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Manchego may be my favorite cheese for a charcuterie board. It sings wonderfully next to the salty flavors of Serrano, the sweet richness of honeycomb, and the nutty caramel flavors of pistachio. It has such a myriad of complex flavors: a mild brine and sweetness that makes this cheese such a flexible pairing with just about anything you'd like to put with it. It also melts extremely well, and makes a great addition to a grilled cheese, or a compliment to red meat.
It’s herbaceousness is unmatched in the cheese world, and provides a wonderful under-bearing of brine to drive the flavor esters from thyme, rosemary, sage and marjoram. Its honeyed-caramel nuttiness is abound with oak and seawater, making this cheese a very unfair challenger when you’re looking to pair with wine.
Manchego is one of the few sheep’s cheeses made in La Mancha. Aging provides the cheese with a lot of its profound flavor characteristics, like its nuttiness. These cheeses can be aged anywhere from six months to two years, the longer the aging obviously, the higher quality the cheese. Like in wine, these cheeses have to meet a number of DOCa requirements in order to carry certain labels.
Any cheese labeled Queso Manchego must be produced and packaged in Albacete, Cuidad Real, Cuenca, or Toledo - These are provinces in the La Mancha region. The farms in these regions are registered as recognized producers of the cheese, and it must be aged for at least sixty days. Only rennet and salt or other approved enzymes may be used, and the cheese must be cut into cylinders.
There are also several types of the cheese that are designated based on aging. A cheese labeled Semicurado can be aged for six weeks to three months and is the basic creamy-textured and mild-flavored cheese most commonly served with tapas. Curado is aged for three to six months and is firmer, nuttier, and richer, with more of a crumbling texture. It dense flavors are more honeyed, but less acetic and fresh than the lighter Semicurado.
Viejo, translating to “old,” is the longest-aged cheese and typically ages for one to two years before serving. These are rich, honeyed, herbaceous, and often even peppery, denoting a bit of crushed black pepper on the tongue. These cheeses are an excellent pairing with just about any wine, but they compliment red Rioja beautifully. We will be looking at pairing any Manchego with Rioja, but particularly the flavors of this variant of the cheese.
Rioja is one of Spain’s oldest winemaking regions. The fame of this region came about as the fame of any European region during phylloxera. When Bordeaux, France’s most commonly exported wine region, began to loose its bearings to the pest, other regions to satisfy the French palette were sought out. This is how the vine ended up on the volcanic soils of Mount Etna in Sicily. The success of Rioja can be attributed in part to the devastating vine louse, though the region's winemaking history cannot simply be reduced down to a very brief extrication of Bordeaux. Today it is one of two DOCa wines, a classification somewhat akin to that of the DOCG in Italy.
The region is located near basque country in the autonomous communes of La Rioja and Navarre. Though vines had been cultivated here since ancient times, the more modern winemaking techniques hadn’t been introduced until the late eighteen hundreds. It is hypothesized that some French vintners desired arable land and discovered the area on the pilgrimage to the Basilica Santiago de Compostela, a wayward journey made by Catholics to Galicia.
It was at this time, int the late seventeen hundreds, that clergyman Don Manuel Quintano, a resident of the area, travelled abroad to Bordeaux and brought back with him some of their modern winemaking techniques, to benefit the communal winemaking of his home region. Winemaking was one of the roles of members of the church at this time, and it allowed him to study abroad. He wrote a book upon his return to Rioja called El método de hacer vino en Burdeos, The Winemaking Method in Bordeaux. While at first it may have taken some time to catch on, the methodologies regarding storage and maceration, cropping, and pruning that were brought to the region by Quintana gained him a cult following, and allowed him to begin exporting his product throughout Europe, and the Americas.
Though, it should be said, not all were pleased to see new winemaking methods brought across the boarder from France. A lot of the local, regional winemakers were upset by this breaking with tradition, and successfully passed a law capping the price of Rioja wine, making it impossible to continue making wine in Bordeaux styles without bankrupting the winery. The most stunning improvement wrought on by this journey to France, is the transplant of wine Barriques to the region for aging and shipping. Prior to this, wine was often stored in amphorae, and sometimes leather containers. Oak barrels add to Rioja wines the crucial vanilla and clove elements that compliment the strawberry flavors of the Tempranillo grape from which the majority of Rioja wine is made.
Rioja can also be made from parts of the Spanish heavyweight Garnacha as well, known as Grenache in France, and Carignan (Mazuelo.) The crux of what makes a Rioja wine so Rioja is the overall flavor profile, because these wines can be vastly different depending on the region whence they come. Tempranillo is brash and tannic with a blend of dark fruit and light fruit character, and a plethora of exotic spices. Garnacha, of course, is powerful and eclectic red fruit with undertones of gingerbread, while retaining its light body and high alcohol. Carignan is added for color and added tannin and acidity to keep the blend consistent, polished, and lean.
The DOCa rules for this region are faily straight forward, and the new rules have been laid out in a fashion similar to the great wine regions of the world, like Barolo and Burgundy. Whereas Riojas old system for ranking wines focused only on time in the barrel, as was customary for regions making blended wines - this new one seems to focus much more on terroir.
There are the Zonas, or zones, making wines that can be labeled as Rioja Alta, Alevessa, or Oriental. The next tier is called municipios, these are essentially the same as village-quality appellations in France, of which here there are one hundred and forty five. The last category is for wines with the highest regard for quality, and that is Viño Singular - Single vineyard plots. The system has not yet established a growth classification, but I would not be surprised if the grower's association here came up with something to rank plots in the coming years.
