Tag Archives: Spy Valley

Wine of the week: Spy Valley Rose 2017

spy valley roseThe Spy Valley rose shows once again that the New Zealand winery is dedicated to quality and value

The Wine Curmudgeon has long praised New Zealand’s Spy Valley, a producer that combines quality with value. Its wines don’t pant and sniff for scores, and almost all of them are interesting and varietally correct. So imagine my excitement when I found the Spy Valley rose on a Dallas store shelf.

I was not disappointed. The Spy Valley rose ($13, purchased, 13%) was everything I hoped it would be. This is a top-notch rose at a more than fair price. Dare I say it’s my new favorite pink?

In this, it has the body and style that’s missing from many more expensive roses – a complexity and roundness that is a hallmark of Spy Valley wines. But it’s also fresh and crisp, with wonderful point noir berry aroma and flavor (plus a little tropical something or other lurking in the background). This wine shows how rose should be made – not as a way to use up leftover grapes to stuff in a fancy bottle, but to make delicious rose.

Highly recommended, and a candidate for the 2018 Cheap Wine of the Year. Drink this chilled with any sort of Labor Day activity, be it sitting on the porch, burgers at a barbecue, or visiting with friends.

Imported by Broadbent Selections

Wine review: Spy Valley Sauvignon Blanc 2016

Spy Valley Sauvignon BlancThe Spy Valley is annually one of the world’s best sauvignon blancs

The most important thing to know about this vintage of the Spy Valley sauvignon blanc? It cost $16, and I’m writing an entire post about it. How often does that happen on the blog?

But the Spy Valley ($16, purchased, 13%) is no ordinary sauvignon blanc. It’s always among the best in the world, not just in quality and value, but in taking the New Zealand style and adding depth and complexity. This is much, much more than grapefruit first, last, and only, but a wine made for people who want wine, and not just something to drink.

The 2016 vintage of the Spy Valley sauvignon blanc has the grapefruit, of course, as well as a hint of tropical fruit and a minerality that doesn’t seem to have been there in previous vintages. In addition, it’s a very young wine and should get softer and rounder, with more layers of flavor, as it ages over the next couple of years. I’d also suggest letting it breathe for at least 20 minutes; that should help with its youth that it has a screwcap.

Highly recommended. Drink this chilled on its own or with almost anything fish or chicken that is grilled or roasted. I do it with a shrimp boil, and it’s always spot on.

Thanksgiving wine 2014

Thanksgiving wine 2014The Wine Curmudgeon got a press release last week touting a big-time California producer’s five pinot noirs for Thanksgiving. Because, I suppose, we’re supposed to drink pinot noir for Thanksgiving.

Excuse me while I throw a fit. Is this 1985, when we could only drink certain wines with certain foods at certain times? Of course not. This is the 21st century, when we can drink what we want when we want with whatever food we want. Which makes Thanksgiving the greatest wine holiday in the world, since it is about and variety and being thankful for all those choices.

Guidelines for holiday wine buying are here; this year ?s suggestions are after the jump:

Continue reading →

Wine review: Spy Valley Riesling 2011

One of the themes on the blog for the past couple of weeks has been value — does a wine offer more to the consumer than it costs? In this, value is not about price, because not all cheap wine delivers value. Sometimes, it’s just cheap.

It’s also worth noting that a wine doesn’t have to be cheap to offer value. Yes, it’s more difficult for an expensive wine to do this, given that too many expensive wines are expensive because their reason for being is to be expensive. But it is certainly possible, and it happens more often than I acknowledge here.

One producer who consistently does this is New Zealand’s Spy Valley, which as been making $15 and $20 wines that taste like they cost much more for as long as I have been writing about wine. I had one of those sublime, geeky wine experiences with the sauvignon blanc last year, and it’s not even my favorite Spy Valley wine.

That would be the riesling ($18, purchased, 12.5%), which is as enjoyable as it is difficult to find. I only see it in Dallas every couple of years, given the vagaries of the three-tier system, so when I do see it, I buy it, even if it’s a previous vintage. The producer is good enough so that doesn’t matter.

The 2011 didn’t let me down. It’s not riesling like most consumers know it — no sweet tea-like sugar or fruit flavors that taste like they came out of a can. Instead, it’s a dry riesling, complex with layers of flavor that range from petrol on the nose (a classic riesling characteristic) to citrus and tropical in the front and middle. It’s still fresh and almost aggressive after almost two years in bottle, which is a sign that it’s only going to get better with age.

Serve this to someone who doesn’t think they like riesling, and see if they change their mind. Highly recommended, and well worth the money.

Catfish meuniere, Randall Grahm, and Spy Valley

Honest wine

Honest wine is the best pairing for honest food.

The most important lesson I ever learned about seafood came from the late, much loved and much missed Merlin Kleinpeter: If you can ?t buy it from Robert at Bayou Seafood, she used to say, then don ?t buy it.

Which was Merlin ?s way of telling me that fresh is what matters, and that any supplier who wasn ?t honest about things like freshness wasn ?t worth my time and money. If the crabs weren ?t good that day, then Robert told her so, and Merlin didn ?t buy them.

I mention this because food and wine are inextricably linked, and not just about which wine goes with which food. Pairing wine with most takeout pizza, which never tastes as good as you think it should, is one thing. That ?s what $10 grocery store merlot was invented for.

But pairing wine with honest food ? food that someone cared about and that required them to make an effort when they prepared it — is another matter entirely. More, after the jump:

Continue reading →

Mini-reviews 20: Stone Hill, Souverain, Spy Valley, Vertus

Reviews of wines that don ?t need their own post, but are worth noting for one reason or another. Look for it on the final Friday of each month (Thursday this month because of the holiday).

? Stone Hill Vignoles 2009 ($16, sample): Lots of pineapple, but not all that sweet with a long peach pit finish. An excellent example of what can be done with this hybrid grape from one of Missouri’s top producers.

? Souverain Sauvignon Blanc 2009 ($14, sample): This wine is one of the reasons why I love wine, and it has nothing to do with whether I “liked” it or not. The Souverain is done in a style I don’t usually care for, oaked sauvignon blanc, but it’s so well done that I can appreciate what it offers and recommend it.

? Spy Valley Sauvignon Blanc 2009 ($18, purchased): More wonderfullness from what may be the best sauvignon blanc in the world. Look for even less citrus and more tropical fruit than usual, which is saying something since Spy Valley is among the least citrus-y of the New Zealand sauvignon blancs.

? Bodegas Iranzo Vertus 2003 ($15, sample): Tempranillo from a less well-known part of Spain, and well worth the effort. More fresh cherry fruit than a Rijoa, lots of bright Spanish acidity and even a bit of herb tucked in. Highly recommended.