Today we review a Spanish wine that costs only $9 a bottle.
Bottom line: Terrific if you enjoy dry red wine! This wine wins a “Best Value” designation.
OK folks, this one verges on incredible. It’s 85% tempranillo and 15% syrah (which is the same thing as shiraz). It’s made in Spain. It has cool modern art on the label. And it’s only 9 bucks. Even if you pay $12, it is still a very good wine for the price.
It’s spicy, and very dry when it first hits your mouth. But after drinking it for a little while you will begin to notice the dark fruit in there: plums, dates, maybe some black raspberry. All of them, “not quite all the way ripe yet.”
One thing: buckle up if you’ve never had Spanish wine before, because it has WAY more tannins than the typical U.S. wine. Tannins are what give you the feeling that all the moisture is being sucked out of your mouth. Associated with red wine, they are the result of grape skins being left in during portions of the fermentation process.
I suggest letting Zestos breathe for a couple of hours. Pouring the bottle into a decanter (any container that lets more of the wine’s surface touch air) speeds this up. Breathing helps to ripen those “not quite ripe” fruit flavors.
Zestos isn’t complex, it’s not going to pair well with everything, and it’s not a “crowd pleaser” due to those extra tannins. But at $10, it’s a great wine to sip alone, or to enjoy with steak, lamb or anything spicy from Italian to Thai. And so, it is a “Best Value” wine, and is:
Highly recommended.
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