Echezeux, Richbourg and Romanee St. Vivant. All of these wines are Pinot Noir and all of them are know for their own characters all with a small area of only the Cotes de Nuit half of Burgundy. These wines are all about terroir. Would it not be a shame if they simply blended those wines and made a generic Bourgogne Pinot Noir? We would lose some of the most exciting wines in the world, if we only stuck to varietally labeled or inspired wines. A great Pinot Noir is fantastic, but it can never be Richbourg, unless it is from Richbourg and the others will always have differences. The same is true here. A great Viognier/Chardonnay blend will always be a great wine, but there is only one way to get a Nevaeh, and that is to get the wine grown on Nevaeh. Not that I want to compare our wines to those of Romanee Conti or Haut Brion, but the concept is the same. Make a wine that is characteristic of the site, not of the variety.

Of course not all terroirs are created equal. Some have ancient volcanic ash giving a smoky minerality like Oregon Pinot’s, some have Schist giving a chalky like flinty character like Chablis and some have Limestone like Nevaeh giving bright acidity and fresh minerality. Some just simply have hard clay that does not allow the roots to dig and can get more fruit driven, but potentially dilute wines if not careful. The degree and direction of the slope play a huge role, as do any water bodies or other moderating physical properties. Really terroir is defined by how everything surrounding the grape vine affects how that grape naturally wants to grow and what it may take from the soil. Some varieties work better than others in some terroirs. It is all about choosing the right varieties and clones for the vineyard, then farming that vineyard to extract all that Mother Nature is giving into the grape and let it express itself in the wine through a non-manipulation approach to winemaking. Attempting to truly define terroir is a true artisanal approach to winemaking and only interfering when absolutely necessary."

To know more about Tarara Winery: http://www.tarara.com

To know more about Jordan Harris: http://swirlsipsnark.com/?p=4979 and http://www.niagaracollege.ca/alumni/success_stories_profile_jordan_harris.htm

To know more about terroir:
Terroir: The Role of Geology, Climate, and Culture in the Making of French Wines

I don't know if I agree with everything that he says... Jordan is also a strong defender of screw caps (and you probably know that I have been on the "cork side of this fight"), but he is certainly making some very interesting wines... so I hope I have the opportunity in the future to get know more about him and his beliefs.

Cheers,

LA

 

TheWineHub Store

http://www.thewinehub.com/ 
One of the pillars of TheWineHub is Wine Tourism. Whether you are a wine maker, or a wine drinker, we all enjoy having discoveries...

TheWineHub exists to help you with that.

'HALL WINES from Napa are ORGANIC and SUSTAINABLE" by Philip S. Kampe

Recently I had the opportunity to participate in a small Tasting Dinner with HALL Wines (Napa Valley) President, MIKE REYNOLDS, father of six-year old JACK, who provided the artwork for "JACK'S MASTERPIECE" Cabernet Sauvignon. Mike shares the observation that JACK, at age six, autographs wine bottles and realizes that he has established 'CEELEBERTY' Status.

Mike admits that JACK is more popular than he is.

Not to take anything away from "JACKS MASTERPIECE", but, for HALL vineyards, it is not what is on the outside of the bottle that counts.

It is what is inside the bottle that matters. And Mike Reynolds PROVED to me that their five-hundred acres produce some of Napa's BEST WINES.

MIKE REYNOLDS is a walking encyclopedia of HALL Wine knowledge. He started with the company in 2002 as their WINEMAKER. (Today, Napa's own STEVE LEVEQUE is the head Winemaker). Mike moved from Winemaker to General Manager and now to President. Since 2006, Mike oversees the development of the HALL brand, vineyard and wineries. He has played a major role in the completion of the new state-of-the-art winemaking facility in Rutherford and the redesign plans for St. Helena, home of the business.
The St. Helena winery incorporates all structural requirements to qualify for the U.S. GREEN Building Council's LEADERSHIP in ENERGY and ENVIRONMENTAL DESIGN (LEED) GREEN Building rating system,thus making HALL Winery the FIRST winery in California to achieve LEED Gold Certification status.

Mike explained HALLS Philosophy:
+ The Health of the Environment is essential when crafting wine.
+ HALL only uses natural products for weed and pest control.
+ Special attention is paid to biodiversity in the soil.
+ Cover crops are planted in all of the vineyards to minimize erosion and sedimentation of the local waterways.
+ HALL has incorporated the use of 50% bio-diesel in farming operations to reduce the overall carbon emissions.
+ HALL ships wine in recyclable and/or recycled packaging.
+ Recycled water is used for vineyard irrigation.

