<strong><div align="center"><strong>Planeta Vino Newsletter<br /></strong><strong>June 2006<br /></strong></div></strong><div>Hello everyone!<br /></div><div>We've just finished our second winery trip and it was a resounding success.&nbsp; We saw two very different wineries in La Mancha and had a wonderful lunch in Cuenca.&nbsp; We hope to do another trip towards the beginning of August&hellip;more info to follow soon.&nbsp; Later in the year, we'd like to do a trip at harvest time&hellip;ideally it would be an over-night trip to Rioja.&nbsp;&nbsp; &nbsp;&nbsp;<br />In terms of tastings, I'd like to offer some more unusual tastings this month, such as sherry, Portuguese dessert wines and I'd like to pull out some of the wine treasures, I've brought back from California.&nbsp; We are also organizing our first wine-matching dinner with the Iberian wine website, Catavino at expatriate-owned restaurant Memento.<br /></div><div>Check out more news and information at our website: <a href="../../../../"><u>www.planetavino.net</u></a>&nbsp;&nbsp; For info on any of our events please contact us at 91 310 2855 or at <a href="mailto:info@planetavino.net"><u>info@planetavino.net</u></a>.<br />Hope to see you at one of our events soon!<br /><strong><u><br />Gift certificates:&nbsp; <br /></u></strong>We have gift certificates at Planeta Vino.<br />Nothing makes a better birthday gift than a wine tasting class!<br /></div><div><u><strong>Home wine tastings:<br /></strong></u>Have a wine tasting in your home for your friends!&nbsp; We can organize home wine-tastings for every budget.&nbsp; Request more info at <a href="mailto:info@planetavino.net"><u>info@planetavino.net</u></a> <br /></div><div><u><div align="center"><div><u>Table of Contents<br /></u></div><div><strong>1. Upcoming events</strong><strong><br /></strong><strong>2.&nbsp; Wine Dinner at Memento</strong><strong><br /></strong><strong>3. Wine/Bodega of the month</strong><br /><strong>4. Upcoming wine shows<br /></strong></div></div></u></div><a name="_2.__Upcoming_Events at Planeta Vino"><strong><div align="center">1.&nbsp; Upcoming Events at Planeta Vino<br /></div></strong></a><div align="center">Catalonia wines in focus:&nbsp; a whole world of styles!<br /><div align="center"><div>Wednesday, 21 June from 730 to 1000 PM:<br /><br />I've been wanting to focus in depth on some regions and Catalonia is the perfect region to start with.&nbsp; There are so many wine styles in Catalonia that it is frustrating to just put one or two in a tasting on Spanish wines:&nbsp; here I can put eight!&nbsp; &nbsp;Styles range from some of the top quality white wines in Spain, through the lean, elegant red wines of Penedes, to the mineral, dense monsters of Priorat.&nbsp; &nbsp;So learn in depth about this fascinating region, one of the most modern and experimental wine regions of Spain<br />A great evening of wine for only 35&euro;!&nbsp; Six to eight wines will be served.<br />For reservations please contact us at 91 310 2855 or send an email to <a href="mailto:info@planetavino.net"><u>info@planetavino.net</u></a><br /></div><div /><div>Sherry:&nbsp; More than just Fino!<br /><br />Thursday, 29 June from 730-10PM<br /></div><div>We are lucky enough to live in a country with one of the best wine values in the world:&nbsp; Sherry from Jerez!&nbsp; What you say?&nbsp; Yes, sherry is one of the true values in the fortified wine world.&nbsp; However, it is also one of the most complicated wines in the world.&nbsp; There are at least six major styles of sherry wine:&nbsp; Manzanilla, Fino, Palo Cortado, Amontillado and Oloroso, and Pedro Ximenez.&nbsp; Most sheeries are dry, but there are also many sweet ones.&nbsp; There are also the oddities made mostly for the export market, such as Cream sherry.&nbsp; It can be quite confusing&hellip;do you know the difference between all the styles? <br />Learn all about sherry and taste all the main styles, from dry too sweet, from young to old.&nbsp; <br />A great evening of wine for only 35&euro;!&nbsp;&nbsp; Eight wines will be served.<br />For reservations please contact us at 91 310 2855 or send an email to <a href="mailto:info@planetavino.net"><u>info@planetavino.net</u></a><br /></div><div /><div>Special Californian Tasting<br /><br />Thursday, 6 July from 730-10PM<br /><br />I'm finally pulling out some of the wines I've painstakingly carried back from the United States on my trips last year.