You may not have had a glass of monastrell recently, if ever, but you may have stumbled across the red wine mourvedre. Monastrell is the Spanish name for what the French call mourvedre, a grape that is enjoying something of a revival in Southern France. There are also significant plantings in California and Australia.
It's often blended with grenache and shiraz in Australia (and labelled as GSM). The blended wines are robust and quite heady and best drunk with food.
It's believed the grape had its origins in Spain and some of the best examples of 100 per cent monastrell are still from that country.
The berries are tiny but very sweet and tend to be high in alcohol and give off a gamey style in their youth, but develop a more mature, rounded and gentler flavour when aged. The grapes need copious amounts of sunshine to fully ripen, which explains why they grow well in Spain, France and especially that intense heat bowl known as the Barossa Valley in Australia.
Over recent years there has been a steady increase in the number and variety of Spanish wines appearing on our shelves. Spain has a lot of muscle when it comes to wine production with the most land planted vines in the world, so it's not surprising that a good deal of their product should find its way to our shores. While some of it can be on the expensive side, it's often quite reasonable and invariably good value for money, especially in the low-medium price range.
