Joan C. Martín's Abstracta Vinícola blogpost (La Gloria de Francia)

So, off we went, chewing the fat — in every sense, as we always have the “almuerzo popular” (a titanic egg, fried potato and ham sandwich with vino con gaseosa) at Restaurante Fiesta in Requena. We shared opinions about the Pancho Campo–Jay Miller saga, and then the misguided plan to create a giant Valencia denominación de origen that is being surreptitiously pushed by Valencia’s agriculture ministry.

We dropped by Dominio de la Vega, then the Utiel-Requena DO, Pago de Tharsys (whose Pago de Tharsys Millésimé Rosé Brut Reserva 2009 has just been awarded a “Grand Médaille d’Or” at the 2012 Concours Mondial de Bruxelles) and the fine Swiss-owned Casa lo Alto, of which Joan was once director.

As we were driving back, still chatting away, Joan asked what I thought of his blog. I confessed that its very existence was news to me. So, when I got home I googled El País and “La gloria de Francia“, which he’d told me was the title of his most recent blogpost, and it came straight up. In this piece, Joan contrasts the love, value and respect that the French have for their localities and local products, which in turn enables them to sell them with conviction and efficiency. Joan points out that Corbières, with its 13,500 hectares of vines (to DO Valencia’s 15,000), has profits fifteen times those of Valencia’s.

Joan writes:

“why have we allowed the destruction of the Valencian res publica by the Agriculture Ministry, with its ministerial order destroying the Valencian denominaciones de origen signed 36 hours before the last regional elections, when the period of government was over, the government in purdah, the regional parliament closed, all for the benefit of a bunch of monopolists? Isn’t it the idea of prizing the value in names that saves a country and generates the wealth produced by the soil and its plants”

He contrasts what appears to be an attempt to enable the largest wineries to buy their grapes from anywhere in Valencia — to their economic benefit, but to the detriment of the specific local character that underpins the different Valencia region wine areas: DO Valencia, DO Utiel-Requena, DO Alicante, Indicación Geográfica Protegida Castelló, and not forgetting the excellent Cava produced in Requena). It is worth mentioning that the regional minister of agriculture, Maritina Hernández Miñana, has as her right-hand woman Marta Valsangiacomo Gil, part of the fifth generation of the family currently at the helm of heavyweight Bodega Cherubino Valsangiacomo. I think we may be in conflict of interest territory.

Joan finishes by contrasting this gigantism with the philosophy of ethical and sustainable smallholding that underpins Joan Cascant’s Microvinya and excellent Celler la Muntanya. It’s not just sentiment and romanticism, either. Scientists at the University of Valencia have published research showing that state of the art optical emission spectroscopy (ICP-OES technique apparently) can detect the specific origin of wines that are close geographically. 67 wines from Valencia, Utiel-Requena, Yecla and Jumilla, in this study, can be identified as a result of differences in soils, vines, microclimates and even the  particular storage systems used in the production of the wines.

I’m with Joan Martín all the way on this.

“Vive la République!“, “Vive la Résistance!” and “Vive la différence!”

Vinos de España y Portugal (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

Dogs alert to walk possibilities

For years I’ve been trying unsuccessfully to persuade friends to think of Valencia as a place they can come to on a whim, rather than laboriously organizing summer holidays or half-term jaunts. Finally, after six years, a friend did just pop over. A once-bibulous scriptwiter turned sober barrister, Chris had just won a significant (and exhausting) case, and came over for some R&R on the Tuesday morning easyjet flight from Gatwick, returning to LGW on Thursday evening.

So, I was on my mettle to do Valencia and ourselves  proud over three days and two nights in the face of a highly discerning wine lover, who was pretty much born with glass in hand. Chris’s father ran Harvey’s of Bristol in its pomp, and his godfather was Harry Waugh, ”the man with the million-dollar palate”. Luckily, my friend is an open-minded enthusiast rather than a sneering snob about wine and pretty much everything.

Here is what we did:

Tuesday
12:30 met Chris at Valencia airport, metro to our place. Bottle of L’Olivera Blanc de Roure 2010 (from Costers del Segre not Valencia, but what I had in fridge) .

