Plum and rosemary crumble

Gran Recosind Criança (Crianza) 1999 Cellers Santa María

I’ve been drinking a lot of this recently, which I think is a steal at £11 from my favourite wine merchant, Raeburn Fine Wines. It’s a gem from Spain’s DO Ampurdán – Costa Brava (Empordà - Costa Brava in Catalan), up against the French border, where the Pyrenees meet the Med. This area is not known for world-class wines, as opposed to Priorat and Penedés back along the Spanish coast, and being a mass tourism area, it produces its fair share of mediocre rosé sold on easily to the tourist market (hello again, Provence), but this is classically styled Spanish crianza ideal for those of us who like a bit of age on our wines.

The smoothed-out fruit on the bouquet, a mixture of plum and raspberry, immediately gives away the fact that it is an aged wine, and it comes with a whiff of the classic Spanish-beloved American oak vanilla. On the palate, the tannins are smooth, and it has the feel of a mellow wine not destined to be cellared much longer. N1 insists it tastes strongly of rosemary, and we compromise on plum and rosemary crumble.

I could believe this was Rioja (the soft, plummy fruit and that American-style vanilla are classic Rioja characteristics), and it is a surprise to discover there is no Tempranillo in it. In fact, it’s a blend of 80% Cariñena (that’s Carignan to the French, but it is actually believed to have originated in the Spanish province of Navarra) and 20% Garnacha (that’s Grenache to the French, but it is believed to have originated in the Spanish province of Aragón). You can find Garnacha in Rioja, but not Cariñena, which is too busy making the rosé for the tourists.