Wine Evening

Last Thursday, some friends and I attended a wine tasting at Direct Wine Shipments. It's one of the best places in Northern Ireland to buy world-wide wine and has a fantastic selection, not to mention helpful staff and tasting notes on most of the bottles.

I don't go there as often as I should because it's a little out of my way (which is a poor excuse really) and end up buying second rate wine from a chain off-licence. That said, when I do go, I usually walk away with at least half a case and end up drinking more than I usually would because the wine rack is full and staring at me.

The purpose of this wine night was to highlight small Spanish growers produce, soak up some information about various regions and, of course, drink some wine.

Being a huge fan of deep reds, Rioja is one of my favourite wines and I was looking forward to seeing what other Spanish regions offered in terms of terroir.

We kicked off with a rosé which I'm not a fan of and I have only tasted one which pushed my buttons - a wine from the Hunter Valley when Lou and I were in Australia. I forget the name but would probably recognise it if I saw it again altough I'd still choose a red over it if my hand was forced.

The next couple of wines were white which were pleasant although didn't fully deliver - certainly not bad at all but not setting off alarms either.

However, the first red, La Mano Mencía Roble from the Bierzo region, ticked all the boxes and was the best wine of the evening in my humble opinion and also, funnily enough, the lowest price red wine of the lot at just over £6 discounted (around £7 RRP).

The rest of the wines, good in their own right, could not hold a candle to this one in terms of what it delivered vs cost.

This was what I was hopeful to find in coming to a night like this. Fun, a little education, and a bargain to boot. It's been added to the list and will be a feature of any crate for my next purchase.

In the hope of finding more little gems, I requested that they put together a mystery box of reds for me based upon other red wines that I love. I'll be picking this up on my birthday so something else to look forward to.