SPAIN 2011

In about a month, it will once again be time for the annual (hopefully, going forward twice yearly?) trip to Spain. A portion of the trip I will be tagging along with this NC resident's crew, with stops in Jerez, Rioja and Pais Vasco, which will feature a tour of one of my favorite ciders. Swate! (actually, sour, but for me that would be sweet!) Anyway, verbal gymnastics aside, the rest of the time I will be in Rioja for some further wine exploration, as well as outside Girona for a bit more of the same as well as some R&R. And, of course,there will be the big PVN (productores de vinos naturales) tasting in Barcelona, featuring Laureano Serres along with some of his Spanish, French and Italian colleagues. A lot to look forward to this March!

Apropos the upcoming viaje to España, let's take a look at two Spanish wines I enjoyed recently.

La Cigarrera Manzanilla Sanlucar de Barrameda

The freshness, vibrancy and immediacy of this young manzanilla exceeds that of any other I have yet to drink. Now I love manzanilla (the name given to fino sherry aged in Sanlucar), but something about this particular one is so appealing and gulpable. The fruit is very expressive, reminding me of the abundant nisperos (loquats - like tinier, not as fuzzy, tangier apricots) you see in the Andalusian markets. Clearly, these wines were bottled and shipped very fresh. Of course, the requisite slight almond nuttiness also shows on this wine's finish. A real treat that I'll be drinking lots of this year.

2000 Lopez de Heredia Viña Bosconia Reserva Rioja

Though it was initially a bit tight, this one opened up to show all of the succulent warm red fruit one could hope for in a Bosconia, with that distinctive minerality and elegance. I do not recall the average age of barrels used to age this wine, but I bet it is north of 5 years, which is older than those used at most other traditional producers in Rioja. This wine went spectacularly with grilled Spanish style, pimenton laced, garlicky chorizos on its first night open. On the second night, it complemented a vegetarian meal of sauteed cauliflower, parboiled carrots, salad, bread and cheese. On night three, the Bosconia was great with braised chicken.

Lopez de Heredia Vertical

Last Thursday a colleague and I headed up from Redwood City to Heart, a new wine bar/art gallery/eatery in the Mission for what amounted to a very cool line-up of wines, some very old, from Lopez de Heredia. For those who are not wine inclined, or others who are and do not read Eric Asimov's excellent blog, then all you need to know about Lopez de Heredia is the following: It is an estate in Rioja, in the north of Spain about an hour's drive south of San Sebastian, making wines in an uber traditional way. That means that their fermenters are very old and made of wood, they do not add anything in the winemaking proces other than egg whites for fining, and they let the wines age in seasoned American oak, then in bottle, for a very, very long time. Their current release rosé in the US market is the 1998. Their current release "younger" white, the Viña Gravonia, is from the 2000 vintage. They own all their own vineyards (a rarity in Rioja) and continue to cultivate their vineyards carefully and as naturally as possible. In the words of British wine writer Julian Jeffs, "This is the home of really old, traditional Rioja."

There are very few wineries anywhere in the world which continue to produce wines in more or less the same fashion as each generation which preceded the current one. To me, this is part of the charm of Lopez de Heredia wines. One is tempted to imagine that their wines from the 1920's, whenever they were released, tasted very similar to how their modern day counterparts taste. How many other estates conjure up a taste of what likely came before in such a way?

While it was terrific to see the current releases (there are some beauties there), the real fascination of last week's tasting was tasting some older wines. 1957 Viña Tondonia Blanco Gran Reserva- still good? 1954 Viña Bosconia Gran Reserva? Read below for some quickly formed impressions on some very slowly elaborated, truly original wines.

WHITES FIRST

Great Bosconia and great Tondonia reds are, well, really good wines. It is the whites, however, that are truly unique and without comparison in the world of wine. Lopez de Heredia always took great pride in their whites, which historically was the favored wine of royalty, nobility and the like (save the red for the peasants!) The tradition continues to this day with one of the most unusual and stellar line-ups of white wines around.

2000 Lopez de Heredia Viña Gravonia Crianza Rioja

100% Viura grapes. From the Gravonia (gravelly) vineyard. Cooler micro-climate. This shows the tell-tale yellow stone fruit with gutsy acidity and subtle hints of spice and sweetness from American oak. This vintage is more generous than the 1999, richer, but still with good cut and acidity. I wonder why people drink white Graves when they can drink Gravonia.