14:30 Bus to Malvarrosa, aiming for our favoured beachside paella place Casa

barcas de la malvarosa (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

Ripoll. Shut, so went to La Alegría de la Huerta next door. Clóchinas, tellines and esgarrat, washed down with Dominio de la Vega Cava Brut. Next arrived our paella valenciana (came sans snails), and we went for a Maduresa 2004 from back when it was just making its name, and long before moving to the new winery, which had evolved into a really quite opulent Mediterranean gent, some of its youthful verve having rounded out into a well-upholstered clubman.

17:30. Me: walk dogs. Chris: siesta.

20:00 Daiquiris (several) at old favourite Aquarium on Gran Vía Marqués del Turia

22:00 Altura de Vuelo craft beer Suc de Lluna Mercado Colón.

23:00 Many and varied dishes outside at Pepe Pica looking at Cathedral. Bottle

Catedral de Valencia (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

of Olivastro Bobal 2008. I like this wine, but whether it was the effect of the daiquiris or that the wine maybe hadn’t been kept that well, it lacked a little of its usual spark.

After midnight: As Chris reminds me in his comment, he did walk the dogs with me on this first night. We stopped at a local bar whose only Spanish brandy was Terry Centenario. Being the plaything of drinks industry multinationals (it is currently part of Beam Global Spirits & Wine Inc., having passed through Pernod Ricard, Allied Domecq and more) hasn’t improved Spain’s best-selling brandy established long ago by Fernando A. de Terry. However, it was appropriate in a way, as Beam Global also owns Harveys Bristol Cream, milch cow of the company run for years by Chris’s late father.

Wednesday

11:00 Orxata de Chufa from seller by the Museu de les Ciències Príncipe Felipe. For health and energy.

El Museu de les Ciències Príncipe Felipe (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

13:00 Vipa (Valencian India Pale Ale) and Riu Rau de Benissa craft beers at Bar Sant Jaume, c/ Cavallers 51.

14:00 Lunch at El Refugio (BYOB). Enchanting  Bodegas Baviera recommended Lonecesario Bobal 2008 (DO Valencia), so we took that. Funnily enough, it’s made by the same guy who makes Altura de Vuelo beer (see above). We had Refugio’s zingy Domaine de l’Ancienne Cure L’Abbaye Monbazillac sweet wine with pudding.

17:00 Me: walk dogs. Chris: siesta.

20:00 Tasting of Juve y Camps cavas at Bodega de Alicia.

22:00 Supper at excellent and always surprising Nostre Bar, Russafa. Mestizaje 2010. This chunky yet complex wine is all too often overlooked as the cheapes of Bodega Mustiguillo‘s wines, but I have always found it highly rewarding and great value.

00:30 Me: walk dogs. Others: bed.

Thursday
11:00–14:00  Culture. Museo de Bellas Artes, then Casa-Museo Benlliure.

El Greco - San Juan Bautista (detail) Museo de Bellas Artes Valencia (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

14:00 Olga picks us up in car after treating acupuncture client at Expo Hotel. She says that she needs to eat near her treatment centre as she doesn’t have long for lunch, and that we’re going to the port area classic Casa Montaña, with its fabulous wine list and sardines and such. Louro do Bolo 2010 Godello (DO Valdeorras) and Dominio de Tares Cepas Viejas 2008 Mencía (DO Bierzo).

17:00 Me: walk dogs. Chris: siesta.

18:00 Whirlwind present-buying for Chris’s family.

20:30 Farewells at airport cafeteria. Limited choice — 1 draft Amstel beer (Chris), 1 mini Viña Sol (me).

22:00 On getting home drop bottle of Alges 2009 on floor (shatters) and get the message and go to bed.

Recent tastings I’ve been to at Alicia’s have been of distinctively personal projects — one (Edetària) I wrote about, and the other (Bodegas Canopy) I meant to but didn’t, though I really liked the wines and the sound of the bodega set up by three mates in the little-known Denominación de Origen Méntrida.

L'Equilibrista Blanco label

This one was a different sort of project, called Uvas Felices  (“Happy Grapes”) under the aegis of Barcelona wine emporium Vila Viniteca. The idea is to produce wine to their specifications in bodegas dotted around Spain (Catalunya, Rioja, Yecla, Cava, Rueda, Rías Baixas, Ribera del Duero and Vinos de Madrid), to make wines that are true to the particular regions and their flagship grape varieties. It sounds like a sort of Iberian version of the “flying winemaker” approach, along the lines of Telmo Rodríguez, who has been describing himself as Spain’s “driving winemaker” for years.

