El Nido Winery
Perhaps the least understood region of the entire wine world is the region of grapes growing in both Spain and Portugal.
Spain is perhaps the greatest old world producer that does not benefit from it's historic wineries in exports to the United States.
I believe the greatest reason why wine from Spain is not held in higher esteem is not the quality of the wines being produced, or even the prices, but simply the fact that the main red wine grape being grown is Tempranillo.
As it turns out very few other regions in the world grow Tempranillo at all, certainly none grow it with the level of success achieved in Spain.
Spain offers a fairly unique growing environment and as any wine drinker will tell you, soil imparts much more to a wine then people originally think.
To that end, El Nido Winery offers an outstanding introduction to Spanish wine because they are crafting Cabernet Sauvignon or Cabernet Sauvignon blends in Spain, using new world winemaking techniques as led by Australian winemaker Chris Ringland.
Ringland is famous in the wine community for crafting some of the most well balanced Shiraz in the total of Australia.
He uses extremely old vine (close to 100 years old) which is incredibly rare, not as much a maverick as an innovator he is a perfect consultant for this type of upcoming winery that needs to take some chances in order to gain respectable prices for their wines.
El Nido is also interesting because we can see the same type of uptake in quality that so many Italian wineries went through when they started to allow their wine industry to be not only more innovative within their own native varietals, but also to begin growing the most internationalized of French varietals such as Cabernet Sauvignon, Merlot, Cabernet Franc and Petite Verdot.
Personally, I am incredibly interested in seeing the evolution of the Spainish wine industry.
They clearly have a diverse and rich food and wine culture and the general public is interested in wines that offer more then the generic table wines currently being produced in mass in Spain.
There is so much more potential and with El Nido and other wineries showing the possibilities in far flung regions like Bodegas.
This winery is certainly one to watch, given that their namesake wine, El Nido, received a 97 point score from famed wine critic Robert Parker it may not offer many affordable options to non collectors for much longer.
This is one of the very, very wines scoring above 95 points that can be found commercially for under $100.
Spain is perhaps the greatest old world producer that does not benefit from it's historic wineries in exports to the United States.
I believe the greatest reason why wine from Spain is not held in higher esteem is not the quality of the wines being produced, or even the prices, but simply the fact that the main red wine grape being grown is Tempranillo.
As it turns out very few other regions in the world grow Tempranillo at all, certainly none grow it with the level of success achieved in Spain.
Spain offers a fairly unique growing environment and as any wine drinker will tell you, soil imparts much more to a wine then people originally think.
To that end, El Nido Winery offers an outstanding introduction to Spanish wine because they are crafting Cabernet Sauvignon or Cabernet Sauvignon blends in Spain, using new world winemaking techniques as led by Australian winemaker Chris Ringland.
Ringland is famous in the wine community for crafting some of the most well balanced Shiraz in the total of Australia.
He uses extremely old vine (close to 100 years old) which is incredibly rare, not as much a maverick as an innovator he is a perfect consultant for this type of upcoming winery that needs to take some chances in order to gain respectable prices for their wines.
El Nido is also interesting because we can see the same type of uptake in quality that so many Italian wineries went through when they started to allow their wine industry to be not only more innovative within their own native varietals, but also to begin growing the most internationalized of French varietals such as Cabernet Sauvignon, Merlot, Cabernet Franc and Petite Verdot.
Personally, I am incredibly interested in seeing the evolution of the Spainish wine industry.
They clearly have a diverse and rich food and wine culture and the general public is interested in wines that offer more then the generic table wines currently being produced in mass in Spain.
There is so much more potential and with El Nido and other wineries showing the possibilities in far flung regions like Bodegas.
This winery is certainly one to watch, given that their namesake wine, El Nido, received a 97 point score from famed wine critic Robert Parker it may not offer many affordable options to non collectors for much longer.
This is one of the very, very wines scoring above 95 points that can be found commercially for under $100.
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