Manchuela, Pays Basque and Catalunya

If you happen to be a soccer fan, in addition to those jerseys and fancy merchandises, what else can you collect? 

The answer is : WINE.

Here it is, Finca El Carril red wine from Bodega Iniesta, ran by the family of Andrés Iniesta, who is the indispensable midfielder of FC Barcelona. Bodega Iniesta is situated in Fuentealbilla, Spain, which belongs to the DO Manchuela wine region in Castille-La Manche autonomous community. It is said that the wine was bought out of curiosity and some "Love me, love my dog" state of mind..., however, it is not disappointing at all! 

With Tempranillo and Petit Verdot as grape varieties, the wine has a clear and quite intense ruby color, smells like a bouquet of flowers with some hints of spice.

Mouth: Off dry with medium-full bodied, round tannins, spicy with flavours of blackberry and some ripe fruit, slight licorice with quite long finish. The wine tastes excellent with cheese and cured ham! The cured ham was bought from a market in Bayonne, which is very chewy because of its thickness.

 

And some Catalunya sausages! While the sweetness of meat accompanied by the wine and the aroma spreads in the mouth, it's just like a happy symphony flowing through our taste buds...

Since someone between us is a huge fan of Barça, we would take this Castille-La Manche/Catalunya wine food pairing as an homage to Andrés Iniesta and his Blaugrana team, for so many wonderful football games,  true sportsmanship and of course, such a beautiful wine. Cheers! Santé!

"Pinot Noir Challenge" in Hong Kong

January 15, 2013, Hong Kong wine industry has witnessed a moment of German Pinot Noir dominate the Asia. The German Wine Institute (Deutsches weininstitut) selected HongKong as the place of “Pinot Noir Challenge”, the German Wine Institute invited famous wine critics from China, Japan, Singapore and Hong Kong for giving scores in this “ Pinot Noir Challenge”.

After an intense review and debate, critics selected the first ten of 40 Pinot Noir from all over the world .The most surprising thing is the name of the first ten Pinot Noir eight are from Germany and the head five are arranged by the German, it is visible that German Pinot Noir is very suitable for Asian tastes!

Global warming
In fact, the phenomenon of global warming is quietly changing the many wine-producing endemic environment, in the past four decades, Germany's average temperature increase 1.4 ° C, this phenomenon makes Germany to become a remarkable wine producing country!

Emerging force
Undoubtedly the most famous Pinot Noir origin is Burgundy addition to Burgundy, a lot of people are looking for alternative, New World representative is California and Oregon ,from the latest information, German Pinot Noir production is the third in the world, become the world only emerging power to challenge Burgundy royal status!

After this challenge, the Asian market is aware of the strength of German Pinot Noir who is emerging in this field. People should pay close attention to the German Pinot Noir.

Blind tasting event @ Chateau du Grand Moueys

40 minutes away from downtown Bordeaux, the Chateau du Grand Moueys lies close to a small town named Capian.

Expected to be one of the most beautiful chateau from the right bank, The Chateau du Grand Moueys (AOC Cote-de-Bordeaux) was acquired in February 2012 by a Chinese spirits company - NINGXIAHONG.

This Saturday(12th Jan 2013), we attended the blind tasting event organized by Chateaux du Grand Moueys' International Marketing Manager - Mr. Chen Zihao(right in picture).

Attended by 15 Chinese wine professionals from Bordeaux, here we went through a blind tasting of 8 wines from Loire region. WSET level 3 tasting process was used during the tasting, and we aimed to develop together all different characteristics of wines from Val de Loire region.

"Such event is expected to be organized once every two weeks, each time a particular wine producing region will be chosen." Said Mr Chen, "Our purpose is to build for all Chinese wine professionals lived in Bordeaux a platform where they could gather and share their professional knowledge and information in wine industry, a platform which never exist before."

Copyright reserved by NINGXIAHONG Group, China.

Introduction of the wine region of Spain

Spain is the largest country of grapes planting in the world , the grape variety is diverse. Red wine is major, also excellent white wine and sparkling wine CAVA, of course, there is the famous sherry. Spain's wine production is rand only second to Italy and France. Almost all of the Spain produced wine, mainly in the Rioja area, Pini diss, multi-Luo River You Beila Galicia, Jieci Sigmund Troy area, which Rioja, Anderson Lucia, Catalonia are the most famous areas. Near the capital, Madrid,the wines of La Mancha local streets,accounting for almost half of all production of Spain. The following are presentations of the main producing areas of Spain specialty wine.

1. Galicia 

Southwest of Galicia (Galicia), which is one of the most outstanding places of white wine dry in Spain, the general quality of white wine dry with a high level, which area of Spain is the most difficult to produce high-quality white wine dry areas, because of the local climate is cool and moist, white wine dry rich in fresh fruit aroma, acidity .

2. Castilla Y-Leon

Castilla Y Leon is located in the Duero River, the areas of red wine, white wine and rose wine . The best is Ribera del Duero, the red wine who close to the Duero River, is said to be the top red wine in the whole Spain, the famous and expensive Vega Sicilia winery is in this area. Tempranillo wine of this producing area is really exciting, strong tannins, fruity.

3. Andalucia

Andalucia in the famous producing area of sherry , produced brandy and the unique flavor of Spain sherry sweet and not sweet .

4. Catalunya

Catalunya is one of the main producing areas of the Spanish wine, in Hong Needles, Kerst de Garza Gray, Areia and Bailey Lata, the four regions produced the excellent wine ,these wine producing regions of the name “cellar”. Andalusia, Aragon, the East Coast and other regions are also produced delicate taste of wine.