&nbsp; There a few Zinfandels, some Syrahs, some unique whites such as Gewurztraminer and Pinot Gris and even a Californian Tempranillo!&nbsp; These are some unique and tasty wines that represent the central coast of California from San Fransisco to Santa Barbara.<br /></div><div>Take this unique chance to taste some of the recent wine offerings of California.&nbsp; Sadly, here in Spain, we don't get the chance to do this too often!&nbsp; Because of the scarcity of these wines, I only have one bottle of each wine, I have to limit this tasting to 10 people.<br />A unique evening of wine for only 45&euro;!&nbsp;&nbsp; Six to eight wines will be served.<br />For reservations please contact us at 91 310 2855 or send an email to <a href="mailto:info@planetavino.net"><u>info@planetavino.net</u></a><br /></div><div /><div>Portuguese Dessert Wines<br /><br />Thursday, 13 July from 730-10PM<br /></div><div>In this tasting, we'll be looking at both Ports and Madeiras.&nbsp; Ports are the most famous of all dessert wines and they come in a huge range of styles.&nbsp; I plan on presenting all the major styles, from white port to vintage port.&nbsp; Madeira was the favourite with of Thomas Jefferson and is one of the few truly indestructible wines in the world.&nbsp; There are several styles and we will discover all of them.&nbsp; You will taste some of the best dessert wines in the world.&nbsp; Because of the scarcity and expense of these wines, several will come from my own collection, I have to limit this tasting to 10 people.&nbsp; <br /></div><div>A great evening of unique, world-class wines for only 50&euro;!&nbsp;&nbsp; Expensive I know, but we will taste eight wines, including a vintage port well over 100 euros! <br />For reservations please contact us at 91 310 2855 or send an email to <a href="mailto:info@planetavino.net"><u>info@planetavino.net</u></a><br /></div></div></div><div /><br /><div align="center">2. Wine Dinner at Memento&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;<br /><span><br />Monday, 26 June, 2100 hrs<br /></span></div><div align="center">Memento Restaurant, Planeta Vino and Catavino<br />are proud to offer a special wine dinner event at Memento Restaurant:<br />Spanish Classics:&nbsp; A New Interpretation<br /><br />A gourmet four course meal with a different wine matched to each course.&nbsp; Each course will be given comments by myself and Ryan of Catavino, who is also one of the chefs. Memento's talented American chef will offer you a new take on some classic Spanish cuisine, Spain with a touch of California!&nbsp; This will be a great evening of food and wine for only 55&euro;!&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; The dinner will start around 930 but feel free to come around 9 for a pre-dinner drink!<br /></div><div align="center"><span>This is a great opportunity to try out this wonderful new restaurant and try some great new wines as well.&nbsp; Check out Memento's website at <a href="http://www.restaurantememento.com/"><u>www.restaurantememento.com</u></a>.&nbsp; Another great website for information on Iberian wines is <a href="http://www.catavino.net/"><u>www.catavino.net</u></a> ...check it out.<br /></span><br />Memento is located at Calle Caracas, no 1, between Alonso Martinez and Plaza de Chamberi.&nbsp; The metro will be either Ruben Dario or Alonso Martinez.<br />What's included: <br />Everything but pre-dinner drinks!<br /></div><div align="center">If you are interested, you can contact Planeta Vino at 91 310 2855 or Restaurant Memento at 91 448 9958.&nbsp; A credit card number will be required to hold your reservation.&nbsp; If you have any questions, please call me at Planeta Vino or email me at <a href="mailto:info@planetavino.net"><u>info@planetavino.net</u></a>.<br /></div><div align="center"><span><br /><strong>3.&nbsp; Wine/Bodega of the Month<br /></strong></span></div><div align="center"><span>This month I'm actually recommending a whole bodega and all their wines.&nbsp; I have been using their wines a lot lately in tastings and they are wonderful!&nbsp; The winery is Bodegas Dos Victorias and their whtes come from DO Rueda and their reds from DO Toro.&nbsp; I'll put a few of their favourite wines of mine below.&nbsp; The whole line can be bought in Bodega Santa Cecelia at good prices, but also in many other fine wine stores.