Wine Blogging Wednesday 2: Spanish Reds

It's time for another installment of Wine Blogging Wednesday! This month, Alder of Vinography is hosting and he's selected Spanish Reds for our theme. I love red wine, but usually drink Italian reds, so it was fun to get back into something Spanish.

While I was planning to make a special trip to a wine shop to select something interesting for this event, I stumbled across a red at Trader Joe's that I decided I'd try. It's Abrazo Del Toro Tinto 2003. According to the description on the bottle, the wine comes from Carinena, an area with Roman and Moorish influences. This region is famous for its "El Cierzo" dry winds that they say enrich the climate and maintain the health of the vineyards that contribute to this wine. The bottle promised the wine to be a "rich and delicious blend with lush flavors of ripe red fruits and truffles."

So I decided to give this wine a try because:
1. It was Spanish
2. It was red
3. It was really inexpensive ($4.99)
4. It was there and conveniently available for purchase
5. Who doesn't like the "lush flavors of ripe red fruits and truffles"?

The Abrazo Del Toro was very good and had a rich color and nice aroma. Smooth, full-bodied and very pleasant. I can't say that I tasted the fruit and truffle essence, but it's sometimes hard for me to discern underlying flavor notes in wine. What I was most curious about was whether or not I'd be getting a good bottle of wine for this incredibly cheap price and I must say that it was quite good. I'm clearly not a wine expert, but I think this wine could hold its own in a comparison with some more pricey bottles.

Abrazo Del Toro is recommended with hearty meat dishes, pasta, pizza and cheeses. We paired it with steak and enjoyed it very much.

I recently read an article in The Wall Street Journal by Dorothy J. Gaiter and John Brecher where they discuss how "Americans are getting past the snobbery of wine and discovering (it's) simple pleasures." Wine doesn't have to be expensive to be good, nor does it have to be sipped in crystal glasses to be savored. I completely agree with this philosophy and was pleased that this Spanish red supported that line of thinking.