The conventional debate here is whether winemaking expertise tends to a “one-size-fits-all” formula at the expense of winemaking individuality and the benefits of intimate and longstanding local knowledge. Maybe this dichotomy superimposed itself on my brain in the tasting, but I couldn’t help feeling that the three “L’Equilibrista” wines (the DO Catalunya line from Uvas Felices) that we tasted were well-made, but perhaps lacking a genuinely distinctive personality or genuinely fairground exuberance.

The L’Equilibrista Blanc 2010 is 100% xarel·lo, best known as one of the three main Cava grapes (along with Parellada and Macabeo). This grape generally offers quite high acidity, but as a longstanding fan of Marqués de Alella’s Pansa Blanca (the local name for the Xarel·lo), which was one of the wines we had at our wedding, I know that this acidity can coexist with lovely fruit to provide a really delightful wine. In the L’Equilibrista, a few months in oak added a touch of creaminess to go with the fruit. It was a nicely made white from an interetsing grape variety. However, at over 15 euros, it costs more than double the Marqués de Alella.  I’m not sure I wouldn’t rather have two bottles of the latter than one of the former.

L'Equilibrista Garnatxa

The second wine was L’Equilibrista Garnatxa, the premium wine of the range, which Maxi Bao — the enviably self-confident presenter of the tasting and eminent 2005 Nariz de Oro (Golden Nose sommelier of the year award) — explained was due to its greater elegance and structure being liable to be drowned out by the more rugged L’Equilibrista red. Despite being served a touch too cold, the nose was full of ripe strawberries and raspberries, with interesting woodland aromas of sage and perhaps a hint of eucalyptus. Perhaps the serving temperature overemphasized the tannins, but it did seem that the wine would benefit from a while longer in bottle. Again, the “special” price of over 22 euros offered at the tasting struck me as ambitious. On checking, I see that it is actually sold at €15.50 at Vila Viniteca itself. I’m not quite sure what the story is there — were we being taken for mugs or is there some inconsistency of pricing?

The third wine, L’Equilibrista 2009 red (a blend of Syrah, Cariñena and Garnacha) was chewy and powerful both in terms of aromas and in the mouth. Certainly, the aromas were of darker fruits, and there was a more scattergun spiciness. Again, the wine seemed to have everything in the right place, but it was difficult for me to really warm to it.

L'Equilibrista Tinto label (detail)

The circus theme of the label and names — apart from the high-wire acts on theL’Equilibrista, the Uvas Felices range includes El Hombre Bala (The Human Bullet) and La Mujer Cañón (The Cannon Woman) — doesn’t quite seem reflected in a playfulness of the wines. As yet, These three wines seem more of a cerebral project than a really relaxed or confidently acrobatic act. However, there is a lot to be said for the idea behind the undertaking, and I will be on the lookout for the other wines in the Uvas Felices troupe, and be ready when these flying winemakers amaze us without a safety net.

Refugio — restaurante del Carmen

On a recent visit I saw on the menu something I hadn’t previously noticed. It announced a Bring Your Own Bottle option. I’ve always liked the sound of this, but I don’t think I had ever actually taken a wine to a restaurant in England or in Spain. This is mainly due to lack of organization and pre-planning, as the chance of trying some interesting bottles of one’s own without a restaurant mark-up has got to be a good thing.

So, one Saturday lunchtime I did get organized. I arranged to meet Castellón winemaker Vicente Flors after his Aula Vinícola Tastavins class. I rang Refugio to check that the BYOB policy was still running. It was, they explained that there is a charge of 1 euro per person per bottle. There were three of us, so 3 euros corkage sounded fine. I thought Vicente would show up with his wines, but just in case brought along a couple of bottles that I thought were winemaker-worthy: a German blance de noir, Anselmann’s white Cabernet Sauvignon 2010 picked up for a song at some celebration of European food at El Corte Inglés, and a wine from Toro, Flor de Vetus. Sure enough, Vicente arrived armed with his Clotàs and Flor de Clotàs.

The staff were quite impressed at the array of bottles on the table, but I explained that Vicente was a winemaker, and we were looking forward to doing a bit of research. I didn’t help by promptly knocking over a bottle as I said this. But we enjoyed the pale golden Cabernet Sauvignon white wine, very different to the moscatels, macabeos and such that are my regular local white wines. Perhaps the starter of ceviche of mussels, shrimp and octopus needed a sharper, more acidic white, but my years in Peru mean that I can’t resist ordering ceviche when I see it. Anyway, the white wine went down so easily between the three of us, that it was almost finished by the time the first course arrived.

