Albares "Bierzo" Mencia 2004, Dominio de Tares Spain. 13.5% alcohol. $8.99 at P. J Wines, New York; Imported by Classical Wines, Seattle WA.
Deep red color, deep hue, intense aroma of fruit and minerals, very good tastes of cherries, other fruits, minerals, earth and a hint of black spices, medium mouth feel, smooth tannins and just a bit of acidity, long finish with spice, cherry, earth and mineral notes. Remarkable for the price, but highly recommended without considering price. Delicious. 4*.
Notes:
I've subscribed to the "New York Sun" just to read Matt Kramer on a regular basis (although there are a number of other columns that are quite good). Recently Kramer tipped me off to this wonderful bargain -- I find him one of the very best wine columnists -- and he's an exceptional presenter as well:
Before I say anything more about this wonderful red wine, let me report that, upon tasting this wine, my wife simply said, "How many cases of this are we buying?" — and that was before she knew the price. Frankly, that ought to do it for you right there. You have to remember that a lot of wine gets sluiced chez Kramer, and I can't recall another wine that elicited such an instantly avaricious reaction that didn't cost the equivalent of a fractional share in a private jet.
What's this wine got? In a word, flavor — an intense yet perfectly balanced, succulent, wild cherryand-slate flavor. The grape variety for this Spanish red is the star-isborn mencia variety. Five years ago, hardly anyone had heard of it, and that goes for most wine writers, present company included. Yet today it's attracting all sorts of attention and rightly so.
Mencia at its best is a sort of turbo-charged pinot noir. It has that variety's slightly berry taste and capacity to convey minerality (the soil of its native district, Bierzo, is slateladen). But mencia is a bigger, rich, er sturdier wine than pinot noir.
Albares is the name given to a particular version of mencia by the producer Dominio de Tares, which makes several different mencia bottlings. Albares is their one mencia wine that sees no oak. According to Stephen Metzler, the co-owner of Classical Wines, which imports Dominio de Tares, the idea for an oak-free mencia came from his store. Partly it was Mr. Metzler's sense that mencia without oak could be lovely, and partly it was economics, as oak aging is expensive.
"The winemaker at Dominio de Tares was reluctant because such a wine is really transparent," Mr. Metzler said. "So he agreed to do it providing that he was allowed to use some of their best grapes, rather than the lesser ones you'd normally choose for this price point." Who says pride is such a bad thing?
The price is the clincher: $9.99 at Astor Wines, among others. If there's a more persuasive, supple, original-tasting red wine that limbos under the $10 bar, I haven't tasted it.