Spain Pt. I: Day 1 - Madrid to Avila, Valladolid

Amazingly both of our flights (SF to ATL, ATL to MAD) arrived on time, so that by 10am (or 1am the same day that we left from San Francisco) Natalie and I were in the rental
car on the AP-6, heading north towards the famous walled city of Avila. We drove around town looking for parking, only stalling two times in the process. As a recent student of the manual shift automobile, driving in stop-and-go city traffic, with the ubiquitous Spanish roundabouts (initially confusing though eventually you get used to them) was a bit stressful, but invigorating. We rewarded ourselves with what would be the first of many meals based upon lamb and pork - lamb chops for myself and lomo (pan fried pork loin) for Natalie. Just a year ago Natalie's meatiest encounter in a day might have been a grilled portobello mushroom doused in Fort Bragg's. Things sure have changed. To accompany lunch we shared a bottle of '99 La Rioja Alta Viña Ardanza, one of my favorites and a perfect first wine to enjoy in España. Prior to lunch we took in the sights of the old town and its cathedral.


































































Avila was cool - a picturesque welcome to Spain from this most Spanish of towns in one of the most Spanish of regions, Castilla y Leon. After some more highway driving, and a bit of rush hour driving in Valladolid (pop. 321,713, capital of Castilla y Leon) we checked into our simple, smoky hostal, freshened up, and headed out for some tapas and drinks. On the way we happened across a comedian performing in a small pavillion, and a modern dance performance on one of the plazas. Yes, Valladolid is buzzing with activity on a Thursday night. Two contrasting establishments of this great city:




Mil Vinos, NEW















Vino Tinto, OLD

Theise '07 German/Austrian Tasting - West Coast Edition

This is far from thorough. I still would like to put down a few thoughts on the wines and the vintage, with many gaping holes since I came far from tasting everything. For instance, I didn't taste any reds because I didn't feel like it. The fact that I tasted as many of these in the middle of a day off while, still trying to catch up from being away for a few weeks, re-confirmed both my choice of profession and my tolerance for tooth enamel punishment. It's a Terry Theise tasting though; so of course I wouldn't think of missing it. Terry's work is the reason why I have had the chance to taste such a variety of wines from Germany and Austria without travelling to either country. It could have just as easily been Rudi Wiest, but I sold Terry's wine back in the day, and besides Rudi's wines are tougher to find around Baltimore and DC where my formative drinking years took place.

Germany first. I really like the acidity of 2007. In many cases it is in terrific balance with fruit and sugar, and in my favorite wines there is a real crackle to the acidity, more so than in '06 or '05, which I would describe as juicier and maybe a touch less malic? That being said, there were some wines which were missing the power and richness of '06 and '05, or the prettiness and detailed minerality of '02. Overall it seemed like a better than average vintage - enjoyable wines where the peaks, from what I tasted anyway, were Rheingau trocken wines and Donnhoff. Favorites included Leitz's Eins Zwei 3 Dry Riesling (a dry fruit cocktail nose with intense mouthfilling fruits), the Rudeshmeimer Berg Kaisensteinfel Alte Reben (more austere, mineral, detailed, lime, tough to pin-point fruits) and a Toni Jost Bacharacher Hahn Kabinett (does Burt know that he has a village named after him?) that for some reason really impressed. It was a bright, lively combo of tropicality, some leesiness and tasty acidity to cut through it all. Of course the Willi Schaefer wines were great - I prefer Graacher Himmelreich to the Domprobst for its brighter, lighter, less smoky character. Christoffel...I wanted to like these wines more. Part of the problem is that they are so candied and sweet when young, which is usually fine because there is this amazing intensity of flavor. And I probably am missing something here, but I just did not care for them as much as I have the past two vintages.

Now Austria. Only tasted some gruner veltliner and a few assorted others, no riesling. '07 was meh, at least for gruner veltliner, especially following '06. Gobelsburg and Schrock still terrrific, my favorites being the Gobe Gruner Veltliner Steinsetz (bright, citric, clean, mineral for days) and Heidi Schrock's Furmint (explosive tart orange, almost like a bright racy tocai friulano). Nigl - surprisingly disappointing. Salomon Undhof - consistently good and solid value. My wine of the tasting (German or Austrian) was the '93 Gruner Veltliner Vinothek from Nikolaihof (Austria's first biodynamic winery, since '89 I believe). It had ripe citrus and plenty of creamy lees on the nose, with a soft, caressing, intense palate. I was so excited by the wine that I told Nikolas Saahs that it would probably prove to be, in my opinion, the wine of the day - yes I was one of 'those' people I'm embarrassed to say, but such was my level of excitement with the wine.

That's it, for now, there's dinner to prep.

And he's back!

