This past week we were looking for some down home cooking and relaxing recipe, which brought us to our modified version of Spaghetti alla Puttanesca. I have nothing against the original version, but as I have stated in the past, I love to cook once a week and enjoy leftovers. So we cook a bunch of the Puttanesca before the weekend and enjoy it throughout the week. Also, I want to be able to eat a bunch of it and not feel guilty. So instead of pounding the spaghetti, I eat the sauce, which is filled with good stuff. I add in just one ingredient to the recipe, two pounds of ground soy “meat”. It tastes great, is good for you, and not nearly as caloric as the spaghetti.

We looked for a good wine to pair with the red tomato, anchovy, and olive sauce, and came upon a new wine on the market, the 2007 Savia del Sol Rioja Crianza. Rioja is a region in Spain and is a wine made totally from Tempranillo grapes. The Crianza is a wine that is aged two years, with one of those in oak, the other being in the bottle. This is one of those wines that we have had in the past that start off showing red wine characteristics. Overtime, the wine turns more black on the nose and the palate. The wine was fun to start off with, but became even more fun as the wine became richer and more intensified. This was a real fun wine to drink and one that I was able to enjoy slowly, allowing me to watch it progress through its life cycle in the glass and bottle, once it had more air.

The wine note follows below:

2007 Savia del Sol Rioja Crianza (Spain, Navarra) – Score: B++
This is a fun wine that starts off displaying red wine characteristics and over time shifts into a black wine. To start the wine shows its red side. The nose on this purple colored starts off with spicy oak, plum, raspberry, crushed herbs, loamy dirt and vanilla. The mouth on this medium to full bodied wine is full in the mouth with plum, raspberry, oak, and nice tannins. The mid palate is balanced with nice acid, oak, spice, and nice tannin. The finish is long with raspberry, plum, spicy oak, vanilla, nice tannin, and a drop of chocolate.
After many hours the wine turns black as the night with a nose of ripe blackberry, raspberry, dark rich plum, herbs, chocolate, tobacco, along with nice cedar notes and a hint of vanilla. The nose is enveloping and some of the lovely characteristics are hidden. The mouth is full, concentrated, and coating with nice and well integrated tannin, smoky notes, ripe blackberry, plum, and raspberry. The mouth is almost explosive with the attack of cedar, nice tannin, along with bright and ripe black fruit. The mid palate is balanced with acid, cedar, more smokiness, chocolate, and herbs. The finish is super long with ripe blackberry and plum that linger long on the palate along with chocolate, tobacco, licorice, and mounds of vanilla.