Let me digress from the title of this entry for a moment by dwelling on a very good sporting weekend. I follow the Spanish football team Betis and am an avid fan of Welsh rugby. On Saturday Betis beat arch-rivals Seville in the local derby played in Seville’s ground and yesterday Wales beat Scotland away in the first round of the Six Nations tournament. Could we be on the road to a second successive grand slam? Fingers crossed.
Anyway, as mentioned in an earlier entry, due to the economic downturn we are drinking a lot more wine that is in the lower price bracket and through shops like Tierra Nuestra in Seville and Huelva are finding some excellent wines for 6 euros or less. Most of the wines are quite fruit forward and have maybe 5 or 6 months of oak ageing or none at all.I am not going to bore you with any long-winded tasting notes but just a short list of enjoyable everyday wines that will help to keep the bank manager at arm’s length:

Laderas de El Seque 2007 (D.O. Alicante) – principally Monastrell with a dose of Cabernet Sauvignon and Syrah
Casa Castillo 2007 (D.O. Jumilla) – Monastrell
Arrocal 2006 (D.O. Ribera del Duero) – Tempranillo
Baltasar Gracian Garnacha Viñas Viejas 2006 (D.O. Calatayud)
Garnacha de Fuego 2007 (D.O. Calatayud)
Misterio de Fontana 2007 (D.O. Uclés) – Tempranillo with 10% Cabernet Sauvignon
Códice 2006 (Castilla la Mancha but not D.O.) – Tempranillo