Vicente was keen that we should try the Flor de Clotàs 2010, as he is particularly pleased with this vintage. I like the subtlety and elegance alongside the vivid fruit of this pure Tempranillo (previous vintages include a small amount of Cabernet Sauvignon). After cold maceration prior to fermentation the wine spends just five months in oak before being gently filtered. It is clear that the aim is to achieve restraint and finesse in this hot area. It certainly went perfectly with my main course of Iberian pork with “tamarillo” (tree tomato), plantain chips and satay sauce

Castellón has only recently begun to recover its wine tradition, and Vicente has until now not even been in the Indicación Geográfica Protegida Castelló (though about to enter), so I’ve always admired the way he has trodden his own path. He works with the admirable oenologist Oscar Priego who is having such success at Bodega El Angosto.

I wish Paco of El Refugio had been around to taste the wine and consider it for his list. Still, this gives us an excuse to pay another visit. I’m not sure where else in Valencia has a BYOB policy (I vaguely remember something along these lines among a group of restaurants in Russafa a few years ago, but can’t find any reference to such a thing now — though I have just now seen a reference to La Pitanza‘s “Con Tu Vino Bajo el Brazo” — With Your Bottle Under Your Arm), and I’m determined to make more use of this excellent initiative with my wine-fiend friends. Though I don’t expect to come home with more bottles than I arrived with, as on this occasion.

The beers and cheeses at Godè

Just as I’ve recently looked at wines beyond Valencia, last Saturday I signed up to a cheese and craft beer tasting. It was held at Godè, a smart new place in Russafa that describes itself as a gastro-club. It looks like an interesting place and concept, run by Laura and Adam. The latter, though he announced himself as more of a wine man, took us magisterially through the beers. In charge of cheese was Bertrand, whom I’d first met when he worked at a wine bar, and later at occasional wine tastings tastings here and there.

One of the things that has always struck me about Bertrand, in addition to a zanily dandified dress sense (he is from Paris, after all),  is how positive he always seems. Having not come across him for a good while, he popped up six months ago in Facebook as Bertrand Solo Queso. It turns out that for the last six months he’s been running a cheese stall in Russafa market, selling only Spanish cheeses made from unpasteurized milk. His loving descriptions of his new cheeses in Facebook have had me salivating longingly, but I’ve never actually made it to Russafa market. Though I hear very good things about it, I’m a loyal Mercado del Cabanyal and Mercado Central man. Sadly our nearest market. Mercado del Grao, has been pretty much shut down for years, with just a handful of heroic stalls hanging on, including the really excellent butcher Varea, whose meat is so good I put up with his shameless flirting with my wife.

Anyway, I digress, this is not about markets, but the craft beer and cheese tasting organised by and at Godè. I’ve noticed something of a boom in microbreweries and craft beer in Spain in the last two or three years, and quite  a few have cropped up in Valencia. Maybe it’s a creative response to the ever-deepening economic crisis. Certainly, it’s a good thing.

Despite the Spanish saying “vino con queso sabe a beso” (wine with cheese tastes like a kiss), and the wine trade dictum “buy a wine over apples and sell it over cheese”, I think cheese and beer are a better match. No less an authority than Michael Broadbent has written “Unless the cheese is mild and the red wine reasonably robust and not of fine quality the cheese spoils the taste of the wine” (on page 12 of my 2003 edition of his excellent Wine Tasting).

Beer and beer drinkers are more robust. Adam was telling us how these beers need to be served warmer than the ubiquitous industrial tasteless fizz that passes for beer and hides its defects by being served palate-numbingly cold. I had to disagree with Adam when he said that these beers were less refreshing and to be savoured rather than being thirst-quenchers. First, there is nothing

like a cool (not cold) pint of good ale when you’ve worked up a thirst, and second it doesn’t help to sell it if it’s presented as a drink you only buy when you’re not thirsty, especially as it’s that bit more expensive than the usual muck. It actually leaves you more refreshed than ice-cold fizz, in my view.

