5th August 2020 by Rachel Wallhouse

Wednesday Night Sausage Wines,

This week’s “Wednesday Night Sausage Wine” is the super Care Blanco made from a delightful blend of 65% Garnacha Blanco and 35% Chardonnay! 

As we take cautious baby steps back to some form of normality, we are being urged from every angle to stay alert and take care. Well this week’s Wednesday Night Sausage Wine is joining in with those exhortations to take care for this week’s wine is a delicious white wine from north east Spain called Care. It should be pronounced “ka-ray” but why let a little matter of Spanish pronunciation get in the way of a good pun, after all why did we have Brexit?

My fondness for Spanish wine is, perhaps, no secret as a good few previous Wednesday Night Sausage Wines will testify but Spain is a consistently reliable source for excellent value wines which won’t break the bank. Many of us are familiar with Spain’s many delightful red wines but increasingly people are sitting up and taking note of the wonderful white wines that are coming from Spain.  We may already be familiar with the delights of Albariño and white Rioja but the white Garnacha grape has turned a few wine loving heads recently. Our wine this week is a blend of approximately 65% Garnacha Blanco and around 35% Chardonnay and a delightful blend it is too.

The Care Blanco hails from the province of Zaragoza in the north east of Spain. It is in the wine producing region of Cariñena, which is one of the oldest protected grape growing regions in Europe. It has long hot summers and cold winters along with hot days and cool nights, what wine techies refer to as a “high diurnal range”. This allows for well-balanced grapes with the fruit developing nicely along with a fresh balanced acidity. Our wine is an attractive bright pale yellow colour with a fresh clean nose of citrus, green apple and white flower with hints of pineapple. On the palate it has good balanced fruit with a clean fresh acidity. It spends time on its lees as well. These are the dead yeast cells and it is a technique used in Champagne and Muscadet to give a greater complexity to the wine.

Care Blanco is a good wine to have with Pork dishes, Seafood dishes and Poultry dishes although we had it with a delicious Mushroom and Tarragon Risotto and it matched really well. Handily the wine is vegan friendly too so is a fairly versatile option for the omnivore, carnivore and vegan bubbles that you might have going on.

So, I would urge you, therefore, to take Care in every sense.  From purely a wine sense though, the Care Blanco is a really attractive wine and brilliant value. It is typical of modern Spain; it’s made in a modern way by a very progressive Bodega in one of the oldest grape growing regions. It even has a very attractive “arty” label and at just £8.99 is really super value.

The Care Blanco Sobre Lias 2019 (13%) is available at The Whalley Wine Shop at £8.99 a bottle. Buy Online! 

Keep well, stay safe……and take Care!

Salud!

Nick

Click here to find more of Nicks ‘Wednesday Night Sausage Wine’ recommendations!