It was an amazing, rainy, rack up the kilometers type trip across northern Spain. I learned a lot, spoke to some living legends (Angel Rodriguez at Martinsancho, Maria Jose Lopez de Heredia) became acquainted with some other terrific folks (Jesus Madrazgo and Jose Luis Ripa at Contino, Jose Puig at Vindeos de Ithaca) and really was glad that I finally, after 8 years, made it back to Spain. Hopefully this can become an annual trip. Even after nearly a decade apart, and despite some major changes post euro, spending time in Spain still felt familiar and comforting, like a favorite hoodie.

I'll try to hash out the winery posts, as well as a few other reflections on the trip, over the next week. For now, a quick tasting note on two unusual Rias Baixas reds I tasted at work today.

2006 Goliardo Caiño

Light, bright, transparent, high acid, blue fruited, spicy, mineral, tasty. All good things, true, but this would sell for at least $50 - is it worth bringing in?

2006 Goliardo Loureiro

If the above is sort of reminiscent of good pineau d'aunis, lighter northern rhone syrah, or maybe a tasty, naturally made Loire red blend, then the loire equivalent of this inkier red would be cot. Darker fruited, deeper purple color, hints of violets and pepper, but still with vibrancy and balanced acidity. Another fun wine but it would be a lot more fun for $25, maybe even $30. Not $50+.

9 quick highlights from spain

A quick list of the expected and unexpected:

1. Jamon iberico
2. Potatoes, greens and grapes growing everywhere on galician family farms
3. 1.60 euro glasses of bierzo in leon
4. The lush, green mountains outside of san sebastian
5. Spanish male hair trend: the dread locked mullet!
6. Spending three amazing hours with angel rodriguez of bodegas martinsancho in rueda. Verdejo from 1981, anyone? Awesome.
7. Valladolid-spain's most slept on city?
8. Seat ibiza-our spanish rental car is putting up with my poor stick shift driving wonderfully.
9. Ribeira sacra - as stunning as the photographs suggest.
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The apartment has been deserted, except for this man; Spain awaits

Greetings from Hartfield Jackson airport in Atlanta, Georgia. I am waiting out a solid 3 hour layover before departing on the delta boeing 767-400ER for Madrid.. Happily the flight from sfo was a speedy four hour venture, only slightly marred by a very unhappy baby exercising his (her?) pipes, which were ample. There was also a toddler who would occasionally burst into wild, crazy simian yells. At one point another youngin chimed in, creating a call and response of 'A-YA-YA-YA!!' and 'OOH-OOH-OOH-OOH!'s. What a vocal interplay. It was awesome. Next post will be 'en directo' from the iberian peninsula.

Saludos, Jose.
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A pepsi-coke challenge weekend, wine style.

I enjoy comparative tasting. Whether tasting a few olive oils, wines, beers or chocolates, there is always something new to discover. Here are some recent discoveries:

DOES MENCIA REALLY TASTE LIKE CAB FRANC? 2004 PUCHO BIERZO AND 2002 OLGA RAFFAULT CHINON LES PICASSES WITH ROASTED CHICKEN.

To answer the question (and oft repeated statement) above, I would say, at least based on this particular bottle, 'Not really.' The '04 Pucho showed lots of dark fruit and more advancement than I was expecting. It was spicy and full of wet earth, albeit a dense chunky wet earth as opposed to a more nuanced, decaying wet earth. It was ok with the chicken, but came across as rather monolithic. Now the Chinon was a different story. It was initially strict, with that classic savory-herbal cherry-berry cab franc profile. As it opened up, though, I began to better appreciate the silky texture of Loire cab franc gliding across the palate. The savory and earthy flavors giving way to floral notes and bright acidity. Excellent with the roasted chicken, which I prepared very simply with salt, pepper, half a lemon, a few garlic cloves, and several sprigs of rosemary, popped into a 500 deg oven for 40 minutes.

VERMENTINO A LA GALLURA VS VERMENTINO A LA STEVE EDMUNDS.

Vermentino is certainly very much at home on the island of Sardegna, especially when it comes from Gallura on the northeastern portion of the island. The 2006 Mancini Vermentino di Gallura showed broad melon, apple and citrus flavors. It tastes bigger than its 12.5% alc would suggest.

Former folk singer/hippie Steve Edmunds pays tribute to his northern California musical heritage with his 2007 Heart of Gold, a blend of Grenache blanc co-fermented with Vermentino. Nearly 50-50. At first it tasted lean, citric and closed. After a day in the fridge, and serving at a more ideal temperature (cool room temp vs cold fridge temp) the wine was much more expressive. Another winner from Edmunds St. John. Way to go Alice for giving Mr. Edmunds some props in a recent SF Chronicle article.

