Gerald Manley Hopkins wrote: “Nothing is so beautiful as Spring / when weeds, in wheels, shoot long and lovely and lush”… I have read this poem in my first day of holidays in La Coruña. Driving this morning from Madrid I floated in the green and yellow countryside, eager to arrive to Galicia, the Eden garden by the sea. But Hopkins verses can also connect us with more mundane and hedonistic matters: “What is all this juice and all this joy?” he wrote. Which takes me to my notes about two Spring wines -wines that I have tasted in the last weeks and are wondrous examples of weeds in wheels.

Cosme Palacio 1894 Tinto 2014 is the eldest son of a revered Rioja saga from Laguardia. I have seldom encountered a red so beautifully made: it is smooth, well-rounded and with a very long finish (54 euros). This is a stellar wine that wants to speak to the rest of the family about the future, instead of looking back to its glorious past.

My second Spring wine is Viñas del lago 2018, another great discovery (14,50 euros). It was conceived as a “village wine”, a homage to the Tubilla del Lago community by the Marta Maté winery. These young vignerons from the Burgos moorland have launched one of the most innovative projects in Ribera del Duero. Viñas is a not-so-simple wine, red but almost violet, ready to fill your senses with well chosen hints of spices and flowers.

Alvaro Cunqueiro, my favorite Galician author, wrote that Spring was an invention of troubadours, but he also was willing to give credit for coming up with the idea to a blackbird singing in a nearby grapevine. I wonder if he would consider adding a few wine blogers to his list.