&nbsp; <br /></span><strong><u><br />DO Rueda<br /></u></strong>As many of you know, I often praise this wine region for some of the best value white wines in the world.&nbsp; You can almost never go wrong with Rueda wines and they are usually around 5 euros a bottle!&nbsp; Almost every bar in Madrid has one by the glass and they are the perfect summer wine.&nbsp; Most of them are made from Verdejo, the native grape, but more and more have some Sauvignon Blanc as well.&nbsp; <br />Bodegas Dos Victorias offers two very different bottlings:<br />1. Jose Pariente - This is their basic Rueda bottling, &nbsp;I say basic but it is actually a little more expensive than many basic Ruedas.&nbsp; It costs about 8&euro;.&nbsp; It is the&nbsp; more opulent style of Rueda..lush pineapple and melon fruit..definetely an uber Rueda.&nbsp; In a recent tasting, it improved throughout&hellip;at the end, even warm, it was delicious!<br />2.&nbsp; <span>Jose Pariente fermentado en barrica -&nbsp; This wine is fermented and aged in barrel for 4 months.&nbsp; It is about 12&euro; a bottle and for the oak-aged Ruedas, it is actually quite inexpensive!&nbsp; At this price range, this is a great barrel fermented Verdejo.&nbsp; It is little more elegant in style that the basic Rueda, showing some yeasty lees and a touch of toasty oak.&nbsp; What I like here is the balance...the oak does not dominate in any way.<br /></span><strong><u><br />DO Toro<br /></u></strong>Toro is one of the DOs that has improved the most in the 4 year I've been in Spain.&nbsp; It was already up and coming in 2002, but there were still a lot of rustic wines being made.&nbsp; Today, I regularly put Toro in my tasting as examples of modern, fruit driven wines that have a judicious use of oak.&nbsp; The basic Toro wines are good, but it is the in the 15 to 25&euro; price range where they really excel.&nbsp; A 22&euro; wine from Toro can easily equate to a 30-40&euro; wine in Ribera or Rioja!<br />3.&nbsp; Elias Mora:&nbsp; This is the Toro range from Bodega Dos Victorias.&nbsp; It starts with the basic Vi&ntilde;as Elias Mora, which has 4 months in American oak and is a nice, fruity, modern Toro for about 8&euro;.&nbsp; The next wine up is the Elias Moro, an outstanding value at about 13&euro;.&nbsp; It has 12 months in French and American oak and is a wonderful balance between fruit and oak, smooth, yet with a lot of different things going on.&nbsp; It's consistently a favourite in my tastings.&nbsp; The last is the Gran Elias Mora which runs about 33&euro;, and is a much more complex wine that needs a lot of time in bottle or at least air.&nbsp; Mineral tones, oak and cherry fruit struggle to dominate, but at first it&rsquo;s the tannins that dominate.&nbsp; In a recent tasting, it was too closed, even after decanting, but by the time a couple of hours passed by, it was the one everyone wanted seconds of and the stand out! <br /></div><div><div align="center"><div>Overall, this is a great bodega and it offers some real value prices for really high quality wines!&nbsp; Try them out!<br /></div><u><div><span><strong><div align="center"><span><strong>4.&nbsp; Wine News</strong></span><u><br /></u></div><div><u></u></div><br /></strong></span></div></u></div></div><div>A word on oak chips:&nbsp; I was fortunate enough to serve as one of the&nbsp; judges for the 2006 Bacchus wine awards for young wines, wines that have no oak, or not enough to rate crianza classification, i.e. less htan 6 months.&nbsp; It was a very interesting experience.&nbsp; We tasted whites, ros&eacute;s and reds.&nbsp; The whites our table had were all aromatic whites, likely albari&ntilde;os, and we were quite disappointed in general.&nbsp; The ros&eacute;s were a little better, though we had some barrel-aged ros&eacute;s that were quite weird and funky.&nbsp; Oak and ros&eacute;: not a great idea, though that doesn't stop it from becoming a trend!<br />Finally the reds and the oak chips.&nbsp; Some of the allegedly &quot;young&quot; wines that we tasted were overwhelmingly oaky&hellip;I'm talking like an oak plank in the mouth!&nbsp; What could give a wine aged for less than 6 months such an aggressive oak flavour:&nbsp; oak chips.&nbsp; The wine-maker judge next to me explained that they are being used widely and that their use is still not regulated.&nbsp; Under EU law, it is legal, it is still up to the central government, each region, and then each DO to address specific uses.