Tinto Rioja Wines

Video Transcript

"Hi, I'm Mark Middlebrook, and I'm here in the Paul Marcus Wines Warehouse, and in this segment I'm going to talk about Rioja Tinto. In Spain, when you ask for red wine, you don't ask for vino rojo, you ask for vino tinto. Rojo meaning red, but they say tinto meaning tinted, inky, dark sort of wine. And vino tinto is really what Rioja is best known for. It's the wine generally when you order Rioja in a restaurant, certainly outside of Spain, you're going to get a red wine. Rioja tinto generally, mostly made from tempranillo grapes. It's a medium bodied wine typically, though some of the more modern versions of Rioja are a little bit heavier, but it's not going to be as rich and dark generally as Cabernet Sauvignon or Shiraz, things like that. Generally should have pretty expressive aromas, expressive nose to the wine, little bit floral sometimes. I've often compared it to violets, and some other kind of spicy, leather, earthy aromas, particularly in the reservas, and grand reservas, such as this reserva that are quite unique I think to Rioja wines. I love to drink them with all kinds of meat, particulary lamb, stews, including vegetable stews, and North African food, Moroccan food, those kind of things, I think it's the spiciness, the spiciness in Rioja plays well with that kind of food. There are also wines that frankly work I think really well just sitting around enjoying as an aperitif with friends or watching a video or something like that, so, pretty all-purpose wines. I like them."