Ceres Crianza 2017

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 After months of absence I am back to writing here after having recovered completely from Covid and, most important of all: having recovered my taste. 

I have to admit that I got particularly worried as the first time I have tried to drink wine again the only thing I could feel in my palate was alcohol. No other taste was there to be identified than pure alcohol as if I would be drinking pure ethanol. 

The strangest part of it was that I kept on tasting food, but not wine.

Little by little I have managed to start reacquiring the capacity to recognize the primary tastes of wine and about a month later I could fully enjoy the pleasure of drinking wine.

Once fit, I went to a wine seminar about Spanish wines and I came across this astonishing Ceres which has transported me to some of my early wine experiences with the Douro Valley region. Even though it is a 100% Tempranillo (which in Portugal is named Aragonez) its contact with wood has given it a rather smoky and cocoa notes along with a predominant vanilla taste which reminded me of some of Douro's cuvées that I really like and associate with quite some dear memories. 

The red fruits that are to be found present themselves tremendously ripe offering a feeling of a more juicy wine capable of filling our palate with a rich complexity of tastes, making it an experience worth to repeat. 

This led me to one of my favourite poems by García Lorca, The Ballad of the Moon, dedicated to Federico's sister, Conchita:


Moon came to the forge
in her petticoat of nard
The boy looks and looks
the boy looks at the Moon
In the turbulent air
Moon lifts up her arms
showing — pure and sexy — 
her beaten-tin breasts
Run Moon run Moon Moon
If the gypsies came
white rings and white necklaces
they would beat from your heart
Boy will you let me dance — 
when the gypsies come
they’ll find you on the anvil
with your little eyes shut
Run Moon run Moon Moon
I hear the horses’ hoofs
Leave me boy! Don’t walk
on my lane of white starch

The horseman came beating
the drum of the plains
The boy at the forge
has his little eyes shut
Through the olive groves
in bronze and in dreams
here the gypsies come
their heads riding high
their eyelids hanging low

How the night heron sings
how it sings in the tree
Moon crosses the sky
with a boy by the hand

At the forge the gypsies
cry and then scream
The wind watches watches
the wind watches the Moon



18/20
Country: Spain
Region: Ribera del Duero
Grapes: Tempranillo
14%
Winemaker: n/a
Website: https://www.asenjo-manso.com/vinos/

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