Revised, was the time-in-barrel languaged used on the bottles of Rioja to denote the age of the wine. The finest of these has always been Gran Reserva, which sets minimum time in barrel at five years, two in a barrique, tonneau, or other oak, and another two years of bottle aging. Wines labeled Reserva, the next level of quality down, and perhaps the most common label associated with quality in Rioja, must be aged at least three years, one of which must be in oak, and six months must be in bottle.
Crianza has a two year aging requirement and offers greater affordability, placing these wines in a more competitive price bracket, and often allows the consumer the ability to break from the oaky flavors of some of the aptly aged wines, and enjoy a fresher tasting Rioja instead. Aging thresholds for red wines in this category are the same as Reserva. With all of this oak aging done in Rioja, it's easy to see why these wines are often described using terms representative of baking spices, vanilla, and chocolate.
There are several distinct regions, called Zonas, in Rioja making a variation of different styles, some older, and some newer. Traditionally, Wines from the whole region were blended together to make Rioja wine, and this is still quite common today. Though the regions are distinct in their style, blended togewther, they casn produce strong, nuanced but acutely more balanced wines than just the single region bottlings. In the late nineties, when producers were made to take on a more French perspective towards wineamaking and a with that a new focus on Terroir, Rioja Alta was the major driving force behind Rioja’s reputation for quality wine; known for the older-style bold Rioja wines of elegance and riveting acid profile. However, today, Rioja Alavesa has in particular has shocked the world in regards to their quality, and affordability.
Rioja Alta makes the quintessential Rioja wine - these are bold, tannic and exciting, but they lead with secondary characteristics. They are very fruit-forward often necessarily, and do provide the expected blast of black cherry and raspberry that is needed to refresh the palette. With tastes seeking newer and more interesting regions at less-costly prices during the eighties and nineties, these bold, rich, hearty, and consistent wines became a consumer staple. Rioja Alta harbors some of the highest elevations in the winemaking region, and higher elevation often leads to a shorter growing season, with more sun exposure but cooler temperatures, so that the grapes ripen evenly. Garnacha is planted at its highest rate here in Rioja Alta, as this thin-skinned varietal needs the cooling altitude to be able to shine its red cherry aromas on a wine. The soils are granite schist and crushed quartz that also help to ripen the grapes with their reflective properties.
If you’re looking for an “old world,” style of Rioja and want to experience the traditional flavors found in the Alta region, your best bet is with R. Lopez de Heredia, one of the producers that made the region what it is today. This property's Reserva is truly the quintessential Rioja of the region and expresses that fine acidity, and stony minerality that one comes to look for in a fine Rioja. The fruit is candied raspberry, cranberry, and cassis. These yield to flavors of cut granite, white pepper, clove and dark chocolate.
This is a fantastic wine for pairing with Manchego, because of the cheeses nutty flavors that will fold right into the mild expressions of the fruit on the wine. Manchego’s crumbly texture is also ideal for this wine because of its firm acidity and minerality which will help to clear the fatty oils of the cheese from your mouth. The brininess of the cheese is also a good compliment to the wine as salt can help bring out more of the obscure flavors in the wine and balance the fruit.
Rioja Alavesa is a region in Rioja just to the north of the river Ebro. Soils here are a much poorer, and less-fertile schist. Still excellent drainage, but the region is incredibly dry and vine spacing is maximal to allow the vines room to seek seldom available minerals and nutrients the vines rely on. Because of this struggle, some of Rioja’s finest wines are made here, and this region is often blended to give finesse and structure to other wines of the Rioja. Wines made here can be flashy: bold, fruit-forward examples with tons of acid and an explosion of blackberry and raspberry flavors with intricate minerality, like that of broken slate.
The Oriental or east, is the last of the Rioja regions to note, and this area can be much different than the other two. Formerly known as Rioja Baja, this area is the hottest, has very similar soils to the other two regions, and is notably the largest. The largest problem here is drought, which is generally a deep concern for vintners and, as such, since the late nineties, this is one of the few areas in Spain wherein irrigation is permitted. And this is a good thing, considering that the temperatures reach an average of ninety-five degrees daily.
Despite mitigating factors, its tough to grow fine wine here, and these wines are used typically as color additives in blends and to soften the acid in some of the wines from other areas in Rioja. Due to the intense heat, these wines are often flabby, lacking acid, and without much in the way of aroma. This region was previously known as Rioja Baja, and is generally used as a blending wine to thicken the wines of Rioja Alta, and Alavesa, especially in poor years.
One of the better blends from Rioja, that would settle par excellence with the Manchego, is Herederos Del Marqués de Riscal: A legendary, and very widely available producer. This winery is based in the Rioja Alavesa area, and produces other age worthy wines of note as well, including their more reserved Gran Reserva - a double entendre if I'd ever heard one.
The Reserva wine is incredible value. Leading with dark fruit flavors of blackberry bramble, fresh blueberry, and the addition of fresh raspberry, this wine opens with fruit but begins to delve into gravel and cut stone characteristics before moving onto milk chocolate, sage, and burned rosemary.
This would be a good fit for a semicurado, due to its incredible forthright fruit flavors which would be a winsome compliment for the funky nature of the cheese. Younger cheeses also have fewer forward-flavors, allowing the wine to express itself and the cheese to add texture and bend its honey with the oak flavor in the wine.
That's all,
~K