The wine most welcome at any holiday gathering
Subscribe to enjoy similar stories. There is a famous wine region whose wines I’ve largely overlooked lately. My cellar is proof: I have exactly four bottles of Rioja to my name.
The wines of Rioja, Spain, are reliable, reasonably priced and only released when they’re ready to drink. So why haven’t I given them greater attention? Maybe it’s actually because Rioja wines are so predictable. Or maybe it’s a matter of pairing.
Traditionally aged in American oak, Rioja is marked by a distinct vanilla note I have, in the past, found hard to match with a wide range of dishes. When I undertook my recent Rioja re-exploration, however, I was pleasantly surprised by what I found: delicious wines at great prices and some good matches with food. I wondered if other wine drinkers are overlooking Rioja.
Brian Gelb, vice president, wine, of Total Wine & More, reported that Rioja sales at the chain’s 220-plus stores have been flat for a couple of years compared to sales of wines from, say, Italy’s Tuscany and Piedmont. Gelb, himself a Rioja fan, noted the excellent price-quality ratio and the fact that the wines are ready to drink on release, “such a selling point for people who like Old World wines but aren’t prepared to cellar a bottle of Bordeaux for 10 to 15 years." Still, they aren’t buying Riojas like they’re buying Bordeaux at the 14 restaurants overseen by Josh Nadel, beverage director for the New York-based NoHo Hospitality Group. Nadel has fewer than a dozen Rioja wines spread across all his lists.
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