OREGON VS CA PINOT NOIR

This was a brown bag tasting we did for customers at the store. Overall a pretty good selection; as predicted the wines were not always easy to peg as CA or Oregon the way that some people are stylizing PN these days. I don't have my notes in front of me, but I remember a few favorites ('06 Chasseur PN Russian River, '05 Foghorn PN Monterey, '06 Westrey PN Oracle Vineyard Dundee Hills), one disappointment ('05 Eyrie PN Dundee Hills) and a few utterly disagreeable wines ('05 Domaine Serene Evenstadt, '06 Et Fille Kalita Vineyard PN Yamhill-Carlton, Aubin Cellars 'Verve' Stoller Vineyard PN Dundee Hills).

The Group gets fancy; A flight of Gruve and '96 Echezeaux horizontal

Jerry outdid himself, or at least any other previous tasting group event I have attended. There was a selection of cheeses, duck that Jerry himself hunted (smoked and then a delicious duck leg confit with polenta and mushrooms), a flight of mostly 2006 gruner veltliner (by nearly all accounts a terrific vintage in Austria), and the piece de resistance, a line-up of 1996 Echezeaux. I'd say it's safe to assume that the majority of our group, myself included, has had precious little tasting experience of grand cru burgundy, let alone aged grand cru burgundy from a great, if controversial, vintage. So it was both a treat and a great tasting lesson. For anyone out there who is not already in a tasting group, but wants to learn about wine, get yourself in one. There is no better or more enjoyable way to learn about wine than to pool together financial and knowledge resources with a group of friends and colleagues.

Flight the first was humbling. The wines were all very generous and full of fruit, with a good dose of minerality in one of the wines, probably two in fact. The others seemed so fruity and simple, that I was thinking that the flight was a riesling around the world type flight. My favorite wine was a trocken riesling from the Rheingau, and the others were surely rieslings from elsewhere. Well, I was wrong. All old world wines, all gruner veltliner. Here are the wines, ranked in reverse order of group preference:

2006 Jager Gruner Veltliner Federspiel, Wachau
This was full of apples and a talcum type of minerality. I have 'good california riesling' in my notes; maybe I was thinking Montelena or Stony Hill or something.

2006 Stadt Krems Gruner Veltliner, Kremstal

Yellow stone fruits. My least favorite wine; it came across as one-dimensional.

2006 Nigl Gruner Veltliner Senftinberger Piri

Here was a wine with more minerality, higher toned acidity, an much precision. "Focused and laser-like" were some other descriptors mentioned (before the wine was revealed). These are words that are often used to describe Martin Nigl's wines.

2005 Salomon Undhoff Gruner Veltliner
There was a very creamy, leesy aspect to this wine, coupled with very high acidity and what I perceived at the time to be a slate type of minerality. What impressed me about this wine was how different it showed from the others. Surely it must have had at least 3-4 more years of bottle age. Interestingly, I have noticed once before that Salomon's gruner veltliners are good short to mid-term agers. They do seem to age fairly quickly though - maybe both instances have been cases of poor storage in the wine shop?

If the white wine flight was humbling, than the red flight was both humbling and baffling. Chalk it up to our collective inexperience with Echezeaux, or Vosne-Romanee from 1996. Only one person guessed that we were tasting Burgundy, here. Such was the intriguing combination of ripe, juicy, supple fruit, high acidity and more than partial integration of tannins. I found two of the wines to be soft and succulent, one wine to be a bid more advanced and less delicious than the others, and another to be simple, superficial and short. Once again, the wines from last to first:

1996 Domaine Robert Arnoux Echezeaux

I thought that this was supposed to be a solid producer. This wine had some mixed red/dark fruits on the nose, with a bit of horseradish and cooked black cherry. There was not the liveliness on the palate experienced in my two favorites of the night. Either the wine is in a dumb phase or it was poorly stored.

1996 Mongeard-Mugneret Echezeaux

Third with the group, but a clear second for me. Cherry liqueur, red fruits and a bit of orange peel on the nose led to a palate full of cherry, brighter than what the nose would suggest. Still very primary in its development.

1996 Domaine de Perdrix Echezeaux

Second with the group, an easy 4th placer for me. This wine was just too slick. Dark and concentrated nose, with some oak spice. But not much else. Soft, juicy and simple blackberry fruits on the palate. Tannins are fully resolved. Short finish. Here is a great example of how a grand cru burgundy, even from a good vintage, ain't a guarantee of quality. Far from it.

1996 Mongeard-Mugneret Grands Echezeaux

This was the clear favorite, and for good reason. While it's still very primary, the fruit is of such an intense, elegant, and long lasting quality. Delicious wine that absolutely provides the tough to describe grand cru burgundy tasting experience. True to reputation, this was by far superior to MM's very solid Echezeaux.

Wine tasting is a funny thing. While experience and context are very important, the wine, as Terry Theise (importer of our two top finishing gruner veltliners) likes to say, 'will have the last word.' Profound, I know.