First up: the 2006 Burgáns Albariño from Rias Baixas in Galicia, bought for under $12. (It currently sells from Oddbins in the UK for £8.99.)

A native and little-planted grape in Galicia, it was not until the Spanish government awarded it with its own D.O. or Denominación de Origen in 1986 (a classification similar to the French appellation) that production began to rapidly increase along with name recognition. Now, it has emerged as the grape of 2007, earning coverage in most wine-related media outlets for its crisp taste and seemingly endless versatility, as InterWined highlighted in two recent posts and as its readers and contributors have mentioned in the comments.

While the 2006 Burgáns isn’t the best Albariño that InterWined has ever tasted (that honour probably goes to the bottle served at Back to Basics in London), it’s a very good wine. Yellow in colour and apple in flavour, it was Appletiser with the bubbles (meant as compliment, by the way). For those unfamiliar with the UK Sparkling Fruit Drink, don’t think cider, but rather the crisp, sometimes slightly syrupy flavour one gets when biting into a really ripe apple from a farmer’s market. Think summer; think sun; think serve with almost anything: 8.2.

Keep reading...