Blame it on Rioja

Wednesday, September 12, 2007
Moving southwest from San Vicente de la Sonsierra, just across the Ebro River, you will soon come across another mid-valley hilltop village, Briones. (On a clear day, from the balcón in the Sierra de Cantabria above Sanmaniego, you can make out all four hilltop villages of winemaking Rioja in one east to west sweep: Laguardia, San Vicente de la Sonsierra, Briones, and Haro.)

Yesterday, I asked Ivan Alberdi, enologist at Bodgeas Benjamin Romeo, about the two towns when were standing in a vineyard equidistant from both. Thinking I was onto something, I said, “Would you consider Briones and San Vicente sister villages?”

(more…)

Tuesday, September 11, 2007

Why are there so many fiestas going on right now?

Yesterday, with Agustín Santolaya of RODA, we drove through Villalba de Rioja, and it looked as if the entire pueblo, populated almost exclusively by cosecheros (grape growers) according to Agustín, was in the main square drinking white wine out of plastic cups, blocking the way through. (One of them kept signaling to us to join the merriment, and believe me, if our schedule weren’t so damn brutal, I would have insisted that we do stop, but that story will have to wait for another day.)

And then today, on the way back from an interview with Ivan Alberdi of Bodegas Benjamin Romeo in San Vicente de la Sonsierra, we found ourselves smack in the center of an honest to goodness encierro, a running of the bulls. Or in this case, a running of the bull (singular). Seems they had six, and released them one by one, sending all six out at the end, something we didn’t stick around for.

Alfredo, our driver/my wingman/(or as Kelly calls him) my new BFF, explained: Fiestas take place just before harvest not only because there’s a lull before the crush but also because typically fiestas provide an opportunity for grape growers to lavish food and drink upon neighbors they’ll soon call on for help with the harvest.

Of course, ideally there is some lag between party and picking. Can you imagine waking up from a solid week of overindulgence to your neighbor pounding on the door with news that the grapes have to come in, could you please lend a hand? I am craving a double espresso just thinking about it.

Photo: San Vicente de la Sonsierra, Tuesday, September 11, 2007.

Monday, September 10, 2007

A whirlwind. Our first day of real interviews. Our last two sommeliers, Conrad Reddick of Charlie Trotter’s in Chicago and Theresa Paopao from Oleana in Cambridge, Massachusetts arrived this morning, slightly delayed but at least they made the tasting at Muga. Having trouble with the Internet at Los Agustinos, and I couldn’t print out my questions, so I had to bring my laptop and just rely on my memory and go with the flow when the interviewing began.

Just back from a remarkable meal at Echuarren in Ezcaray, hands down the best traditional food I have had in Rioja, and the ending time of the meal, 1:00am, was also remarkable. Ricardo asked each of the sommeliers to choose a wine, and we enjoyed a varied lineup of wine that included a 1981 Viña Tondonia blanco from López de Heredia, a massive but surprisingly balanced Izadi Expresión from the 2004 vintage, and a very concentrated and aromatically hedonistic single varietal garnacha from Bretón cellars—the rare and unusual Pagos del Camino, a tiny plot of 100-year old vines adjacent to the Camino de Santiago, and, for some of us, the most intriguing wine of the night. The sommelier at Echuarren, Felix Paniego, worked with me to get all the wines in the correct order, and was very patient with our giant group.

We began the day at the foot of the Avenida de Vizacaya, down near the sculpture on the rotunda. I still have to drop by the tourist office across the street from the hotel to find out exactly what the sculpture is, or maybe call up Jorge Muga or María José López de Heredia and ask about them about it, but all in due time. The idea was to film a “tracking shot” up the avenue in order to recreate what it was like for me the first time I came up this hill and took in the rapid fire succession of bodegas: Muga, CVNE, La Rioja Alta, López de Heredia, and RODA, one after the other. We went up and down that hill three times, with the van’s side doors wide open. I wonder if Alfredo Ogueta, our driver and a good friend, thought we had lost our minds.

Then it was off to a Muga vineyard in Villalba with Jorge and the sommeliers to talk about viticulture in Rioja and eat chorizo cooked over sarminetos, or grape vines, and drink Muga Rosado (or more accurately clarete, as Jorge pointed out to me, since the wine also has white grapes in it) from a porrón (some of us more gracefully than others—let’s just say that my technique could use a little perfecting). Chris Fleming had told me that touring the vineyards with Jorge was like a master class in viticulture, and I have to agree. I just wish we had more time. We’re going to try to find some more time later in the week to talk.

