Vina Tondonia 2004

Unctuous, full-throated Alto butterscotch song, with unaccented purity in the high notes and a charming, mid-century modern solidity in shades of thai tea or caramel.  But not sweet!  The jerez trick of taking only the sugar out and then melting down the werther's original, the chewy toffee, the nougat, the montelimar.  Good with ramen but better with jamon, this is the thing I thought i had invented when I was drinking over the top CA chard with jamon iberico, oak with oak, fat with butter, but I was imagining that the Spanish had left some pleasure undiscovered and that is a ridiculous thing to think.  Here it is, for drinking with the damned jamon of the damned acorns and Catalan women are all degrees of Penelope Cruz and olives and lemons and tiny fish, and culture and damn it Spain, freckled Galicians and the sauce Mahon-ese, and Baleares and snails and garlic and blood sausage and octopus and rioja and bulls and damnit Spain!  Damn it.