HALL is owned by entrepreneur CRAIG HALL and his wife, KATHRYN WALT HALL, former U.S. Ambassador to Austrian (1997-2001). Kathryn has been in the wine business for the past thirty years, as she managed her family's WALT Vineyard (Mendocino) from 1982 to 1992.

CRAIG and KATHRYN WALT HALL explain wine:
"The real beauty in making wine is that, unlike an enduring work of art that can be experienced time and time again, wine is living and ephemeral, created to be consumed. Years of strenuous work, meticulous methods and patient waiting culminate in the pull of the cork, the sip from the glass and the last drop in the bottle.
Then, we, begin again. Each vintage is a unique creation. Working to capture the year of a vineyard in a bottle is always a magical and humbling experience."

The HALL Wine Vineyards encompass more than FIVE HUNDRED acres of classic BORDEAUX varietals, CABERNET SAUVIGNON, MERLOT and SAUVIGNON BLANC. Cutting edge technology yields grapes of the highest quality, as Mike explained, LESS FRUIT yield per acre equals higher quality wine. HALL is ORGANIC, UNFILTERED and according to Mike, HOLISTIC. HALL practices organic small-vine viticulture, wild yeast fermentation and micro-block-blending to fully extract the purity and unique characteristics of Napa Valley's climate and soils.

The wines I tasted with MIKE REYNOLDS were all EXCEPTIONAL, not only by my standards, but, by the World's Greatest Critics: ROBERT PARKER, ANTHONY DIAS BLUE, WINE SPECTATOR,WINE ENTHUSIAST and The WINE ADVOCATE.

Wine notes:

SAUVIGNON BLANC 2010 (91 POINTS) Ripe fruit, balanced , soft and expressive. Citrus on the nose followed by fresh lime, grapefruit and lemon on the palate. Great acidity and minerality on the finish. A MUST wine with seafood or can be used as an aperitif on a warm day. A TRUE VALUE!($21.99)

NAPA VALLEY CABERNET SAUVIGNON 2008 (95 POINTS RP) Dense, opulent and full-bodied with hints of black licorice, cassis, and dark chocolate dominate this complex wine. Barrel-aged for 16 months in new French Oak creates an earthy, racy wine that will grow year by year. ($48)

BERGFELD ST.HELENA CABERNET SAUVIGNON 2007 (90+ POINTS RP) Aromas of cherry, blueberry and plum prevail coupled with flavors of concentrated dark cherry, blackberry, plum and cloves. Silky, complex and elegant describe this wonderful wine.
Aged for 22 months in 70% new French Oak. A PERFECT GIFT FOR COLLECTOR'S ($100)

DIAMOND MOUNTAIN DISTRICT CABERNET SAUVIGNON 2008 (90 POINTS) This silky, concentrated, complex wine mirrors the terroir of the Mayacamus Mountains of the Napa Valley. Flavors of cocoa, black cherry and spiced black tea burst on the palate. Barrel aged for 22 months in 75% new French Oak, this round, earthy wine
will be a crowd pleaser. It is sweet and opulent. ($110)

"JACK'S MASTERPIECE" CABERNET SAUVIGNON 2008 (93 POINTS) Fruit forward aromas of vanilla and blackberry dominate before your palate explodes with dense tannins, dark fruit and black licorice. Opulent and ready to drink. ($125)

"KATHRYN HALL" CABERNET SAUVIGNON 2008 (96 POINTS) Complex, depth and endless flavor make this wine an EXCEPTIONAL VALUE. Aromas of raspberries, cocoa, herbs and blackberries awake your senses. Soft and round with a balance, "Kathryn Hall" improves with each sip. There is a depth of flavor on the palate, mainly milk chocolate, leather, sweet cherry and leather. A SPECIAL elegant and classy wine modeled after owner Kathryn Hall. A MUST BUY! ($80)

HALL Wines are poured in TOP RESTAURANTS Around the World.
Wines can be PURCHASED online via their website: www.HallWines.com

PHILIP S. KAMPE
philip.kampe@thewinehub.com

12 Italian Quizzes

This week we made available 12 Italian quizzes for you to play!

It would be great to hear which ones you liked, hated, did really well, sucked...  :)

Click on the link to play: http://www.thewinehub.com/learn/quiz

Have Fun!!!

Cheers,
LA

http://www.thewinehub.com/
One of the pillars of TheWineHub is Wine Tourism. Whether you are a wine maker, or a wine drinker, we all enjoy having discoveries...

