Grenache for when spring hits
Year 15, No. 05
Highlights: Aragón 2025 | Madeira 2025
It was grey and cold until it wasn’t.
The only good thing about a dreary stretch of grey weather in the Mediterranean is that once it clears, there’s this massive blast of sun and in this specific moment, the wondrous splendor that is spring.
It’s like it came out of nowhere this year as suddenly everything is blooming and alive. I swear that I’d just finished taking my almond blossom photos for Instagram to find that it was time to get out there for the cherry blossoms. Next up, orange blossoms, and then some of the fruit ideally.
I’m definitely not complaining even if a warm April often doesn’t bode well for a low-temperature summer. At the very least, our rain totals are way up this year, giving way to verdant fields the likes of which I can’t remember seeing for at least half a decade and the Siurana River which flows through Priorat when it’s not being illegally diverted out to a reservoir on the coast, is actually flowing.
Despite the bump in heat (which will back off again shortly), this is still a fine shoulder season for drinking whatever wine you’d like. And given that, I always turn to one of my favorite grape varieties, Grenache.
This is what we find in the latest report for the wines of Aragón. They’ve heaping loads of excellent old vines throughout this interior region of Spain and finally, there are a number of winemakers crafting some excellent wines. But it’s not only Grenache that shines as shown by the growth in terms of quality for the white wines found in DO Somontano up in the pre-Pyrénées.
Just to keep everyone on their toes however, there’s also a new report for the wines of Madeira. I’ve long-wanted to visit for distant familial reasons and finally got the chance while also getting to see the island up close and finding that the only thing I regretted about the trip was not having done it sooner. The lesson here, is don’t be me, read the report, and get over there as soon as you can.
These as well as the 160 additional Feature Reports on Hudin.com are available for subscribers with the Casual level getting access to the all the textual commentary and Classic & Pro able to view the scores and tasting notes as well.
And in care you missed it, there was the write up for this excellent new Mediterranean Wine Symposium (*) that the Perelada winery of Empordà, Catalunya has kickstarted and I hope will lead to greater conversations about this unique portion of the wine world.
It was this symposium that also afforded attending a fantastic tasting of Great Greek Wines led by Yiannis Karakasis and was one of the highlights of the day.
Drink well, be well.
-Miquel
(*) Free to read