The first three beers were all from the Valencia region. We kicked off with a Mons Rubia (from Massalavès) and a soft “queso fresco” from Cantagrullas made from sheep’s milk in the province of Valladolid, brought to us on a salt and oil-flavoured biscuit (Bertrand is very proud of his English cheese biscuits). This unfiltered beer was slightly turbid in the glass, in a good way (it’s rich in vitamin B among other things). The soft, tangy cheese, that reminded Russian Olga of her much-loved tvorog from home, had an acidity that contrasted well with the mild beer.

Next up was Lluna from the Vall d’Albaida, similar in style to the first beer, but with a touch more acidity, with hints of apple. It was served with a cow’s milk cheese from Puigpedròs in Cerdanya (Catalonia) on a fennel cracker. I got rid of the cracker. Though it was tasty, it rather overpowered the beer and cheese for me. It was widely thought that though this beer and cheese combination was good, the potent (in both olfactory and taste terms) cheese would have gone particularly well with the first beer, for future reference.

The third beer was Tyris, a Valencian beer that has among its other virtues that it is becoming increasingly available in bars and shops here. It went with the aptly and amusingly-named goat’s cheese Uff! (it’s the noise you make both when you smell it and when you taste it) from the Mas Alba cheesemakers near Girona (Catalonia). It was so powerful and delicious that I’ve even forgotten the flavour of the biscuit that it came on. It was clever to combine the mild wheat beer with the macho cheese. The beer cleaned the palate beautifully, allowing you to come back to the cheese with renewed vim.

The fourth beer was the only one not from the Comunidad Valenciana, DeDues from Girona, like the previous Mas Alba cheese and also the cheese that the DeDues was served with — a blue cheese made from sheep’s milk, Blau del Nét (Grandson’s Blue) on a celery cracker. Bertrand said that one of the things he loves about this cheese is that every time he opens a new one it’s different in colour and consistency, sometimes softer, sometimes bluer or whiter. The DeDues beer is made with highly mineral water from volcanic soil. It had a notable citric freshness along with a rich toastiness, a distinctive and interesting beer that stood its ground well against the cheese’s onslaught. This was an imaginative and successful matching of two very characterful flavours you might have thought wouldn’t gel, but they did.

Finally, and the twenty-or so strangers in the tasting group were becoming noticeably chattier by now, we had La Sotorraña, a cheese from the Picos de Europa mountains of Cantabria in the north of Spain. It is a cheese somewhere between white and blue, as it ripens next to the famous blue Picón cheeses in the cave that gives it its name (see the amazing photos at the bottom of this blogpost at El Mule Carajonero).  This robust, sharp, delicious cheese came on a chile-flavoured biscuit, to the shock of some (the Spaniards generally have little tolerance for the slightest bit of “picante” in their food, despite their centuries of Latin American dominion). This needed a good, strong beer, and we had the excellent Tombatossals stout from the Montmirà brewery in Castellón (the northernmost province of the Comunitat Valenciana) . This was a vibrant rather than dense stout, perfect for a cool evening in these warmer climes. Another successful cheese and beer match.

The tasting left me more convinced than ever that cheese and beer are a far more harmonious combination than wine and beer. Until now, the probably has been finding good beers in Spain. I’m excited to see so many craft, bottle-conditioned beers spring up. I hope that they receive the supoort of beer drinkers, who have by and large little grounding in the subtleties of beer. Why bother with liquid junk food when beers like these are to hand?

Photo courtesy of David Navarro

As I was leaving the DO Valdeorras event the other day with an old friend — historian and boulevardier Ismael Saz Campos — we were stopped by someone who claimed to know him but couldn’t quite place him. It turned out that they had studied together way back, there was the convincing detail of a fondly remembered sister in there somewhere, and the upshot was that we were invited to a forthcoming tasting at Vicente’s (the old acquaintance) wine emporium, Racó de Tastavins.

Photo courtesy of David Navarro

Sure enough, an email arrived the following day with an invitation to a tasting on 19 April of four wines from Bodegas y Viñedos Evine (the website is a bit problematic, and the winery’s web presence in general is unfashionably tiny, hence the shortage of specific links to their wines in the post). Always happy to discover a new place, I put it in the diary and when the day came along rang the absent-minded professor knowing that he’d have forgotten all about it, and succeeded in dragging him away from his books.