TheWineHub exists to help you with that.

OLE Wine Portfolio Scores a "BULLSEYE" by Philip S. Kampe

It is odd how the word "BULLSEYE" can sum up the ACHIEVEMENT of HIGH-QUALITY, REASONABLY PRICED Wines that OLE wine exporters, PATRICK MATA and ALBERTO ORTE, have brought to this country through the help of Distributor Extraordinaire, SCOTT GERBER, of MARTIN SCOTT Wines.

Let me paint the picture: It is the middle of summer in New York. Temperatures are rising. At noon, it has hit 92 degrees.

It is a perfect beach day and a day not fit to sample a Portfolio of Spanish wines.
But, in reality, OPPORTUNITY knocks.

The summer is considered a dormant period regarding Trade wine tastings. Tastings rarely occur in June, July and August. But when they do, they seem more important than those during the rest of the over-crowded tasting season.

I was excited to reach the Penthouse of the Kimberley Hotel on 50th Street (NYC) to sample the new releases from the founders of OLE, PATRICK MATA and ALBERTO ORTE. Many winemakers and proprietors will be on hand to pour and talk about their wines.

OLE Wines are known for their DEDICATION to OUTSTANDING QUALITY, VALUE and EXPRESSION of DIVERSE TERROIRS, which is what SPAIN is all about.

The tasting featured 84 WINES, 30 GRAPE VARIETALS from 25 D.O. REGIONS.

Upon arriving, I sampled Two CAVA'S from the PENEDES D.O., a few miles south of Barcelona. The region is known for hot days and moderate nights, producing wines with good skin pigmentation, medium-high aromatics, balanced acidity and polished tannins. The wines I tasted were from BODEGAS NAVERIN and made by winemaker EMILI ESTEVE.

CAVA BRUT VINTAGE 2008 is made from 50% XARELLO, 30% MACABEO and 20% PARELLADA.
This Cava spends 18 months on lees and has notes of green apple and lemon with floral, yeasty overtones.
At $16.99 a bottle, this crisp, dry sparking wine is a GREAT VALUE.

CAVA DAMA 2008 received 90 points from the Robert Parker. Made from 85% CHARDONNAY and 15% PARELLADA, this is the CLASSIC Cava; small bubbles, complex, minerality, smooth and vibrant with green apple overtones. A MUST BUY at $19.99 a bottle.

PAZO de GALEGOS 2010. This elegant wine is produced by Winemaker PAUL GARCIA from BODEGAS PAZO de GALEGOS, which is located in RIAS BAIXAS. Made with 100% ALBARINO and rated 90 points from both the WINE ADVOCATE, as well as the INTERNATIONAL WINE CELLAR, this ALBARINO is rich on the nose with a floral nutty aroma followed by notes on the palate of peach and citrus fruit. This highly acidic wine is possibly the BEST ALBARINO of 2010 in the $20 range.

FURVUS 2007 is produced by VINYES DOMENCH in the MONTSTANT region. This complex red wine is made from 65% GARNACHA TINTA, 20% MERLOT, 8% CABERNET SAUVIGNON and 7% SYRAH.
Rated at 91 points from the WINE ADVOCATE, this $39.99 bottle is aged for 14 months in American and French oak. The wine is intense, elegant and satisfying. The rich fruit dominates the wood and satisfies your palate.
This is a Great Gift Wine for someone who knows about wine.

DACU 2010 is from RIBERA del GUADIANA D.O. and is produced by BODEGAS EMERITAS. DACU 2010 is 100% TEMPRANILLO and is my BEST BUY at the tasting. Aged on lees for four months followed by two months in French oak, this fragrant, juicy, bright wine has dark fruit overtones mixed with black licorice and plums. Made by OLE partner and winemaker ALBERTO ORTE, this wine retails for $11.99 a bottle and a wine everyone should own.

Each wine I tasted (YES, all 84) stood out. I only highlighted a few that should be in your wine cellar. VISIT www.oleimports.com to learn more about these GREAT WINES.

PHILIP S. KAMPE
philip.kampe@thewinehub.com

What's your favorite design for our new t-shirt? http://www.thewinehub.blogspot.com/2012/01/winelover-which-design-would-look.html TheWineHub Store http://www.thewinehub.com/  One of the pillars of TheWineHub is Wine Tourism. Whether you are a wine maker, or a wine drinker, we all enjoy having discoveries... TheWineHub exists to help you with that.