1991 Lopez de Hereida Viña Tondonia Blanco Reserva Rioja

85% Viura, 15% Malvasia. There is more weight on the palate, as well as greater depth of flavor and hints of marzipan. This 19 year old white is still young and will age nicely.

1973 Lopez de Heredia Viña Tondonia Blanco Gran Reserva Rioja

Same blend as above. This shows the most mature of the line-up, with a certain savory, woodsy and slightly herbal quality. Still a really interesting white that happens to sacrifice a bit of the typical youthful quality of these wines for some bottle aged complexity.

1957 Lopez de Heredia Viña Tondonia Blanco Gran Reserva

Amazing, and unbelievably young tasting. These gran reserva wines are as much about youthful and bright flavors as they are about the velvety mouth feel and texture. This is one of the most singular wines of any type that I have ever tasted. 53 years old and so tasty! A treasure.

ROSADO

1998 Lopez de Heredia Viña Tondonia Rosado Gran Reserva

Unfortunately, this did not taste like the most representative bottle of this delicious wine, a gran reserva rosado and the only long aged rosé of its type produced in Rioja. I meant to mention something, but the allure of other LdH wines left to explore distracted me from doing so.

REDS

2004 Lopez de Heredia Viña Cubillo Crianza Rioja

65% Tempranillo, 25% Garnacha, 5% mazuelo, 5% graciano. Shows the muscle and structure of the vintage. This is the best young Cubillo (make that Cubillo of any age, as I have yet to lay down any for aging purposes) I have ever tasted. Intense, mineral, structured fruit with a stern edge and some years of improvement ahead of it.

2002 Lopez de Heredia Viña Bosconia Reserva Rioja

80% Tempranillo, 15% garnacha, 3% mazuelo, 2% graciano. A lighter vintage in Rioja, and it reflects in this particular wine. Very direct, with pretty red fruits that are not particularly intense, expansive, or long lasting in the mouth. Not a Bosconia to forget about for too long in the cellar.

2000 Lopez de Heredia Viña Tondonia Reserva Rioja

75% tempranillo, 15% garnacha, 5% mazuelo, 5% graciano. María José Lopez de Heredia has a saying: When it comes to her wines, either you're a Bosconian or a Tondonian. I generally prefer, ever so slightly, the nervier, more high toned and mineral Bosconia wines. That having been said, this 2000 Tondonia is a stunner. It's showing great right now, with amazing depth and intensity to the darker fruit flavors. Minerality, check. Balanced, but still youthful tannins that don't bite back, check. This is a wine to keep for a while, to be sure. It's delicious now, though I suspect that it will be wonderful at 20 years old.

1991 Lopez de Heredia Viña Bosconia Gran Reserva Rioja
1991 Lopez de Heredia Viña Tondonia Gran Reserva Rioja

What a great contrast between these two current release Gran Reserva wines, and a classic Bosconia vs Tondonia comparison at that. The Bosconia, more mineral, Burgundian and hauntingly beautiful. Tondonia, deeper and more intense on the mid-palate. Tondonia like this one brings to mind traditional claret, subtle yet authoritative, elegant and balanced. It makes me attempt to write like an English wine critic.

1978 Lopez de Heredia Viña Tondonia Gran Reserva Rioja

This bottle lacked focus and seemed to be getting a bit tired. Perhaps not a great bottle, though I had a similarly underwhelming experience a couple years back, now that I think of it.

1954 Lopez de Heredia Viña Bosconia Gran Reserva Rioja

Not the killer wine I was hoping for, but still alive and quite interesting. The fruit was still hanging in there and there was a bit of a dank, musty cellar quality. Not TCA, just damp, dank cellar. It's worth clarifying the difference. Anyway, not my favorite but fun to try.

Thank you to María José, as well as to Hiram Simon and Brian Greenwood of Winewise, Lopez de Heredia's California distributor, for offering such an incredible opportunity to taste so many Lopez de Heredia wines at once.

Jay Miller and I will both be in Rioja the same week

One of my favorite wine traditionalists from anywhere, María José Lopez de Heredia, recently informed me at a tasting of her family's wines at Heart in La Mission, San Francisco, that The Wine Advocate's own Jay Miller will be in Rioja around the same time I will be. Might our paths cross? Is there a Baltimore wine reunion in the works here? I'm not sure what to make of this other than the fact that the wine industry is so fucking small, a fact proven to me over and over again the past six and a half years I have been involved in selling wine. In fact, there was a time when I used to sell wine to Jay Miller when he was part owner of a Baltimore wine shop.