If ever you try to find Racó de Tastavins at number 62 calle Palleter, it is worth remembering that it is right at the top of this strange street, which comes to an apparent end at number fifty-something only to reappear briefly on the other side of quite a substantial block. You will know what I mean when you find yourself puzzled as you look again at the street number on the wall and the dead-end to which you have arrived without reaching your destination, but trust me, it’s there. And it’s an elegantly sleek, modern space in this rather scruffy corner.

We were by no means the only ones to find it, as there was a healthy crowd by 8 o’clock. I immediately saw several familiar face. One of the joys of frequenting wine events is that after a while you almost feel part of things. Deep in the thick of the action, fiddling with a PC projector, was Clara, who has had the misfortune to sit next to me at a couple of wine functions and has been a paragon of serene and pulchritudinous restraint while reamining excellent company. It turned out that she was in fact presenting the wines, and that it had been the wines of this Yecla bodega that had first sparked her enthusiasm for wine. I remembered from the tables that we’d shared that she hides a lot of knowledge behind a quiet façade, so I was duly impressed.

It later turned out that this was Clara’s first time heading a public tasting and though she said afterwards that she had been nervous, there was no sign of this as she juggled projector and public with coolness, authority and charm, telling us about the soil types (limestone, gravel some clay areas), how the bodega had received organic certification some two years ago, and how the new winery had relocated to be amidst the vineyards rather than based in town as previously. The wines then helped flesh out the story.

First up was  ”Evine rosé” 2011. This 100% monastrell rosado had only recently been bottled, Clara showed us a photo of a glass she’d enjoyed unfiltered straight from the stainless steel vat, but it was now perkily pink and clarified and a slinky blend of freshness, acidity with a hint of viscosity — it put me in mind of the delicious combination of strawberries with a dash of balsamic vinegar that was all the rage in England a while back. Very much a monastrell wine, but wearing summer garden party clothes. They ran out of bottles to buy after the tasting, always a sign that a wine has hit the spot, and I’m definitely heading back for it when new stocks are in, especially at €3.40.

Next was the Evine Monastrell-Syrah Tinto Joven 2010, the only blended wine of the evening (80% monastrell and 20% syrah). Though a “joven” the wine had spent two months in American oak casks. For me it came across a little flat after the exuberance of the rosado. There was nothing wrong — some ripe red fruit on the nose, welcome acidity, but maybe it needed to sit around longer in the glass and accompany a bite or two of something to give it a chance to express itself. It just somehow lacked conviction in the glass, maybe a sign of a certain reluctance to go further and bring more syrah into play to add that warmth and spice alongside the more earthy monastrell qualities. As with the rosé, though, it’s definitely worth giving it another whirl at the snip of a price of€3.50 or so.

The final two wines were the bodega’s bigger beasts. Here there was no doubting the wholehearted commitment to monastrell. The Llano Quintanilla Crianza 2007 was not overoaked having spent the DO’s minimum of six months in American oak casks (the further minimum of 18 months ageing in bottle had of course long passed), and it had the chocolate, eucalyptus, sagebrush hints that are part and parcel of our full-bodied Mediterranean monastrells, but with a certain elegant restraint all the while. It was a balanced wine, which it needed to be at a hefty 14% plus ABV. I did manage to come home with a bottle of this (from memory at €4.70 euros) and am looking forward to renewing the acquaintance.

The last wine was the bodega’s calling card, the Kyathos Crianza (2006). This was also 100% monastrell, of course, but spends longer under oak (18 months in French and American casks) and is very much an all-guns blazing wine. It had settled over its six years, though, with a hint of rust at the edges of the glass, but here again were chocolate and coffee and eucalyptus and rich spices. If I had to sound a word of caution, it might be that there was almost too much there. I also bought a bottle of this wine at €12.70, I think. I want to choose a worthy food match and see whether the wine and the dish get along or constantly jostle for position. I suspect that they’ll be boon companions despite the 15% ABV, again rendered unobtrusive by virtue of balance and integration.

So, an unexpected evening in the world of Valencia wine. Old and new friends combining in the discovery of an excellent  wine shop in Valencia previously unknown to me, with a soon-to-be-star of the Valencia wine scene announcing herself by introducing these “new-yet-old” style monastrell wines from neighbouring Yecla that set her on her way. The professorial side of Ismael wrestled with the party animal, and impressively it was back to a stint of late night writing for him, for once. A victory for Spanish historiography and, perhaps, a narrow escape for Clara.

