Wine of the Week: Evohe Garnacha

Wine: Evohe Garnacha

Grape: Old vine garnacha

Region: La Tierra del Bajo Aragon, Northern Spain

Vintage: 2011

Price: $7.99

Availability: Lee’s Discount Liquors

In the glass: Evohe Garnacha is a bright purplish-red color with a semitranslucent core, going out into a fuchsia-purple rim definition with high viscosity.

On the nose: It has bright rustic red fruit coming right at you like a fruit roll-up express with red cherries, red plums, raspberries, boysenberry sorbet, crushed marionberries and hints of Red Vines licorice, sweet tobacco and Chinese black gunpowder tea.

On the palate: This wine is a bright load of red fruits coating the inside of the mouth with dominance by the equivalent of cherries jubilee, followed by bright acidity to go along with that bright forward red and black fruit melee, complemented by soft underlying tannins. The midpalate is equally fruity, but in the dry, more rustic and earth-driven sense of the word, being endowed with red plum skins and cranberry juice going into the nicely balanced finish, flicking a soft touch of licorice at the very end. This is not a wine that has any volatile acidity, nor does it have any astringent acidity or tannins; all pleasant and chewy. I is extremely nicely done for this price category.

Odds and ends: Tasting old vine garnacha in its purest form from the original viticultural area whence it hails is nothing short of a great pleasure. Aragon is not only the name of the region, but the city of Zaragoza is its capital and garnacha thrives here. You can naturally rush out and buy this wine, which I highly recommend.

But you can also taste it together with at least 1,000 other wines and spirits at the 11th Annual Lee’s Wine Experience this coming weekend at the LVH. It is absolutely one of my favorite charity wine tastings in the annual calendar, not just because I co-founded it but also because it really gives all wine lovers and consumers a great chance to taste-before-you-buy right across the board. Korean producers will showcase here for the first time this year, which lends nice credence to Mr. Lee’s small empire here. While this event has now grown to more than 180 suppliers showing all their best wines and spirits — and there will be well more than 3,000 wine enthusiasts showing up — it is held in a vast ballroom that not only easily accommodates the throngs of people, but also makes it a completely comfortable affair with great wine, food and entertainment. I will be there as it gives me an excellent opportunity to visit with readers of this column as well as taste through a few hundred good wines.

As for this Evohe Garnacha, you should have it with a bowl of spaghetti Bolognese. Drink it now through 2016.

Gil Lempert-Schwarz’s wine column appears Wednesdays. Write him at P.O. Box 50749, Henderson, NV 89106-0749, or email him at gil@winevegas.com