The name Piamater is somewhat unusual for a sweet wine, especially for me as a neurobiologist, who knows Pia Mater as the innermost cerebral membran. Less unusual today is that two wineries together produce one wine, in this case the oenologist Alicia Eyaralar from the winery Tandem in Navarre, together with the Andalusian winery Dimobe.
The wine we have tasted, the Dolç de Sa Vall of the winery Miquel Gelabert, originates from the DO (Denominacion de Origen) Pla de Llevant, located in the east of Majorca.
Compared to the DO Binisalem, which lies in the interior of Majorca, the DO Pla de Lllevant is said to have increased yields and to plant more varieties of international grape varieties. Climatically, there is a Mediterranean climate in both DOs, which means more precipitation from autumn to spring, as well as warm summers and mild winters.
Founded in 1985, the Miquel Gelabert winery is based in Manacor and manages 9 hectares in the eastern part … Read more ...
A round trip in Andalusia was on the program of our friends and neighbors, including some days were planned in Málaga. So I asked Heinz and Mausi to bring me a sweet Málaga wine, emphasizing that type, age, sweetness and style are not important at all, just the first sweet Málaga wine they see.
For sweet Málaga wines it is not easy to reconcile the manifold nomenclatures. There is Vino de licor, Vino de uvas sobremaduradas and Vino de uvas pasificadas, the still well-comprehensible classification according to the duration ripening Noble (2-3 years), Añejo (3-5 years) and Transañejo (over 5 years), but beyond there are many others … Read more ...
“We would like to introduce you to the Floralis Moscatel Oro sweet wine from the winery from Torres and at the same time arranged the dispatch of a product sample,” was written in the mail of an agency. In addition there was an attachment with informations about region, wine and winery. At that time I was in the process of working out more informations about Spanish sweet wines and therefore this wine was ok for me.. From the enclosed information I could see that the Floralis is probably a Mistela, a type of sweet wine that I had barely tasted before, so the Floralis came just right.
The Spanish … Read more ...
Catalonia, currently in the news because its efforts of independence from Spain, is better known for cava as well as its red wines from the Priorat or Monsant. Sweet wines, which until the 1950s together with Cava held a leading role in Catalonia, are of minor importance nowadays, best known are still the sweet wines with untypical ageing notes, often varnish-like flavours, of the DO Terra Alta and the Garnatxa de l’Empordà. Sweet wines from the Tarragona wine region are now among the least known wines in Catalonia – until the 1960s, they were considered a low-cost alternatives to port wine. In Tarragona, the fortified strong sweet wines have always … Read more ...
Cream means sweetened sherry, a category that also includes Pale Cream and Medium, is considered by quite a few sherry lovers as a purely commercial product. This may be true if Oloroso is sweetened by the addition of sweet or even cooked, concentrated grape must (Arrope). But that holds not true if of blending a dry sherry is done with a sweet sherry, such as PX (Pedro Ximénez) or Moscatel, as is the case with the three Cream Sherries, we have tasted.
The name Cream for this type of sweet sherry goes back to Harveys’ Bristol Cream, which introduced it in the 1860s … Read more ...
Majorca had more than 10 million visitors last year. The least of them probably drink Majorcan wine, because the amount produced there annually of about 6 million bottles would not be enough.
Only 10% of the area of Majorca is planted with vines. 2,500 hectares of vineyards are spread over four wine growing areas. Almost two-thirds of the areas claim the Vino de la Tierra – Majorca and Serra de Tramuntana – Costa Nord, the rest is shared by the higher quality DO (Denominación de Origen) Binissalem and the DO Pla i Llevant, located in the southeast.
Anyone who has already drunk Majorcan wine could have already made the acquaintance of one of the indigenous grape varieties of the Balearic Islands. Above all, these are the red varieties Manto Negro, Callet and the white variety Prensal, also called Moll.
The last wine tasted at Dinastía Vivanco, the tenth and last visited bodega in Rioja, was at the same time the first and only sweet wine of the entire Rioja wine journey in mid-May of this year. It was a sweet wine made from four of the five approved red grape varieties of the Rioja: Tempranillo (50%), Graciano (20%), Garnacha (20%) and Mazuelo (10%). A sweet wine made from this combination of grape varieties seems not gto be very common in the Rioja. Dinastía Vivanco, however, is not only known for its very extensive, extremely informative museum of wine culture, but also to follow new avenues in … Read more ...
When speaking of Málaga,usually it is meant a sweet alcoholic wine known since antiquity. This wine is rich in alcohol because pur alcohol has been added and sweet, because the alcohol stopped the fermentation and thus preserved the sugar of the grapes.
The tourists in Malaga who wants to buy a sweet Málaga wine usually is totally confused by the variety offered. Pálido, Cream Añejo, Rojo Dorado, Parajete or one of the more than 20 allowed other names can be found on the bottles, in which the sweet wine made from the grape varieties Pedro Ximénez and Moscatel (Muscat d’Alexandrie) is offered. The used terms may refer … Read more ...
“Like syrup! – Liquid raisins! – Incredibly sweet! ”- this and the like can sometimes be heard when tasting sherry made from Pedro Ximénez (PX) or Moscatel grapes. These Sherries are definitely sweet, as Moscatel sherry must have at least 160 g / l residual sugar – PX sherry even at least 212 g / l. Simple, not very mature specimens can then often be too little complex and such appear “just sweet”.