Without further ado, here is the Jan Reinhart WTQ review (click again on link on page that pops up after clicking link on left to view PDF):                            

I spotted a gap at the Bodegas D’Berna table, and tried their 2011 Godello, which I have been reading about recently as one of Gerry Dawes’ “Spanish Artisan Wine Group“. All the DO Valdeorras Godellos have to be monovarietal and this was as good a place as any to start. It had some of the minerality which characterises the wines of this Denominación de Origen, but with plenty of richness in the mouth to accompany the green apple crispness.

I moved straight to the table next door to Bodegas Ruchel and their prize-winning Godello. Their 2009 Godello was voted Galicia’s best white wine in 2010, the first Godello to achieve this accolade, and I thought this 2011 had genuine elegance despite having been bottled very recently.

To be honest, I found the Mencía’s initially harder to warm to. This was partly becaude the Godello’s stole the show for me, and the Mencía’s seemed less sophisticated alongside them, and also lacking some of the stylishness of the more famous Mencías from neighbouring DO Bierzo. However, I did warm to them as I went on. I enjoyed the carbonic maceration Mencía from Joaquín Rebolledo, and the reds and whites from the Jesús Nazareno cooperative

I’m sorry to say that my notes got mislaid. I remember enjoying the Godella “sobre lías” from Bodegas Carballal and also Adega A Coroa, all the wines from Bodega Godeval, the “joven” and the “barrica” from Adegas Quinta da Peza. Iwas  pleased to try the Viñaredo from Santa Marta Bodegas made from the Sousón grape I had not previously heard of

I could go on, but my message is to keep an eye out for the Godellos from Valdeorras and take every chance you get to try them. The Mencías are fresh and fun, too, and it will be interesting to see what they do with this variety in the coming years to give it the distinct imprint of this DO.

Here is a list of all the bodegas that took part in the event on April 12 2012 in Valencia, with apologies to those for which my tasting notes went astray:

Bodegas Ruchel

Bodega Sampayolo

Bodega Santa Marta

Bodega Roandi

Bodega Cooperativa Jesús Nazareno

http://www.joaquinrebolledo.com/

Bodegas Carballal

Adega A Coroa

Bodega Virxe de Galir

Adega Alan de Val

Bodega Valdesil

Bodega Germán Rodríguez Prada

Viña Somoza, Bodegas y Viñedos

Adega Quinta da Peza

Bodega Godeval

Bioca (Bodega María Teresa Núñez Vega)

Adega de Pinguela

Bodega Eladio Santalla Paradelo

But Andalusia has been experiencing something of a boom in the production of regular non-fortified wines. There are a good few “Vino de la Tierra” designations in the region (you can find a full list at apoloybaco.com) , and we started off the week in Granada with some wines from “Vino de la Tierra Norte de Granada”. Apparently this “indicación geográfica” has now become “Vino de la Tierra Altiplano de Sierra Nevada”, but the previous name was on the bottles that we saw.

In Granada we had to dig out the local wines, as the restaurants seemed keener to offer us riojas and the like. However, we enjoyed the freshness and fruit of the Muntaña Syrah 2006 at Enostrum restaurant and tapas bar on our first evening. They gave us a glass of this and a glass of the more heavy-duty Méndez Moya Cabernet Sauvignon 2008, to see which suited our mood beter. Inevitably, my wife and I disagreed amicably, but I won on this occasion, and the Muntaña syrah was deemed a success with the light supper that was pretty much all that was left to eat late on a Saturday night at this lunch-oriented place.

As it happened, we were able to make amends by ordering the Méndez Moya Cabernet at lunch the next day at San Nicolás. This was the one restaurant that I had booked, as I wanted to share with my wife the spectacular view of the Alhambra with the snow-capped Sierra Nevada in the background that I had enjoyed while lunching entirely alone when in Granada on business a few years ago. So, I booked a table in the same upstairs room and we walked up through the Albaicín quarter to the San Nicolás mirador. On arrival, I realised that I had in fact not booked the same restaurant. I had originally eaten at Las Estrellas de San Nicolás right by the mirador, but reserved the rather grander San Nicolás itself just down the road.

