JOE GO TO SPAIN: Part 2 - in Cava country at Raventos i Blanc

In Spain's most developed and wealthy region, Catalunya, Sant Sadurni d'Anoia has got to be one of its most prosperous towns. A short 30 minute drive from Barcelona, the region of Alt Penedes and the village of Sant Sadurni are the home base of Cava production. It is also a popular destination for Spaniards and foreigners alike for a taste of wine tourism close to the big city; what Napa Valley is to San Francisco, Penedes is to Barcelona.

Cava is big business. Ever see a black frosted glass bottle of Freixenet at any celebratory reception you have attended? A gold label bottle of Cristalino in your local corner store? A selection of cava by the glass at any number of restaurants you have visited? In other words, much like lemonade, cava was a popular drink and it still is (thank you, Guru). There is no shortage of inexpensive juice being fermented and re-fermented in bottle, to be packaged, marketed and sold by any number of larger companies and co-operatives. Competition is fierce, particularly in the ever popular $10 and under segment. Some wineries prefer to not enter into that game, opting instead to make a better quality range of wines which they can sell more based on the quality of the wine and unique story of the winery.

Raventos i Blanc posseses a unique story as well as quality wine, produced from their own organically grown grapes. I will not go into an extended history of the Raventos family, which is tied into that of the Codorniu family, producers of one of the world's mega brands in cava. If you want such a history, I would go to Catavino for the full account. The short version is that, in 1986 Josep Maria Raventos i Blanc and his son Manuel, after owning the original Codornium vineyard holdings and selling off the fruit, created a winery specializing in estate grown and bottled cavas. In fact, the Raventos winery directly faces that of Codorniu across the street.


Josep Maria Raventos i Blanc, the son of current president Manuel Raventos, and grandson of the winery's founder, also Josep Maria, is relaxed and welcoming. Gesturing towards the handsome offices and interior of the visitor center, he says "My father was in to all of this - it is beautiful and I understand why he wanted this, but what I would like to do now is invest even more in the vineyards." We hop in his older Land Rover and tour the property, and it does become apparent that Josep is truly interested in viticulture, continuing to work to understand the unique quality of his family's vineyard holdings and the indigenous vines which compose the cava blend: macabeo (viura elsewhere in Spain), parellada and xarel-lo. He is humble, pointing to what he calls his first mistake: a young pinot noir vineyard. He says that its growth cycle is too rapid for proper maturation in this Mediterranean climate. Much more interesting in his mind are the older vines of xarel-lo - a grape you will see planted all over Penedes - and parellada, characterized by the reddish tone in its leaves. Pointing to an older xarel-lo vine which had toppled over, he quickly props it up against a stake and kicks some dirt over it to balance it. Then he calls over his vineyard manager, currently driving around a small tour group from Florida and Puerto Rico, to discuss his concerns about the site. The vines which Josep, his family and crew cultivates are either trained en espaldera (trelissed) or lie simply en vaso, without any training whatsoever. Generally the latter is for older vines and the former for younger vines, though there are some older vines with an espaldera salvaje, a more home-made, rustic looking approach to training a vine.


A few features of the vineyards. They cover about 90 hectares. They are typically calcareous clay, more clay on the lower lying ones and more calcareous on the more highly elevated ones, with a large amount of stones from pebble to mini-boulder size. There are some sites which are more sandy, and some which are loamy. A planted cover crop is employed between rows, consisting largely of barley, which will typically dry up and be plowed away by mid May or so. No herbicides or pesticides are ever used, the only treatments being sulphur as necessary to prevent oidium and mildew. Josep's grandfather commissioned a lake to be built in the midst of the vineyards and forest area, to add to the biodiversity of the property.


Josep drops me off back at the winery, compliments me on my backpack ("que chulo, tio"), lets his childhood friend and US export manager Francesc know that he wants a bag like that next time he visits San Francisco, and is off. Francesc and I lunch on some tortilla, iberico, and habas catalanes, paired with the 2002 Raventos i Blanc Manuel Raventos. It's really good, still primary and youthful. He points out the late 19th century furniture and shares some cool historical documents, we take a few goofy photo's and then are off for a quick tour of the well designed, modern gravity flow winery.



We then headed back to the tasting room to taste some wines, focusing on still wines with which I have only a passing familiarity:

2005 Raventos i Blanc Gran Reserva de la Finca Cava

Still a light-medium straw yellow color. Toast, apple and citrus aromas lead to a very bright, focused palate. Good toast, depth of flavor and buoyant acidity. Really tasty and well balanced. This wine sees four years of aging on the lees and is composed of 40% xarel-lo, 25% parellada, 10% chardonnay and 5% pinot noir.

2009 Silencis Penedes

100% xarel-lo. Fresh apples and pears, some yellow skinned fruit and melon on the nose. Similar flavors on the palate, with decent concentration and a soft texture explained by some battonage to stir up the lees (do not recall for how long).

2009 Perfum di Vi Blanc Penedes

50% Muscat, 50% macabeo. Floral, jasmine inflected nose. Some white peach and lychee as well. Same on the palate, which has around 9g residual sugar but finishes cleanly. This would be good on a warm sunny day or with a Chinese stir fry.

2009 La Rosa de Raventos i Blanc Penedes

50% merlot, 50% pinot noir. Though it does include a healthy dollop of Josep's mistakenly planted pinot noir, this is not bad as far as inexpensive rosés are concerned. It's a pale, medium pink color and has some fresh strawberry fruit on the palate. Much more finesse and drinkability than many other Penedes rosés, which can be a tad bit coarse and heavy given their reliance on cab and merlot.

