Tag Archives: Zestos Blanco

Wine of the week: Zestos Blanco 2021

Zestos Blanco bottle
Zestos Blanco 2021/$11-$14

This Spanish white is one of the world’s great cheap wines

The pandemic was not kind to Spanish wine, which especially suffered from shortages and supply chain disruptions. That followed the Trump wine tariff, which had previously clobbered the country’s wine business.

So it has been four years since I have been able to taste a new vintage of the Zestos Blanco, which is usually one of the best cheap white wines in the world. I am happy to report that the 2021 vintage ($12, purchased, 12.5%) continues this trend. Call it the return of an old friend I haven’t talked to in entirely too long.

All of the Zestos wines are worth drinking, and each offers something unique. The Blanco is made with malvar, a white grape little known outside of Spain. It’s not like chardonnay or sauvignon blanc, or even the lesser known French white grapes that I like. Rather, it’s less tart and more tropical than these grapes, with a sort of lime and stone fruit flavor combination, yet dry and clean and fresh on the finish.

And, for the wine geeks out there, the vines are some 70 years old and grow at 2,100 feet – attributes usually reserved for all those $125, 94-point red wines.

Highly recommended, and certain to make the short list for the 2024 Turner award for cheap wine of the year.

Imported by Ole & Obrigado

 

Wine of the week: Zestos Blanco 2016

Zestos BlancoThe Zestos Blanco demonstrates that $10 wine is not incompatible with subtlety and sophistication

One of the things that Big Wine strives for is consistency from vintage to vintage, so that the wine tastes exactly the same regardless of the year the grapes were picked. This can be an advantage, so you won’t be surprised if a harvest is off in some way.

But it can also lead to boring and inoffensive wine, which is where the Zestos Blanco ($10, purchased, 12.5%) fits in. It’s about as far from Big Wine as possible, and there is a noticeable vintage difference this time around.

Zestos is a Spanish label from the always dependable Ole Imports, and it has just three wines – a red, rose, and this white. And if that wasn’t un-Big Wine enough, it’s made with the malvar grape, about as geeky as Spanish grapes get. The Ole notes say malvar is somewhere between chardonnay and sauvignon blanc; given how different those grapes are, you can tell how difficult it is to describe.

This vintage, while still clean and fresh, is heavier than the 2015, so it’s not for porch sipping. It needs food – Thanksgiving would do quite nicely, but any roast poultry (or even salmon) would work. It’s also not as tart as 2015, which means less lemon fruit but more of something like kiwi.

Highly recommended, and just not because it’s so odd. The Zestos Blanco demonstrates that $10 wine can be just as subtle, sophisticated, and interesting as bottles that cost twice as much.