&nbsp; The over-arching DO organization, the CECRV, has already come down in total opposition to the use of the oak chips, essentially a boycott, but this does not apply to Vino de Mesa and Vino de la Tierra wines.&nbsp; Whatever happens with the laws, some bodegas will continue to use the chips illegally as they have in the past.&nbsp; <br />If you get a very inexpensive wine with an aggressive oak flavour, you will have to wonder where all that oak came from&hellip;.. <br /></div><div /><br />I wanted to get back to you about the two wine shows three wine shows I recommended a few months ago.&nbsp; I made it to all three and was generally pleased with all of them.&nbsp; <br /><div /><br />Pe&ntilde;in's VII Mejores Vinos de Espa&ntilde;a<br /><span>Monday April 24<sup>th</sup> from 1230-1900 in the Palace Hotel<br /><div /><br />If you couldn't make it to this one, definitely mark it in your calendar for next April.&nbsp; The date is always set at the last minute, but I will try to get word out.<br />This is a unique opportunity to taste almost all the top wines of Spain and it was a great learning experience.&nbsp; I was able to taste for the first time El Nido and Alquilon, wines that have been ranked in stellar terms by international wine critics. &nbsp;The first is from Jumilla, the second from Campo de Borja.&nbsp; Both were amazing, but with prices to match.&nbsp; <br />A great classic and one of the best whites in Spain is the Chivite Coleccion 125 barrel-fermented Chardonnay.&nbsp; It's a great wine and at 36 euros, a bargain among the wines at the tasting.&nbsp; Another great white is Belondrade y Lurton, an oak aged Verdejo from Rueda, also a deal at 23&euro;.&nbsp; <br />From Ribera del Duero, the top wines were Aalto PS, Emilio Moro's Malleolus de Sanchomartin, and Pago Los Capellanes El Picon, as well as the whle line of Vega Sicilia.&nbsp; All fantastic wines, but for the price I'd still pick the Pintia, the Toro wine from Vega Sicilia at about 25&euro;.&nbsp;&nbsp; Another great value from Toro is the San Roman, which shows a more restrained elegant, and oaky side of Toro at only 25&euro;.&nbsp; &nbsp;&nbsp;<br />Rioja had some of its finest there&hellip;sometimes I can be negative about Rioja, but these are some of its stars.&nbsp; Among my favourites were:&nbsp; Aurus and Calvario from Finca Allende, and Cirsion and Roda I from Bodegas Roda.&nbsp; From Catalonia we had a Priorat, L'Ermita from Alvaro Palacios and from Empord&aacute;, Finca Garbet from Castillo de Perelada.&nbsp; <br />Set the date in your calendar for next year&hellip;a bargain price for a tasting of 100+ euros wines!<br /><div /><br />The second show was Salon Gourmets from 8-11 May in the Casa de Campo.&nbsp; I was a little disappointed with the wine offerings, but this is definitely a must for all gourmets as the best food producers in Spain are all there.&nbsp; It's in May every year.<br /><div /><br />The final show, Vinoble, is not one I recommended as it was held in Jerez and therefore there are quite a few logistical costs.&nbsp; The show is only held every two years and the next one will be in May 2008.&nbsp; But if you like sweet wines and attending well organized, elegant wine shows, make sure you go next time.<br />Truly this was one of the most enjoyable wine shows I have attended in Spain.&nbsp; First of all, the setting was spectacular:&nbsp; it is held in the old Alcazar in downtown Jerez.&nbsp; The stands are set up in the very elegant Moorish gardens and also in two stories of the Palace itself.&nbsp; The logistics were great, the tasting glasses were of great quality, there was no shortage of glasses as at most shows, and there were much needed water coolers at strategic points around the gardens.&nbsp; This was the first wine show I had been to in Spain where crowds were never a problem, one rarely had to wait long before tasting an any stand.&nbsp; The wiens were exquisite&hellip;sweet wines of all types from around the world.&nbsp; Some stand outs were the Tokajis from Hungary (even a true Essencia on offer), the sweet Chenin Blancs from the Loire, some amazing German ice wines.&nbsp; Some more unusual offerings were some amazing tropical sweet wines from the Valais district in Switzerland and some Austrian oddities such as a red straw wine made from Zweigelt, and a botrytis dessert wine from Syrah!&nbsp; Wonderful stuff!&nbsp; </span>