Wine Tasting: Palacio del Conde Gran Reserva 2005

This wine hits your tongue like a needle. A sharp, sour, juicy grape flavor. The flavor is strong enough to power through heavily seasoned steak - and just about any dish you could throw at the wine. Adjectives like "needle" "knife" and "sharp" aren't often used to describe fine wine, but that's the best way I can describe the strong fruity flavors of this Spanish Tempranillo-based wine.

Once the strong, fruity flavors work through the wine is very soft on the tongue. If you prefer your wines with more oak notes this is not the wine for you. Of late I've been preferring wines with bold fruity flavors, so this is really up my alley.

It's not quite perfect but almost....

David: 4.5 Stars

Wine Tasting: El Bombero 2011

Normally I'm not a believer in pairing specific wines to specific dishes. Call it an unrefined palate if you will, but El Bombero 2011 has convinced me otherwise. That's not necessarily a compliment.

An old-vine Spanish wine, it has big body and is silky smooth on the tongue. Where it falls down is a certain sweetness which feels out of balance. As someone who prefers very dry wine, it's a little too sweet to sip on its own, despite not being a "sweet" wine.

Paired with spicy food, however, and it shines due to a strong spicy finish of its own. It's the first red wine from outside of Australia that I've tried which would go very well with barbecue or Tex-Mex food like tacos.

David: 3.5 Stars
Maria: 3.5 Stars

Wine Tasting: J Opi Malbec 2011

This is the gold-standard. Maria and I have tried a number of wines over the years and by the first sip the J Opi Malbec 2011 was our all-time favorite. More to the point, everyone at the table that night was raving about it.

I'm not a pretentious wine-taster but I'll try and use a little descriptive language without sounding too hokey. The first flavor note is blueberry, a slightly-sweet fruity flavor, but I wouldn't describe this wine as sweet. Instead, it's a very even wine, with an incredibly full body, able to stand up to nearly any food pairing. The finish is silky smooth, the real magic of this wine.

David: 5 Stars
Maria: 5 Stars