Ninety-four: the number of days that must pass until Z and I will be tasting our way through the Rioja wine region of Spain. I can hardly wait! The Mayan Cafe must have known, and you can imagine our delight when we discovered they were hosting a Spanish wine dinner. The Mayan Cafe is one of our favorite restaurants in Louisville (their burger, made with Foxhollow Farm beef, is beyond perfect) and we have happily attended their wine dinners in the past. Featuring both a local farmer and a selection of wines perfectly paired with each course, these evenings are not to be missed. On this particular night, our Four Hills Farm lamb was accompanied by Zuazo Gaston wines from Rioja and the 2008 Crianza received unanimous #1 votes from our table. Incredibly smooth and balanced it was such a pleasure to drink and the vanilla and oak notes became more apparent with every sip. We brought a few bottles home and you can find this delicious and reasonably priced bottle at The Wine Rack on Frankfort Ave. I am very excited to learn about the Rioja region of Spain and have only begun to scratch the surface, but I am highly encouraged by what I am finding. If this bottle is a sign of what’s in store for us during our Spanish adventure then we are in for a treat! Now if June would just get here already…
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Lucky you! Will you also be going to San Sebastián? The pintxo bars are so much fun and have such great food.
Thanks Michelle! Yes, we plan to spend three days on the north coast and will either stay in San Sebastian or Getaria. Either way we will definitely be checking out the pintxo bars! Any suggestions/must stop spots? I welcome all tips for Spain!
Ohhhh…I'm so jealous! I absolutely love Spain! (I lived in Valencia for almost a year after college.) Have you tried an albarino white wine yet? It's one of my newfound faves from Spain!
I haven't tried an albarino yet Mindy, but I will! If you have any recommendations for Barcelona, Rioja or Basque country I would love for you to share… we are so excited!
It was just a couple of years ago, but I really can't remember the names of the places. (If I think of it, I'll look back through my photos.) In San Sebastián, we just roamed around from place to place and walked in whatever looked good. Some are really old-fashioned; others very modern. Like Mindy, I like albarino a lot and I'm not much of a white wine drinker. And there's a fun fizzy white called txakoli that everybody drinks in the pintxo bars, but I don't really recall ever seeing that here in the states outside of maybe a big city Basque restaurant.