Back on the trail for finding excellent summer value wines I stumbled upon this wine at local wine shop cork • a bottle shop. Owner Darryl Joannides always has new and exciting wines to discover so I like to stop by every so often to check out the latest selection. In fact, he keeps over 100 wines under $20 (perfect for my quest) along with hundreds of other great wine finds from all over the globe. When I told Darryl about my mission, he made sure I added this wine to my purchase. He actually encouraged me to buy more than just one, but I didn’t. Sorry Darryl, I should have listened to you, because I wasn’t expecting what I got… which was pure deliciousness!
Wine #3 in my quest for the perfect summer wines
Ameztoi Rubentis Getariako Txakolina Rosé 2008, Spain
This wine is frightfully refreshing and easy drinking. Meaning, I could literally drink it like fruit juice. Not that it’s sweet, because it’s not. It is just so light and refreshing, with this lovely spritz to it, that it is very easy to forget that there is alcohol in it! Which reminds me, I never even wrote down the alcohol level (because we drank it too fast and it was garbage night so it went right into the recycling bin for am pickup), but I would guess somewhere in the 11-12% range.
The first thing I noticed was the beautiful color. It was a very light bright pink color. Unfortunately, my photography skills are minimal so I couldn’t quite capture just how pretty it was! The nose had bright strawberry, raspberry, peach, pink grapefruit, along with some of that “bubble gum” note I often get on rosés (referring to a hint of sweet strawberry, like on Bubble Yum, reminding me of childhood). The wine was slightly effervescent. Not sparkling, like Champagne or Cava, just a nice mild and lovely spritz. The mouth was somewhat tart & acidic, yet super refreshing.
I can only imagine how good this wine would taste on a blazing hot summer day because of the effervescence along the light body and bright fruit content! This wine is a winner! I highly recommend it if you enjoy refreshing light wines in the summertime. It is a bit high on my “value” scale at $20, but it is worth it!
Winery: Ameztoi, located in the Spain
Style: dry Rosé wine with an ever so slight spritz
Retail: $20
As seen locally at cork • a bottle shop
Occasions for drinking this wine: I was not celebrating any particular occasion when I opened it, but it would be awesome on a hot day, after work wine, or post work out wine! If you were to pair it with food it would be fantastic for brunch, appetizers, or light seafood dishes.
You are my hero!! I'm loving this new format and layout of the blog!! So easy to use, informative, classy, simple. Love it!
Ah, and the value wines section, now this is truly sad, but true, I'm in this category of wine drinker these days. So I really appreciate your tips on yummy wines that won't make my husband mad at me for spending too much money on wine.
Such good reading!
Posted by: Lucy Mason | June 19, 2009 at 07:49 PM
Hey it's not sad at all! I'm definitely in that category most days. Sure, I still spurge... but let's be honest, most weekdays especially, I'm drinking something in this category. The trick is to find good wines in this category... hence my mission :)
Posted by: Mary Cressler | June 22, 2009 at 08:47 AM