After a quick tour at Muga, we crossed the street to RODA and spent the next two hours with the amazing Agustín Santolaya, the bodega’s Managing Director. Incredibly eloquent and supremely comfortable in his own skin, Santolaya exudes the kind of positive vibe that could only come from someone who is exactly where he wants to be, doing exactly was he has always dreamt of doing. Got some great footage in the field, and had lunch at the bodega, tasting his wines and the bodega’s terrific olive oil. I wish I had recorded his guided tasting comments instead of doing a simultaneous translation. Jon got restless at the end, as we were running about an hour late on the day’s schedule, but we got some great material in the barrel room before we left. This is going to be tough. All these amazing people to talk to, and only one week.

I have to sign out for now. It’s nearly 3:00 am local time, and we have another relentless day tomorrow. At some point I want to write about the other places we visited today, López de Heredia and Solagüen, but it will have to wait, I am afraid. All in due time.

Photos: (Top) At the base of Avenida de Vizcaya, Haro, Friday, September 7, 2007. (Bottom) Muga Vineyards, from left, Chad Wilmouth, John Barkley, Jon Stamell, Rebeca Gómez, ADM, Jorge Muga, Juan Gómez MS, Monday, September 10, 2007.

Sunday, September 9, 2007

Last night was the first team meeting that included all of the major players, held in a private room at Juan Nales’ Restaurante Las Duelas inside Hotel Los Agustinos. Ricardo Aguiriano, director of marketing at the Consejo Regulador de la Denominación de Origen Calificada de Rioja (CR), was there, along with Rebeca Gómez, head of international promotions for the CR; Tom Perry, head of the Rioja Exporters group; and, on our end, Jon Stamell, head of Vibrant Rioja campaign; Kelly Bucher of CRT/tanaka; John Barkley, associate director of strategic initiatives at CIA Greystone; Chad Wilmouth of CIA; and me.

It’s been crazy here in Haro, music and carrying on until the wee hours. Friday night, there was a wedding inside the hotel, in the courtyard below, and something that sounded like Iron Maiden coming from the town’s main square at about 2:00am, a bocadito of cacophony I found more amusing than obtrusive. I mean, who I am to complain? I am the interloper.

But the fiestas have meant that everything’s been closed since Friday afternoon, with nowhere to print and copy the schedules, except the front desk at our hotel, and that was like pulling teeth. One guy, a manager-type who looked and acted like he didn’t really like his job all that much, had warned me on Thursday night that they “were not set up to do big jobs.” And yesterday we exchanged words when I came down to pick up the schedules I had emailed down to a compliant receptionist a half hour earlier. “Remember what I told you?” he told me when I asked for the copies. That’s when I reminded him that we were bringing eleven people to this hotel and staying for six days, and that it was a little ridiculous that he was giving me a hard time over 70 sheets of paper. Ten minutes into our meeting, the schedules were delivered.

Today was a whirlwind day that began in Logroño, at the Fiesta de la Verdura, a festival that celebrates the harvest of all the killer fruits and vegetables that are cultivated in the region. It hasn’t been happening for all that long, according to Ricardo, and it’s sort of spin off of a major verdura fiesta that takes place in Calahorra further downriver, home to Chef Nino, who we are visiting later this week.

Today was set aside for exterior shots: bodegas facades, rivers, vineyards, etc. Man, it’s beautiful here. Temperature in the 70s, not a cloud in the sky, cool at night. In other words, perfect weather for the days leading up to the harvest. For the sake of the ’07 vintage (my vintage, in a way), I hope it stays this way.

Dinner at La Vieja Bodega in Casalrreina was very good. Three sommeliers arrived today, accompanied by the awesome Jose Guerra of Wines from Spain (ICEX): Skye LaTorre of A16 in San Francisco; Juan Gomez MS of the Breakers in Palm Beach Florida; and Jason Smith MS of Micheal Mina at the Bellagio in Las Vegas. They were a little beat after such a long travel day, but I liked their energy nevertheless. Good group so far.

Ángel Pérez Aguilar, the proprietor of La Vieja Bodega, opened the place just for us tonight, and he exhibited the kind of happiness in his life’s choices that I always dream about: he couldn’t take life in Madrid, and when he found this place, saw its underground cellar, well, he knew it was for him. He took us on a tour of those caves, showed us a wall of ancient bottles and pulled two 375ml bottles for us to taste, with barely legible labels that said: Monte Real, Blanco Semi-Dulce, 1954. Somewhat Sherry-like, with baked apple, faded floral, and hazelnutty aromas, the wine still had quite a lot of life. I never even knew such a wine existed here.

