9 Spanish wines with unique names
Wine tourism is trendy and people is more and more interested in the different types of wine and its classification, altough this can be very tricky when we want to go further than red, rosé and white.
It´s common to classify wines regarding its elaboration (still or sparkling), regarding its aging, its content in sugar, its certificate of origin, also by the grape it is made of… but today we are going to review a few wines known for their unique names.
Sentada sobre la bestia (Seated on the beast). Fil·loxera & Cia. DO Valencia.
It´s bold to name a winery Fil·loxera (Phylloxera). Phylloxera is the name of the plague that destroyed hundreds of European vineyards last century. Three oenologists who worked before in other wineries, gathered in order to make the type of wine they liked.
Without a doubt, this is an authentic and unique wine, like its name. Sentada sobre la bestia (Seated on the beast) refers to Babylon the Great, commonly known as the Whore of Babylon, a symbolic female figure and a place of malevolence as mentioned in the Book of Revelation of the New Testament. She is related with the Antichrist and the Beast from the Apocalypse due to the connection with the 7 heads and 10 horns Kingdom. The wine has been elaborated with Monastrell, Tempranillo, Garnacha tintorera and Malvasia grapes. A 94 Parker points red wine coming from the municipality of Fontanars del Alforins, D.O. Valencia.
The grapes are harvested manually and later fermented with wild yeast. Finally, a 10 month aging in a barrel without filtering, neither clarification.
Sentada sobre la Bestia is a delicate wine, perfect for people who love natural wines. A subtle drink to enjoy.
La Dona de la Motet (The woman on the motorcycle). Madreselva winery. Alicante.
Madreselva winery is a personal Project by Margarita Rodriguez and Alberto Campos. Two partners coming from very different backgrounds, who joined to overcome a common challenge: plant 3 empty terraces in 2016.
From 2018 they started out making wine until they released their dry White wine La Dona de la Motet (Malvasia, Moscatel and Merserguera), and after that, a naturally sweetened Moscatel, Intaglio.
La Dona de la Motet is a citric, saline and Straw-colored with golden hints wine. The wine is named after Margarita´s mother, a ground-breaking woman, the first woman driving a motorcycle in Guardamar.
Besos de Lobo (Wolf kisses). Paraje Finca La Hoya. Murcia.
Located on the hillside of La Hoya and Morachuelas mountain, Finca La Hoya is a rural spot in the Spanish Southeast with great environmental value between Murcia and Alicante. In this natural spot, they pamper local grape varieties like Monastrell and Garnacha with ecological agriculture techniques.
Each corner of Finca la Hoya shows us the relationship between man and landscape through its multi-crop cultivation. A biodiversity that, surrounded by almond and olive trees and honeycombs, enhances the richness of an environment that lives not only for wine.
Besos de Lobo is a wine that speaks volumes. Intense and sometimes, fierce. From an elongated Bordeaux bottle, this wine is a ruby-red garnet color with a medium-high depth, clean, and bright Plenty of red and black fruit intermingle with good intensity and balsamic notes. The palate has a very good entry, sweetness, and a broad aftertaste, excellent acidity, and a pleasant finish that invites you to drink more.
The Flower and the bee Treixadura. Coto de Gomariz winery. D.O. Ribeiro.
Gomariz is known as the Golden Mile (refers to a high-end neighbourhood) of Ribeiro and boasts exceptional characteristics for grape growing. Coto de Gomariz was founded in the 1970s after Ricardo Carreiro returned from South America, like so many other Galicians, with a dream: to make wine and restore Gomariz’s prestige as a historic wine-growing area.
A single-varietal dry white wine from Treixadura grape, sourced from the youngest vines in the municipality of Gomariz. Mainly sandy soil. This wine is the starting point for Gomariz wines, allowing you to learn about the grape, the region and furthermore, to understand more complex winemaking.
The flower and the bee are the starting point of everything in the vine, and also in Gomariz. It expresses the Ribeiro’s queen grape like no other: Treixadura. It is an aromatic, very balanced wine with structure in the mouth and exquisite freshness.
El barco del Corneta (The cornet´s ship). Barco del Corneta winery. IGP Castilla y León.
The history of the vineyard could not begin in a more authentic place than the Cantarranas area, in the Valladolid district of La Seca.
