MIKE RICCETTI
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  • The best of Houston dining
    • Best Values
    • Breakfast
    • Chinese
    • Cocktails
    • Fajitas
    • Hamburgers
    • The Heights
    • Italian
    • Indian / Pakistani
    • Mexican
    • Middle Eastern
    • Pizzerias
    • Sandwiches
    • Splurge-Worthy
    • Steakhouses
    • Sushi
    • Tacos
    • Tex-Mex
    • To Take Visitors
  • Musings on Houston Dining
    • The best new restaurants to open in 2023
    • Houston's Italian restaurant history
    • Restaurants open for lunch (or brunch) on Saturday
    • Restaurants open for Sunday dinner
    • Restaurants open for lunch on Monday
    • Restaurants open for dinner on Monday
    • The top 10 new restaurants of 2022
    • The top 10 new restaurants of 2021
  • The margherita pizza project
  • The martini project
  • Italian restaurant history
  • Italian & Italian-American
  • Entertaining tips
    • Booze basics
    • Styles of Cheeses
    • Handling Those Disruptive Guests
  • Wine
  • Beer
  • Cocktails and Spirits
  • Miscellaneous
  • Blog
MIKE RICCETTI

Mostly food and drink...

...and mostly set in Houston

El Meson for the Spanish wine aficionado; and for most wine drinkers, for that matter

10/23/2016

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​El Meson, with its eclectic menu of Cuban, Tex-Mex and Spanish items has been a staple in the Rice Village since the early 1980s.  It’s also one of those hidden nuggets on the local dining landscape for its fairly expansive and interesting collection of wines from Spain, something good to know for the wine lover.  As Eric Asimov in New York Times recently wrote, “No country has had its wine map filled in so intriguingly over the last 25 years as Spain. And perhaps no country has rewarded wine consumers more with a combination of value and enticement.”
 
There are numerous enticing wines from Spain well beyond the most famous names of Rioja and sherry on El Meson’s wine list, though you will be amply rewarded with choices from those areas, as I was on a recent visit. 
 
With a taste for a reserve Rioja, when the restaurant was out of my first choice, Jessica Garcia, the daughter of proprietor Pedro Garcia, made a very nice selection from a Rioja producer with which I was unfamiliar. The wine was Ontañón Reserva 2005 that showed nice very enjoyable plum and cherry notes along with the refinement, subtle earthiness and a long-lasting taste that you would expect with a quality Rioja Reserva.  For what it’s worth, the Wine Spectator awarded it 91 points.  One of the benefits of Rioja – and El Meson – you can drink a wine with over a decade’s age on it for not whole lot.  The wine was just $52, a bargain by restaurant standards for the quality.
 
El Meson
2425 University (near Morningside), 77005, (713) 522-9306
elmeson.com
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    Mike Riccetti is a longtime Houston-based food writer and former editor for Zagat, and not incidentally the author of three editions of Houston Dining on the Cheap.

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