September 14, 2007

A little bit more about the project we call CIA Rioja 2007:  Jon Stamell, who heads the Vibrant Rioja campaign, has long held that a close association with the Culinary Institute of America would be a good thing, as it would offer us great exposure to influential industry types, keep us plugged into the annual Worlds of Flavor conference in Napa, and would tie our own upward growth to the CIA’s rapidly expanding international programming and new media initiatives.

Part of the plan was to develop a DVD video on Rioja, an educational documentary that would be mailed to thousands of alumni and would also permanently reside on the CIA’s prochef.com website, as part of the ProChef Discover series.  At the same time, we would recruit five emerging sommeliers from around the country to join us on the trip, and try to see the story of the region unfold through their eyes, try to capture that discovery on film.

That meant simultaneously creating the story—which is to say, create the setting and narrative organization of a story that would ultimately tell itself—and choosing the sommeliers, both duties I enthusiastically took on.

Working closely with freelancer Chris Fleming, a passionate and knowledgeable Riojaphile and the DVD’s technical adviser, I developed the story’s themes and cast of characters, submitted a schedule request for the week of shooting, and began compiling questions I would ask each winemaker or chef.  At the same time, I began the recruitment process for the sommeliers, which meant essentially checking in with Master Sommeliers Fred Dame, Larry Stone, and Roger Dagorn, and putting together a list of candidates, each of whom I would call in order to verify availability and try to get a sense of his or her personality. 

Early in the summer, Jon asked Kelly Bucher, who works for CRT/tanaka (the agency that administers the campaign) to work with me on these projects, and once the sommelier selections were made, she basically took over the logistics and liaison duties as they related to the sommeliers while I concentrated on the DVD script.

Kelly and I arrived a few days before shooting in order to check in with the Consejo Regulador of D.O.Ca. Rioja (our client) and visit as many bodegas as possible in order to let them know what to expect.

What I did not account for was that Haro would be deep in fiestas on the day we planned to shoot here, and that the shooting schedule I had created would lie somewhere between overly ambitious and utterly insane.

Stay tuned for more……

Saturday, September 8, 9:48am

Outside my window at Hotel Los Agustinos in Haro, Rioja’s unofficial wine capital, the sounds of a live marching band are coming closer with each passing moment, and I am wondering if they are headed straight into Habitación 229, where I sit typing. Every thirty seconds or so, my body jumps a little from the mid-range boom of a solitary firework, which is obviously very close but hidden from view.

Saturday, September 8, 10:05am

Suddenly everything’s quiet again, except for the whooshing sound of a maid’s vacuum two floors below. I walk over to my night stand, where I placed the little pamphlet just before retiring last night. The cover reads “Haro. Del 7 al 11 de septiembre de 2007: Fiestas en Honor a Ntra. Sra. la Virgen de la Vega.” A quick glance at Saturday’s activities and it all makes sense: A solemn Mass at the Basílica de la Vega just down the street at 10am, preceded by “Alegres Dianas por la Banda Municipal de Música.”

Welcome to Haro, La Rioja, Spain, a lovely little town in the throes of Virgen de la Vega fever. I know I should look up the Patrona of Haro, found out her origins, where she might have appeared or which miracles are attributed to her, try to appear cultured, but my research card is full. It’s finally here, and it’s about to kick into full throttle: CIA Rioja 2007.

A big part of my job this year as a freelance consultant to, and spokesperson for, the U.S. Vibrant Rioja campaign–and a huge chunk of my “free time” away from Chanterelle since May–has been to prepare for this moment, and the real fun’s about to begin. Two groups are set to arrive in Rioja this weekend, one, a production crew from the Culinary Institute of America’s Greystone campus in St. Helena, here to film a educational DVD video on the region; the other, a group five of America’s best up-and-coming sommeliers, here to visit a killer line-up of wineries and restaurants. Although the two groups are traveling separately, periodically our paths will cross, and the production crew, led by the James Beard Award-winning producer/director John Barkley, will check in with the sommeliers to hear about their experiences, making our project very much about discovering Rioja through the eyes of a young American wine professional.

Heading out to the Bilbao airport to pick up the production crew right now as a matter of fact, hitting the ground running shortly thereafter in Bilbao proper for a little environmental shooting. More to come……

Photo: Lunch at Mayor de Migueloa in Laguardia, Rioja Alavesa, Friday, September 7, 2007.