Get your personal wine cellar ready and take note of some suggestions to enjoy during the coming season

Some (lucky) people are still enjoying their holidays, but many have already returned home after a few days off and it is time to prepare for the return to the normal routine -work, back to school for the little ones, etc-. Temperatures will soon start to drop (autumn is coming) and, as well as facing the "wardrobe adjustment", it is a good time to review the references we have in our personal cellar, stock up on new wines and look for other options to continue enjoying our passion during the autumn.

Review your references

Before placing any new acquisitions you may have made during your holidays -we hope you found our article, review the wines you treasure in your personal cellar.

• Look at the older vintages and decide if the time has come to drink them. Remember the recommendations we gave you for storing wine. If the wines are ready, place them in an accessible place in your cellar and look for a good occasion to uncork them.
• Consume the wines that are most susceptible to losing their shine. For example, check if you have young wines from the 2020 vintage, some carbonic maceration... Depending on the type of wine they are (remember that the higher the acidity, the greater the ageing capacity), it may be advisable to uncork them before they start to lose their qualities.
• Take a general look in case any bottle starts to show signs that the wine is spoiling: if the cork has started to protrude from the neck of the bottle, if there's air in the bottle capsule, a damp label, a radical change in the colour of some of the wines...

Once we have grouped the bottles whose consumption we should prioritise, we can place the new acquisitions. It will be useful to indicate somewhere the date of purchase or, better still, to have a detailed list with the names and vintages of the wines, when they were bought, their location in the cellar, etc.

Buy wisely

If you need to stock up on new wines, follow our buying tips and remember what kind of wines you should avoid at this time of the year to avoid unpleasant surprises. Many wineries are already in the middle of the 2021 harvest or about to start it and will soon start launching their new vintages on the market so, bearing in mind that there will always be exceptions, it may not be the best time to buy 2020 vintage wines or carbonic macerations, especially if we do not intend to consume them in the short term.

Pairing with seasonal products

If you are a "little chef" and you want to harmonise your recipes perfectly with wine, we leave you a small guide to pair some typical seasonal products. 

• Mushrooms: this is the season par excellence for mushrooms, and, as with wines, we find them in different intensities, so it is advisable, as we always say, that the flavour of one product does not mask the flavour of the other. For mushrooms with an intense flavour, such as chanterelles or boletus, the ideal choice is usually a red wine of medium intensity, such as a crianza with little time in oak or even a rosé. If we are dealing with truffles, which have a much stronger taste, we should look for a wine that matches, such as an amontillado, for example. For milder mushrooms such as rebozuelo, we can even go for a white wine.
•  Chestnuts. This fruit is perfect for both sweet and savoury recipes, we will always have the natural sweet touch it possesses. For desserts or even on their own, roasted, with a touch of salt, sweet wines are always a good choice (Malaga wines, fondillones, muscatels...).
• Pumpkin. Because of its mild and slightly sweet flavour, pumpkin is a highly appreciated ingredient for making creams, rice dishes, sauces, etc. For this type of recipes, with flavours that are not too intense, we can opt for fresh wines such as white wines made with verdejo or chardonnay, rosé or even sparkling wines.
• Big game meats (wild boar, deer, roe deer...). The hunting season brings us meats with a very intense flavour, more likely to harmonise with red wines of varieties such as tempranillo or cabernet sauvignon in which the fruit is very present or even with red wines with age, where the tertiary nuances of the wine will intertwine with the spices of the game stew. A very appropriate pairing could also be with a sherry wine, such as a palo cortado, for example.

Grape harvest celebrations

In a regular year, another way to enjoy wine in autumn would be to take part in the many grape harvest festivals that are held all over Spain. The pandemic has meant that many of these celebrations have been postponed to 2022 or, for the moment, have been put on hold. Those that do have a date scheduled for autumn 2021 are, as of today, the Jerez Grape Harvest Festivities (from the 4th to the 19th of September) and the Ribera del Duero, which on this occasion will be held in Aranda de Duero (Burgos) from the 24th to the 26th of September.