Much like Ireland, the Kiernan household finds itself in a very challenging financial position at the start of 2011.
In this case “very challenging” is a euphemism.
The government is lucky in that it can raise taxes to bring in more money; I can only slash spending in order to fix the yawning deficit in my current account.
A beermat calculation just now shows that I can save €2,000 a year by culling coffees and newspapers.
After that I’m sad to say that wine is in the line of fire.
So last night I bought my cheapest wine ever - €7 Vina Albali, Valdepenas Gran Reserva, Spain, 2001 (Supervalue). Well, it was reduced from €14, apparently. If I had to judge here, I would guess the “real price” to be maybe a tenner - I probably wouldn’t have paid €14 for it but, having said that, €7 is a very good price for so mature an appellation-level wine - assuming it is still drinkable.
Valdepenas isn’t an especially prestigious DO. It’s basically an enclave of La Mancha, high up in the meseta. You are talking about a stupendously-large area of vineyards here - the DO classified vineyards alone in La Mancha cover more land than all of Australia’s vineyards combined.
The soil and climate are similar in La Mancha and Valdepenas but wines from the latter are more highly regarded and so has its own separate DO.
Was Vina Albali drinkable? Yes! Aromatic with a lovely minty lift and classic Spanish red fruits and vanilla, with a touch of dried fruit and tobacco from a decade’s bottle ageing. Lightish in body and colour (Valdepenas, which is usually based on tempranillo, called cencibel here, often has white wine in it too) but still with some tannic grip. Impressive. ***
Maybe being poor won’t be so bad after all.
