This is week three of our Spanish wine series and this week we are talking about the Valencia DO. The City of Valencia is Spain’s largest port and third largest city, located in the center of the Spain's east coast. It's also the name of one of five DOs located in the region of Valencia, which is the DO we are focusing for this episode. The Valencia D.O. was established in 1957 and is one of the largest in the Valencia region with around 45,000 acres of vines.

 

In this week's episode, we discuss:

• History of wine in Valencia
• Climate
• Sub-regions, their differences and their wine

 

Wine Recommendations

Celler del Roure Cullerot 2016 - priced around $17.

• Certified Organic White wine blend of all native Spanish grapes: Pedro Ximénez, Macabeo, Tortosina, Malvasía, Verdil, Merseguera, and others
• The nose of this wine has a lot of clean, steely minerality aromas as well as lemon and white lilies.
• It’s dry with medium high acidity, medium body and flavors of lemon and white flowers
• The acidity is lively and dancing on your palate - like pop rocks but with burst of brightness instead of candy
• We were surprised by the floral aspect of this wine, we expected more fruit - reminding us of freshly washed laundry with floral scented fabric softener.
• You can purchase this wine here

 

Atance Bobal 2015 - priced around $15.

• This is a red wine blend of organic grapes - 85% Bobal & 15% Tempranillo
• The nose is interesting with aromas of cherry, dust, black pepper and black olive. With the cherries and dust I thought it was going down the Pinot Noir roadbut then you get hit with this pepper aromas. The once you taste the wine the  flavors are completely different from that of a Pinot Noir.
• It’s dry with medium tannins, medium acidity, and medium body with flavors of blackberry, leather, light drip coffee, olives
• It's a very Interesting combination of aromas and flavors - it’s savory but not in a mushroom, earthy way but more rustic in nature - definitely a Spanish Tapas wine, just don’t pair it with anything too vegetal.
• You can purchase this wine here

 

Sources:

• Wikipedia 
• Wine-Searcher
• Valencia DO
• Cellar Tours 
• Lens Gourmand Food and Wine 
• Valencia Wine Consulting