Original tasting room at Bodegas R. López de Heredia Viña Tondonia, Haro, Spain. Photo: John Barkley
As much as I admire ladies’ footwear, I don’t normally have epiphanies in women’s shoe stores. Maybe it was the altitude.
If, like me, you had neither funds nor the foresight to attend the New York Wine Experience this weekend, you can get a taste of it at Tinto Fino in the East Village on Saturday, when the classy little Spanish-only wine shop hosts a “Meet and Taste” with Manuel Muga of Bodegas Muga and Jose Manuel Azofra of Sierra Cantabria, representatives of two key Rioja bodegas pouring their wines live and in person.
One of the season’s chichiest wine events, the annual New York Wine Experience, spills out onto the carpeted terraces of the Marriott Marquis tomorrow night, inaugurating a three-day extravaganza of oenophilic excess set to the dulcet tones of Lite FM.
Even though I found her opening comments on the width of her spa-issued undergarments a little alarming, Yvonne Michie Horn’s piece on Rioja architecture in this past Sunday’s San Francisco Chronicle travel section is nevertheless the most comprehensive article on new winery architecture in Rioja to appear in a major American publication to date.
If you happen to be in London today, head on over to Bar Camino in King’s Cross (020-7841-7330) for a “tapathon” and book launch for COOK ESPAÑA, DRINK ESPAÑA (Mitchell Beazley, 2007) a new book by Rioja guru John Radford and Madrileño chef Mario Sandoval, “a comprensive look at food, wine and other drinks from each of Spain’s 17 autonomous regions, with recipes from Mario ranging from the traditional to the ‘off the wall’ styles of modern Spanish cooking, and a round-up of each region’s best wines and, well, things like chinchón, patxarán, cider, brandy, rancios and everything else.”
And if you’re not in London, you can always buy the book online, and create your own tapathon (what a great word; kudos to its coiner) at home.
September 11, 2007
6:00pm
Our last interview today was with José María Ryan, winemaker at Bodegas Bretón in Navarrete, inside the bodega’s Sala Alba de Bretón. The bodega’s Loriñon brand is among the region’s best; at $17 retail, the Loriñon Reserva is one of Spain unsung value exemplars (see my post Burgerlicious).
View from Finca Valpiedra, September 11, 2007
Tuesday, September 11, 2007
3:30pm
On the road to Cenicero
Lachlan Cox at Finca Valpiedra was admirably accommodating with us today, a big relief as logistics become harder and harder to juggle. I saw an opportunity to have both groups, production and sommelier, coincide at Valpiedra at 12:30 p.m. today, which is all well and good except for that fact I had to ask Cox if we could cut into his time with the sommeliers so that we could pull them out one by one and interview them on Valpiedra’s front patio, with the Ebro River in the foreground and the Sierra de Cantabria in the background.
About the Blog
BLAME IT ON RIOJA, a wine blog mostly about Spain's premier winemaking region, is the online home for the tasting notes, travel dispatches, random thoughts, and thoughtful rants of Vibrant Rioja spokesperson Adrian Murcia, a New York-based sommelier, writer, educator, and unreformed lifetime Riojaphile.
Adrian Murcia, the fromager and assistant sommelier at New York City’s Chanterelle, is a writer, educator, and consultant specializing in wine and cheese pairings and the gastronomy of Spain. His work has appeared in Santé, Saveur, Wine & Spirits, and on Condé Nast’s Epicurious.com. Adrian hosts quarterly wine and cheese Sunday Salons at Chanterelle and is a frequent guest lecturer at Murray’s Cheese in Greenwich Village and the Tria Fermentation School in Philadelphia. He became a media consultant and national spokesperson for Vibrant Rioja in September 2006.
You are currently browsing the Blame it on Rioja weblog archives for October, 2007.