Wine Fictions

 When you come across the selection a wine shop has to offer you also come across a whole market philosophy and how the owners/managers position themselves towards the wine world. This can be a political statement, a specific way of interpreting what is relevant in the wine world, an attempt to understand and perceive what a certain kind of customers want and to attract them, or to simply try to follow the latest trends.  I am sure there are many other approaches on how to create a portfolium that can fit in a shop, but that is not the main subject I want to write about. Recently, I have been looking more attentively to what kind of wine people in Germany are selling on Ebay and I have to confess that I find it tremendously fascinating to dive into personal collections or, as it often happens, the personal collection of someone who has recently died.  By going through it, I have the feeling of immersing in very personal stories as well as reliving a piece of history. Cert...

As I finish a good book, I often have difficulties to get inside the next one, as if I am in some sort of literary hangover, still filled by the worlds previously given to me. That was the case as I have finished Mia Couto's O Mapeador de Ausencias and struggled to enter the genius Un amor by Sara Mesa. Even though I felt deeply identified with the narrative presented by Sara Mesa, I have experienced quite some difficulties during the first 40 pages. Moving from Mozambique to the depth of Castilla was quite a change. The same happens with wines. When I come across a tremendously good wine during a tasting I often have difficulties to objectively taste the following one as the dominant notes of the former one tend to persist. That is what happened with this La Servil from Bodegas Cerrón.  A 94% Monastrell mixed with some other small authoctone grapes such as Blanquilla or Rojal this is a powerful and seductive red, showing good ripe berries flavours deliciously spiced by fine...