Barco del Corneta winery is the project of Beatriz Herranz, who rediscovered Verdejo and decided to dedicate her heart and soul to growing this wine after completing a project to restore Garnacha vineyards in Cebreros. This is the starting point of these unique wines.
Barco del Corneta is a very unique Verdejo. An artisanal wine, austere, full-bodied, and with great aging potential. Harvested by hand, the wine undergoes double selection, first in the vineyard and then in the winery. Fermented in barrels with wild yeasts, it then ages on its lees in French oak barrels for nine months.
El Cordero y las Vírgenes (The Lamb and the virgins). Fil·loxera & Cia. DO Valencia.
We are going back again to the Fil loxera & Cia winery, they realized that wine is a crop that has always been linked to civilization, and they checked that the book where wine appears most often is the Bible. This is where they got the names, playing with double meanings, decontextualizing them, and also the relationship of some of these phrases with the world of cinema.
In this case, El cordero y las vírgenes is a reference to Revelation 14. The image is depicted in the Beatus of Liébana and is also part of the scene of the Last Judgment, signifying the exaltation of virtue. This wine is associated with an actor, Anthony Hopkins, rather than with a movie.
This is a limited-production garage red wine, straightforward and clean, with aromas of red and black fruits and a full-bodied, weighty mouthfeel with a spicy, fresh finish. It is made from Monastrell, Tempranillo, and Garnacha Tintorera grape varieties. Considered the best wine from southeastern Spain by Mundovino.
El Marciano (The Martian). Alfredo Maestro Winery. V.T. Castilla y León.
This is a red wine from the D.O. VT Castilla y León, produced by Alfredo Maestro winery. This single-varietal Garnacha wine comes from 70-year-old vines located in Ávila, specifically in Sierra de Gredos at an altitude of approximately 1,150 meters.
These wineries are known for their natural agriculture, without any herbicides or chemical fertilizers. In short, low-intervention agriculture. Harvesting is done manually, fermented in stainless steel tanks with daily pumping over. Maceration lasts approximately 40 days. The wine is clarified naturally, taking advantage of the local cold winter.
A deep, dark garnet color. Concentrated aromas, a notable presence of ripe red fruit, hints of cocoa and spices, combined with mineral notes. Great flavor and good balance, a pleasant finish, and a long-lasting finish.
Con viento fresco (in a huff – literally: with fresh air) Ziries winery. D.O. Tierra de Castilla.
Ziries Winery is the project of Javier Castro and Sonia López (winemaker), who join forces to produce Garnacha with their own personality, faithful to their place of origin, to the earth, the sky and the pure madness of their creators.
A single-varietal Garnacha red wine with a nod to traditional winemaking, they select the batch with the best “fresh” wine and reserve it for maturation in tanks without barrel aging. The remaining wine is then transferred to French oak barrels for 10 months. Finally, it is blended in barrels and matured in tanks, resulting in a lively and elegant wine, easy to drink but one that inspires our imagination, a breath of fresh air straight to our palates.
With a mesmerizing cherry-red hue, aromas of wild strawberries, abundant red fruit, eucalyptus leaves, and violet flowers. It is wonderfully paired with rice dishes, fish, stews, legumes, and red and white meat casseroles.
El gordo del circo (The fat from the circus). Casa Rojo. D.O. Rueda.
El Gordo del Circo is the name of the Verdejo from the original ‘The Wine Gurus’ collection by Casa Rojo winery. It comes from vineyards located in La Seca, very close to the municipality of Rueda. This vintage displays rich floral and white fruit notes. On the palate, it is creamy and full-bodied, yet also has the freshness expected from wine like this.
Straw-colored with greenish hues, clean and bright. Extravagant floral notes, white fruit, and tropical notes of melon, papaya, and especially passion fruit are on the nose. Creamy, and full-bodied on the palate, but with rhythm.
Did you know all these wines? Besides having a distinctive name, they are great wines, some of them considered among the best in Spain, whether for the winemaking process, the quality of the soil, or the quality of the grapes.
If you haven’t tried them yet, at El Jardín Restaurant we have the solution: a soulful wine list, full of viticultural gems, including some of those mentioned above, which you can pair with local Mediterranean cuisine with nods to other international cuisines. If food and wine tourism is your thing, come to Guardamar del Segura and enjoy the finest wines and a culinary offering to pair.
