This week’s winesday focused on a wine from the Rioja region of Spain: Marques de Caceres 2003 Rioja Red. I was inspired by Tim Elliot of Winecast’s prediction that the tempranillo grape will be the next big thing in 2007. Winecast is a really great blog+podcast if you, like me, are interested in wine but prefer not to dwell on the details of soil types, non-recent vintages, business practices, etc. Tim Elliot keeps his podcasts and blog entries brief but highly informative. Plus, he’s a little bit geeky so maybe that’s why I like him. My two favorite predictions of his for 2007 are that the alcohol content in wines would start to go back down to reasonable levels, thereby making the wines more food friendly, and, as I already mentioned, that wines made from the tempranillo grape (along with riesling) would emerge as the new hot sellers.

The wine I chose for this week isn’t actually 100% tempranillo; it contains a bit of garnacha and graciano in it as well. It was delicious! It had all of the good qualities of red wine (spicy, rich berry flavor) with none of the bad (sour, overly tannic.) It was very well balanced and smooth.

For my meal, I made a pizza topped with roasted red and yellow peppers, kalamata olives and fennel soysage. After watching Tony Bourdain visit Apizza Scholls last Monday on No Reservations, I just had to have pizza this week. Man, that looked good! Yet another reason to visit Portland, I guess.

Well, between this week’s great wine and the delicious wine we had on New Year’s Eve, Tim Elliot may be correct after all. Tempranillo wines may really be the next big thing. They certainly are in my household!