Emilio Moro Malleolus RIbera del Duero 2008

Opened this on Friday night and it was fine but perhaps a bit closed. Pumped air out of it with the trusty Ramon Bilbao vacuum item and now, 3 days later, it's really lovely. Came from the refrigerator so too cold. But after a few minutes the nose started with really strong sweet blackberry, then developed more and more complex nuances of flowers, forest, and cinnamon along with vanilla from the 18 months of aging in barriques. Two basic points: 1) Spanish wines, and perhaps even more Portuguese, do really well after being opened for a few days, much better than French. At least that's my experience, in general. 2) It's desirable to pour the wine into the glass 30 minutes before you intend to drink it. It will warm up a little and the esters will interact with the oxygen in the air and you'll get a much better drink. This holds pretty much equally for reds and whites. After about 2 hours in glass, I think the wines do, in general, go downhill.

Anyhow, I have to say Malleolus is a very good bet for a somewhat reasonably priced Ribera--about 25-30 Euros in Spain. For some reason, Spanish wines are often cheaper in Spain than in the US whereas French wines are rarely cheaper in France than the US--as I've been disappointed to realize each time I look into a Paris wine store. In addition, they seem to have given up on the famous Bordeaux names and where they stock Bordeaux, they have off-years and second labels rather than the famous, super-costly stuff. But even looking at Rhones the prices pretty much match up with what you can get in the US in dollar terms. On the other hand, just about any restaurant in France is pretty good to excellent in my experience, and sometimes they'll serve a wine we don't get in America that's quite good. For instance had extraordinarily good Taillevent generic white and red Burgundies (2008 and 2002 respectively), along with a nice Anjou, for my birthday lunch. Had some good Loire wines down there. There's always more to learn.