It's a small world.

Thanksgiving 2009 and Thanksgiving Wines Re-visited

I had a realization last Thursday, the last Thursday of November and the day commonly referred to in the United States of America as "Thanksgiving." As much as I enjoy exploring the synergy, indifference, or, every so often, the discordance between food and wine, I would prefer not to during Thanksgiving. I simply don't have the patience or mental acuity necessary to engage in such an activity. Especially as the host, responsible for cooking much of the food, negotiating space in the oven, and making sure that dinner is served at a reasonable hour. By mealtime I just want to eat and drink a single red and/or white wine to complement the meal. No careful consideration of multiple wines and how they complement the turkey, the truffled mashed potatoes, stuffing and multitude of other sides.

Nope, next year I'll bypass that level of intense analysis and observation. It's Thanksgiving, which means getting mildly to heavily soused, over-eating, and passing out on the couch when it's all said and done. I accomplished two of the three last week, thanks in part to the food we made and were brought by friends and family as well as a few more than a few drinks. Here's an annotated list:

BASQUE CIDER
2008 Isastegi Sagardo; 2008 Sarasola Sagardoa

Both tasty (they're sour cider, how could they not be). Though I preferred the more expressive and appley Isastegi. Sarasola is comparably very acetic and slightly too tart. Like the Hansen's Geuze of Basque cider. After about finishing 3/4 of each bottle (with just a little help from Natalie, most people don't dig the sour) I was ready to progress to wine.

WHITE WINE

1999 Lopez de Heredia Viña Gravonia

Delicious wine. Somehow it's rich, soft, nuanced, expansive and possessing of that rare, elusive cutting white wine acidity combined with depth of flavor that I only seem to find in the likes of Huet, good savagnin, Equipo Navazos Manzanilla Pasada, Gerard Boulay Sancerre, vintage Champagne and some others I'm leaving out. Be careful with Gravonia and turkey, though! While this was awesome wine on its own and ok with epoisses, what a train wreck with our heritage turkey. It brought out the gamey flavors in a big way, and created a chlorinated public swimming pool like flavor in the mouth - not so pleasant.

2007 Domaine de Nembrets (Denis Barraud) "Les Chataignieres" Pouilly Fuisse

Not bad. It's become rounder, plumper, a bit more expressive, and also slightly oakier since last tasting it several months ago. For Pouilly Fuisse you could certainly do a lot worse.

2008 Pascal Janvier Jasnieres

Does Chenin Blanc sec to demi-sec always have an intensely mineral pungency along with its sweet fruit flavors? I liked it, and it was the white which best complemented the meal. A stick to your palate Loire white, very distinctive.

2008 Evesham Wood Puits Sec

85% Pinot Gris, 15% Gewurztaminer. Delicious wine, though unfortunately the best of Williamette white alongside the best of Jasnieres white will inevitably be overshadowed. I enjoyed this wine's fruit expression and long dry finish. It just seemed a little one note compared to Janvier's Jasnieres.

REDS

2008 Benaza Mencía Monterrei

A fairly simple and basic lighter style Cote du Rhone like showing. Cherry fruited, peppery, lacking in the acid I need for a meal like this, and come to think of it, the acid I generally prefer in wine, food or no food.

2005 Algueira Ribera Sacra

10 months in French oak, a significant portion of it new, has not robbed this wine of its intense plum and blue fruit quality. Subtly smoky, with delicious fruit. Sort of somewhere between a Pommard and Crozes Hermitage. Nearly 7 days after first opening, this still bears more than a passing resemblance to its orginal self. OK with turkey, but what it really wants is lamb. Next Thanksgiving, young turkey and lamb! While this is a very interesting drink right now, I'd love to check back in five years. Famed mencía master Raúl Perez acts as consulting winemaker here.

2007 Marcel Lapierre Morgon

Tasty, and not surprisingly the best wine for dinner. It had enough depth to handle heritage game, plenty of acidity to refresh the palate, and such a high level of quaffability that Natalie and I nearly took it out ourselves (after some heavy drinking beforehand).