Thank you very much to Josep and Francesc for sharing your time and putting this together on relatively short notice - much appreciated. Francesc, hope that the vulcan cooperates and you get back to Barcelona soon. And Josep, next time you visit San Francisco I will point you in the direction of a good bike shop to find that Ortlieb mochila.

Next up: Why cava sucks and what people need to do to change it, according to Rafael Sala at Vega de Ribes

JOE GO TO SPAIN: Part 1 - How does a food and wine trade mission work?

I pondered this very question in the time leading up to my recent trip to Spain. As well as several others: How many stateside colleagues would be present? How many producers would I be meeting with, and would any of them have decent product to sell? Who pays for all of this? Besides the round trip ticket and hotel accomodations for 4 nights, would the time spent be worthwhile?

As it turns out, we were 10 Americans, a few importer reps, a few distributor reps, and a few retailers, spanning the continental United States from Philadelphia to Seattle. I met with 6 producers a day for two days, inside a room at the Chamber of Commerce in Terrassa. Many of us met with the same producers, sort of what I imagine speed dating to be like except the participants are wine producers/export directors/brokers on one hand and importers/distributor reps and retailers on the other. And instead of 5 minutes we generally had an hour per appointment.

From what I understand, such missions are paid for by the local chamber with some significant subsidies from the regional (in this case the Catalunyan) government as well as the EU. If I heard correctly, each winery representative needs to pay 80 euros to participate, along with 50 euros for each meeting. So to schedule a full day's worth of meetings would run about 380 euros or approximately $500 US. Not exactly cheap, but I suppose worth the cost if a good importer is found and a lasting business relationship forged.

And the wines? If you're thinking to yourself, that if you need to go and spend money to find yourself an importer, your wines probably are not very good or interesting, then in most cases you would be correct. That having been said, there is always a need for commercial wines, available in commercial quantities, which are drinkable and relatively inexpensive. I came here seeking cava, and now I have at least a couple of possibilities to work with. Additionally, there were some hand made wines, produced in smaller quantities, which were quite good. One producer boasted some terrific pansal blanca (a variation of the xarel-lo grape grown in the Alella D.O, north of Barcelona.) Usually xarel-lo is picked green and way underripe for cava and even white wine production, though this wine was round, harmonious, mouthfilling and full of delicious fruit, with a silken texture. It reminded me of Chenin. This same producer made a red wine from an indigenous Catalunyan varietal called sumoll. It was intensely dark fruited and wild, while still retaining its acidity in the warm Mediterranean climate. Might be a good bet for production in California.

Also, a Priorat producer neighboring Clos Erasmus and Val Llach had wines to sell that were actually priced reasonably, not overoaked, and produced from organically cultivated grapes.

So yes, some new discoveries were made, and the time spent in Terrassa was worthwhile.

Next up: Cava history and cava production at Raventos i Blanc.

Challonge!

For some reason, I found myself referencing this classic scene from one of TV's most popular series last night.

Enjoy.

Your Boy is Back!

Sorry to be quoting M. Shawn Carter. But it's true. I'm back, ready to report on the big Spain adventure of Spring 2010. I was going to put together a hasty "Best of" list, but no time for even that this morning. You can look forward to todo el reportaje next week. Until then, que os paseis bien.

Un saludo,

Josep 'Pep' Manekin

Terrassa, Spain

Here I am, at the computer of the Hotel Vapor Gran, the "Great Vapor," the very best business hotel in Terrassa, Spain. As I may have mentioned earlier, La Cambra de Terrassa is generously supporting this business wine trip junket. Today, after a heartfelt, teleprompter style (just with typed remarks on paper subbing for the screen) heavily accented reading of opening remarks from one of the Chamber´s veeps, we were off to meet with many different wine producers representing the Penedes, Terra Alta and Costers del Segre regions. Filtered, heavily sulphured, correct yet anonymous, large (make that, HUGE) production wines were poured, one after the next. There were a few great values. Though I will yet again lose wine cool points for saying so, some of my favorites were the cheapest: wines made in very large quantities from primarily garnacha (for the reds) and garnacha blanca (white) grapes. Wines fermented with selected yeasts and lightly filtered prior to bottling. For just a few euros ex-cellar they are well worth the cost. Also, the young enologist who presented these wines was very well informed about the wine´s production process. No bullshit, just honest answers and explanations. Might see these in a K&L store or website at some point.

Apart from the day´s meetings and the disappointing, lackluster performance that led to the Barça defeat at the hands of the Milanese, the clear highlight so far has been linking up with Gabriella Opaz of Catavino fame. She lives in Terrassa and told me all about it: the city´s construction boom over the last 4 years, the discovery of dinosaur bones and ensuing delay of the construction of the Metro station, and the annual jazz fest that is Spain´s best. Definitely owe a huge "gracias" to Gabriella for meeting me and adding such valuable local perspective my first night staying in Terrassa.

Tomorrow, more junket. Friday, Raventos i Blanc. Saturday, natural wines at Vega de Ribes and Mendall. Sunday, hanging out with the Peciñas in San Vicente de la Sonsierra, Rioja. Then more Rioja next week. Just so you know what to expect in the days ahead, or what to skip out on if you prefer when I write about non-Spanish stuff.

Hasta pronto, queridos lectores....

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.