NV Rene Barbier, Mediterranean Red D.O. Catalunya

You don't really need Catalunya to make this wine. Any place warm and uncontrolled will do. This is jug wine repackaged and given a D.O. Lean, with hints of black olive, it's good enough for food. But it's almost as though they intended it to be vinegar some day. Acetic acid dreams to be this good. Of course, being a potentially great vinegar hardly makes you a good wine. And were it not for this pork tenderloin, bacon-garlic-mashed sweet potatoes, and sauteed prosciutto-wrapped baby asparagus, I might have chucked this by now. It's what I'll never truly understand about wine. Why is this so good all of a sudden, when on every sip where I have no incarnation of salty pork in my mouth, its acids burn the sides of my tongue, its tannins floss my gums, its vapors carry into my head? Well, it isn't good. Not at all. But it'll grease.