A Bad Day, a Good Wine

I’ve been out of sorts lately. Not necessarily bad, but I feel a little thin, and not in a good way. Technology has been failing me lately, and juggling several creative jobs is leaving me wrung out and sodden more often of late. This is when I remember how mentally calming it was to work with my hands: digging clams, sweeping floors, cleaning carpets. When the day was over, you turned it off and had a beer. Or six.

But I am not that man anymore. And I don’t reallywish to relive the days when my back was stronger and my bar tab larger. Those days I spent dreaming about doing what I am now doing. The Fates have been kind. And while I still drink beer, on days like these I turn to wine. Good wine. Old wine. Wine that reminds me where I was when it was a grape on a hillside.

Today it was a 1996 Torre Oria Reserva, an old Spanish tempranillo from the region surrounding Valencia.  Old Spanish reds are one of the first things I reach for when I feel off. They are my comfort wine. Old Spanish reds do more listening than talking, which is something I need at the moment.

This wine, however, did have something to say. What first struck me was the nose, which reminded me of toasted walnuts. A little burnt, a little fatty. Odd. Underneath was alcohol — also odd, as the wine is only 12 percent — and the faintest wisp of blackberry. The grape’s ghost walking quietly in a forgotten hallway.

Like many Spanish reds, this Torre Oria did not lack for acidity and was sharp enough for me to suspect it had never been visited by the smoothing faeries who cause the malolactic fermentation we so love in California reds. Sharp, yes — but nowhere near as biting as a Greek agiorgitiko I tasted recently.

And damn was this wine woody! I suspect it had slept in a gigantic oak barrel for a decade before being evicted and forced to dwell within the glass confines of a bottle. The wood notes were so forceful they’d muscled past vanilla and on into an almost peanut butter flavor.

But all of this complexity, this picking of nits, came from sitting with this wine and thinking closely on it. Quaffing the rest of my glass down, the strongest impression it left me with was a nuttiness not unlike a good sherry.

I should think it would taste good with a bowl of nuts, or a cheddar cheese…why yes, it does. Another glass, another sip. I am starting to feel a bit better.