2007 Domaine Cheveau Saint-Amour "En Ronty"

Spotting this bottle in our tiny Beaujolais section at work, I wondered why I have heard so little about this particular producer. Well, I quickly figured out after sampling, giving the bottle more careful consideration, and even re-visiting on day two, that there is a reason I have heard so little about this wine: it is not good. Muddled, unfocused, uninspired.

2008 Evesham Wood Pinot Noir Williamette Valley

This winery makes very good wine. One of the few Williamette wineries (at least who sell out-of-state) whose new releases always get my attention. Two reasons for this: price ($18 for the basic PN and $14 for the white) and consistent transparency. Even in warmer vintages, the wines are nuanced, lighter in color, and taste the way Oregon pinot should but increasingly does not. This is the bottle of which our assorted lightweight guests drank the most.

Next year will be the year of turkey and red meat. Also, just two different wines at the table. Early front runners are good Rioja crianza and albariño just to keep it Spanish and to bore the French natural wine heads out there.

I'm posting on a Sunday (yeah that's right, I did it)

It was another wine filled evening last night at Terroir with a few 31 Days of Natural Wine contributors, 31 Days planner Cory Cartwright, Spanish importer José Pastor and assorted other fans of the fermented grapes of the world all in the house. We enjoyed a good variety of wines, some of them humble and tasty, others of fancier pedigree and unmistakable quality. Here's a rundown:

Equipo Navazos La Bota de Fino No. 15

I've been meaning to try one of Equipo Navazos' sherries for a while now, and thanks to José Pastor I had the opportunity to do so last night. Likening it to the Jacques Selosse Cuvee Substance of the sherry world, José explained to me how this is a negociant selection of a few of the finest barrels (averaging 10 years of age) of Valdespino Fino. It is bottled unfiltered, a rarity in Jerez. Think of your favorite fino. Intensify and amplify the unmistakable sea salt, nuts and fruit aromas. Add a significant amount of weight, richness and texture to the palate, but do no subtract any of the grace and elegance which typify good Fino. There you have it, my new favorite fino sherry. Rare and tough to find, though I have every intention to track some down to have around home. It's that simple, I got to have it.

2007 Becker Landgraf Riesling Feinherb

Satiny texture, bright and clean stone fruits, well made Rheinhessen riesling. This is a great accompaniment to most (if not all) of the Chinese dishes at Heaven's Dog, where José and I loaded up on some tasty veges and a bit of pork prior to drinking.

2006 Les Cretes Petite Arvine 'Vigne Champorette'

Waxy textured, with plums, yellow fruit skins, and a ripe, plump, juicy yet still fresh flavor profile. Fun.

2006 Franck Peillot Bugey Mondeuse

Gritty cherry fruits, with some minerals, moderately assertive tannins and a bitter snap to the finish.

1978 Lopez de Heredia Viña Bosconia Rioja Gran Reserva

Soft, very savory, earthy, slightly smoky and reminiscent a bit of aged Cote Rotie. If this bottle is any indication (and given the variation, this is not necessarily any indication) then this wine should probably be drunk within the next several years. It's very good, for sure, though not nearly as wound up, high toned and high acid as the '81. While I really enjoyed this '78, it did not really remind me of Bosconia's typically Burgundy-like flavors and textures.

2000 Pierre Overnoy Arbois Pupillin Blanc

The unbelievably high acidity in this wine made up for what I perceived as an acid deficit in the Bosconia drunk before this. For a grape I love so much, I have such a tough time describing savagnin sometimes, especially when it's as piercing, cutting and chiseled as this. At this moment, the only thing I can liken the sensation to is listening carefully to how the high hat cymbals were mixed in many mid 70's Jamaican recordings.

Big thank you to Cory for organizing the party. It's always fun to see familiar faces while meeting some new folks as well.

SPANISH WINE, gateway to the old world, bridge to elsewhere (anywhere else) in Europe?

Pop Quiz 1 - After you first got into wine, after you learned your cab from your pinot noir and chardonnay from your sauvignon blanc, which country's wine's did you check out next?

Pop Quiz 2 - You are a wine geek. You love nearly anything 'naturally' made, especially if it is French. A.) Explain your Francophile tendencies. B.) Extra credit. You enjoy good sherry and Rioja from Lopez de Heredia. What do you know about Spain's other wines? And how does your preference for honest, low alcohol, high acid French wines inform your exploration into other types of wine, mainly those from Spain?