La Maldicíon Tinto para beber de Marc Isart 2014 D.O. Madrid
13.5% €14.50 from 64wine, Glasthule
It translates as "a red to drink from Marc Isart". I’m not sure what else you might do with a bottle of wine, but this one certainly slips down very easily. Light, fresh and full of free-flowing bouncy fruits, this one is made for summer drinking. For his day job, Marc Isart makes the wine at Bodegas Bernabeleva, one of the leading estates in the D O of Madrid. There, the reds are made primarily from the Garnacha grape. This bottle is his own creation, made from a blend of 85 per cent Tempranillo and 15 per cent Malvar, a local white grape. La Maldicíon means the curse in Spanish, the name the locals gave to the difficult inaccessible vineyard that supplies the grape.
O’Hara’s Hop Adventure Series Sorachi Ace Single Hop India Pale Ale
5% €2.99
A few weeks back I wrote about the Sorachi Ace from the Brooklyn Brewery. If you haven’t tried it, I suggest you seek it out straight away. While you are doing that, keep an eye out for the O’Hara’s Hop Adventure Series Sorachi Ace. The Carlow brewers have released their version, the first in a series of beers featuring specially selected hops from around the globe. Sorachi Ace came about back in the 1980s, when a Japanese company crossed a Czech hop with one from England; the resulting hybrid added unique flavours of dill, lemongrass and lemon to a beer. The O’Hara’s Sorachi Ace is a very delicious summery light-bodied beer with lemon verbena and dill on the nose and a lovely easy soft gently hoppy palate.