Nevertheless, San Nicolás put us at a table with a similar view of the mountains and the Alhambra. The waiter recommended the Méndez Moya as the right regional wine to go with the six courses in the menú degustación, and so we made up for not having chosen it the evening before. I’m not sure that Cabernet Sauvignon is generally a multi-purpose grape that goes as well with fish courses as meat, but we were so delighted with the view and with being on holiday, and the waiter seemed confident. This irganic wine did indeed have enough substance to justify the meal we were ambarking on, while managing a balance of fruit and complexity to be a worthwhile companion throughout the plethora of courses.  I wouldn’t have though of looking in this part of Spain for an organic 100% Cabernet Sauvignon, but it is an indication of the imaginative ambition that is often too be found in these new and relatively unheralded wine localities.

After that it was sherry all the way for a few days in Seville (though not quite, I almost forgot the delightful bottle of Mencal — Chardonnay, Sauvignon Blanc, Verdejo, Moscatel, Torrontés — that we enjoyed in Las Golondrinas in Triana), Jeréz itself and Cadiz — with a brief detour via Montilla-Moriles in Cordoba — till we came to the final stop on our trip, Ronda. Apart from the beauty of the twon, it was a joy to have local wines thrust at us wherever we ventured. I do feel that Valencia and many other places could follow Ronda’s example, and make a real point of offering local wines, be it for sale, by the glass or whatever.

On arrival, our little hotel had a Bodegas de Ronda leaflet on the counter for us to take. The first place we popped into on calle Nueva (I can’t remember the name, but it was a new-looking open plan wine bar behind big glass windows with small high tables, on the right as you head to the main street) only offered Ronda wines, and was delighted to open bottles and pour away. Here we had a glass each of Lagarejo Joven 2008 made with Tempranillo,  Cabernet Sauvignon and Cabernet Franc) from Bodegas Viloria, the tasty and I think also organic TSMC 2007 (named after its components Tempranillo, Cabernet Sauvignon, Merlot, Syrah), Morillas Roble (Tempranillo, Cabernet Sauvignon, Syrah, Merlot and Petit Verdot) from Bodega Los Villalones, and Niño León from Bodegas Conrad. We enjoyed the wines and our chatty host’s infectious enthusiasm. We’d probably had enough, but there was a very crowded and youthful bar just down the road on the other side, Tragtapas, where we had an OK Nuevo 2011 from Chinchilla. But this place was in full Saturday night young people on the prowl mode, and the focus was not on the wine. We sloped off.

The next day at excellent and hearty lunch at Sal y Pimienta in Ronda, I had an older Lagarejo, from 2006. It was almost suspiciously well-priced, but when it came it was maybe just a tiny bit past its best, but that hint of oxidation went well with my rabo de toro and put me in good shape for the long journey home.

We only really scratched the surface of what Andalusia offers in wine terms. There is lots of interesting wine being produced, but on our trip, only Ronda was really pushing its wines. In Granada they were available if you looked a bit, but elsewhere there didn’t seem to be much interest in promoting local wines. For us, Ronda’s enthusiasm really added value to our stay there, and made us want to look out for more wines from the area. There may be a lesson there for Valencia region wines, and others.

I knew we were in for something epic when I was taken in to see great pieces of orangey-red meat (Bierzo is also famous for its red peppers and pimentón) boiling away in a huge steel vat. They had been doing so since early in the morning.

So, we girded our gastronomic loins with the bodega’s much-admired Cavas outside in the unexpectedly warm sunshine — it had been freezing up in the hills for weeks — and talked about the  reform of employment law announced by the new government that very morning, before moving on to the three large tables groaning with food and wine.

Pablo talked a bit about his wines and a lot about the significance of the botillo to Bierzo, and then we got stuck in. This is not food for calorie counters, but our table did it justice, and as Pablo prowled about checking that the foodwas being done justice to, we were generally tucking in big time. It was helped down by magnums of the delicious Bassus Premium 2007, no longer available in standard bottles. I don’t know if it was the effect of the magnum or the additional ageing since I last tasted this wine, but the wine managed the task of matching up to the powerful pimentón infused pork, while expressing its subtlety and finesse.

As so often happens, the party was just getting going — via an earthy-humoured comedian and an ominous-looking karaoke contraption — when I was obliged to leave. It was a memorable day, and I left with a determination to eat botillo in Bierzo itself one day, I hope in the not too distant future. Congratulations to Pablo Ossorio and Hispano-Suizas. I knew they made fine wine, but I didn’t know until Friday that they threw such a good party.