While Penedès is best known for churning out gallons of bubbly Cava (Penedès produces more sparkling wine than any other region in the world besides Champagne), there are also some enterprising wineries who are experimenting with smaller plots of traditional red varietals like Ule de Llebre, Caranyena, Garnatxa Negre, and Monastrell, as well as international favorites Cabernet and Merlot.

Over the years, I've tasted my share of wines from Rueda and listened to Spanish wine importers and enthusiasts rave about them. But, none of that marketing or talk ever convinced me. Sure, Spanish white is generally nice and crisp, perfect for sipping on the patio or by the pool. But no Rueda has ever knocked me over with complexity, flavor or depth.

But then I tried the Mantel Blanco Rueda, which has that extra dimension I've been looking for. The Mantel Blanco offers an incredible mid-palate, wonderful purity of flavor and a soft yet vivid texture. It really transcends my idea of Rueda. To serve, think lighter fish and seafood, but it also makes for a refreshing cocktail wine.

Arriving at a singular wine, one that I would anoint as the “Wine of the Year,” is a daunting task. Obviously, my choice would have to be a wine that truly stands apart from the hundreds of great experiences that we’ve offered at Crush throughout 2006.

I also knew that it would be derived from my personal passion for wines that display an authentic sense of place, such as my terroir-laden favorites in Burgundy, Piedmont, Champagne and Germany.

However, after much thought and deliberation, my choice had to be the López de Heredia Viña Bosconia Gran Reserva 1981 from Rioja, Spain’s oldest and grandest winemaking region.

Fernando de Castilla was originally founded by Fernando Andrada-Vanderwilde, an aristocrat from a family of land owners who grew grapes and produced base wines for the sherry trade for generations.

Bodega: a generic term for a winery or cellar. In Sherry, the bodega is thought to have its own unique terroir. 

Solera: a succession of barrels, each one of which is filled with wines of different ages. The younger wines provide nutrients to keep the flor alive, and they flow into the barrels that contain the older wines as wine is drawn from the solera to be bottled.

Butt: a barrel associated with the Sherry region and often made of American oak. Individual butts make up the solera.

Flor: Yeast cells that form a film over wine that's not topped-up in wooden barrels. Flor provides many of the flavors that define Fino and Manzanilla Sherries and Jura Vin Jaune.

Fino: The lightest and freshest of Sherries. Aged under flor yeast and usually from wines with a fairly young average age.

Manzanilla: Fino from the area of Sanlúcar. The proximity to the sea results in wines that tend to be even fresher and more delicate than Fino.

Amontillado: Essentially, aged Fino where the flor yeasts have died and exposed the wine to oxygen. Flor dies over time or through raising the alcohol level by fortification beyond what flor can tolerate.

Fascinatingly (though perhaps not surprising), Equipo Navazos wasn't formed with commercial ambitions. Instead, it was born out of a deep knowledge of Sherry and a love for the wine.

It all started in 2005 when Jesús Barquín, a professor of criminology and renowned Sherry expert, and Eduardo Ojeda, technical director at Grupo Estevez (which includes the famed sherry houses of Valdespino and La Guita), stumbled upon an old Amontillado solera at Bodegas Sanchez Ayala.

They knew they wanted some of the wines for themselves, so they selected their favorite butts, wrote to friends around the world to help them make the investment, and bottled just 600 bottles. That was La Bota de Amontillado #1, named after Edgar Allen Poe's story, "The Cask of Amontillado."

The first several wines weren't meant for the market. But word spread (hey, it's good stuff), and Barquín and Ojeda eventually decided to release the wines commericially, albeit still in tiny quantities.

Today's "under the radar" offer comes from not-so-anonymous winemaker Alvaro Palacios and nephew Ricardo Perez, who are making absolutely stunning wines from tiny ancient vine sites in the Bierzo town of Corullon (see below).

Toro is a region in Spain's Castilla y Leon, a northwestern province that hugs Portugal and spans east to Rioja's western border.

While the wines of Toro were quite famous during medieval times, the region was devastated by phylloxera at the end of the 19th century. For the next 100 years, the Toro was most famous for its production of bulk wine.

Yet there remained a rich winemaking heritage and small pockets of old, ungrafted vines - the "lucky ones" that survived phylloxera. In 1987, the Toro DO was created with just four wineries.

Today, there are over 40 wineries in the region.

Vineyards sit at relatively high altitudes - between 600 and 750 meters above sea level - on a bed of clay, sand and calcareous soils. The summer growing season is long, hot and dry with quite crisp evenings.

The local Tinta de Toro is a strain of Tempranillo that's perfectly adapted to this region's climatic extremes.

Tenacity in the Toro
2006 Numanthia Termanthia
Over 120-Year-Old Vines; Under $120 a Bottle

The last 20 years have seen the Toro appellation explode from unknown esoterica to a young, budding international celebrity. But the vines aren't young; many are well-over a century old. The quality of these raw materials is epic...

And so is today's value on what may well be this region's most accoladed wine: 2006 Numanthia Termanthia at as low as $114 a bottle - over 20% below the lowest price in the nation. We know what they say about "never" but, in fact, today's pricing may never be seen again for this consistently high-scoring wine.

This wine isn't about complexity, mouthfeel or minerality.

It's about an icy and refreshing glass of wine to fend off the overbearing heat and humidity of August. With temperatures peaking in the 90s for the inaugural weekend of August, this month promises heat with high humidity to boot. Yes, August is here.

Gazela is light in body and light in alcohol with bright citrus flavors - lime zest, floral notes and a bit of spritz to liven it up even more. Mix this wine with fresh fruits and spirits to create one of our obsessions when the weather kick's up - Sangria! (See Joe's great Sangria recipe below.)

At $60 a case - delivered anywhere in Manhattan - this is the best way we've found to beat the August NYC heat!

At their best, Sherries offer an almost unparalleled combination of intensity, refinement, complexity and length. In short, they offer everything that makes great wine great.