I must confess I am quite surprised by my enthusiasm for this extremely inexpensive pink Spanish fizz, and would not be recommending it here if it cost twice the price, but I was impressed by how much personality came in this bottle which can be found in Spain for less than ¤3 and even in heavily taxed Britain costs only £4.99 from Booths supermarkets in the north of England or via www.booths-wine.co.uk and www.everywine.co.uk.
It's made near Tarragona and principally from Trepat, a local grape speciality of Conca de Barberà which is thought by some to be related to Garnacha/Grenache and seems in this case to have imbued the wine, made by the traditional (champagne) method, with an exciting mouthful of raspberry fruit. The Booths wine buyer seems to have a rather monochromatic idea about what constitutes a pink wine – all of her choices on show at a tasting recently seemed to be exactly the same sort of intense raspberry colour. No-one could mistake this wine for Krug rosé, for all sorts of reasons. But it's an honest, clean, very fresh bottle of froth that is well balanced but, unlike so much cheap fizz, is not so dry or tart that it would be painful to drink a second glass.
It also has a rather unusual kick of tannin on the finish which suggests it could go quite well with food too. I could imagine drinking it with an outdoor lunch of charcuterie and salads.
And unlike many Cavas, the packaging is reasonably low key. You would not have to swathe this in white napkins before presenting it to your friends. See www.winesearcher.com for more stockists though I'm afraid this wine is too cheap to be worth shipping too far around the world. Prhaps, however, a wine of principal interest to British wine lovers makes up for last week's wine of the week which was not yet available in the UK. Look out for details which I will add as soon as Heart to Haart is on sale in Britain.
I have not, by the way, tasted the regular white version of this wine so am definitely not recommending it as a substitute.
