Blame it on Rioja

Ryan and Gabriella Opaz, the tireless couple behind Catavino.net, don’t mess around.

Apart from compiling a huge trove of information and insight on Iberian wine and constantly tweaking their website to benefit their readers’ online experience, the Barcelona-based duo are also launching the first annual European Wine Bloggers conference next month in Logrono, La Rioja’s capital, a collaboration with Robert McIntosh, author of the UK wine blog, the Wine Conversation.

After a whirlwind trip to Rioja this spring, they compiled an extensive dossier on the Rioja wine region, complete with maps and tasting notes and even video, by far the best single online resource on the region that I know of.

The 1860 barrel room at Marqués de Riscal in Elciego, Rioja Alavesa, the region’s first cellar built specifically for oak aging. Photo courtesy Marqués de Riscal.

Suddenly, grappling with the disintegrated cork of an old Bordeaux from the 1960s feels like a cakewalk.

Check out this video that appeared in a recent decanter.com report on a pre-auction dinner held at Christie’s in London last month, in which Marqués de Riscal winemaker Luis Hurtado de Amézaga, a descendant of the bodega’s founder, opens a bottle of 1900 Riscal using red-hot tongs and cold water.

Of the impressive lineup of Riscal wines tasted, the 1900 came out on top. Here are author Stephen Brook’s tasting notes for the 108-year-old beverage (a vintage which, I might add, Luis Hurtado was also tasting for the first time):

1900 Marques de Riscal (pre-phylloxera vines; original cork; 60% Tempranillo, 30% Cabernet Sauvignon, 10% Graciano; aged 50 months in oak). Medium-deep red with some brick tones, but still bright. Cherry aromas on the nose, exquisitely perfumed and sweet. Medium-bodied, utterly smooth and silky, still remarkably fresh, a touch faded but by no means lacking fruit. The balance is excellent, with no trace of dryness, and the long finish has lift and freshness. Remarkable. 19.5 points

Jesus Madrazo (far right), winemaker at Contino, conducting a tasting of his single estate’s wines with group of sommeliers from the U.S. (left to right), Jason Smith MS, Juan Gómez MS, Theresa Paopao (back to camera) and Skye Latorre. Madrazo is one of Rioja’s most eloquent advocates of Graciano. Photo: Kelly Bucher.

The pun most often heard in Rioja concerns the Graciano grape variety.

Rioja reds are allowed to have Tempranillo, Garnacha, Mazuelo, and Graciano in their blend. Tempranillo, of course, rules the region’s roost. There is also a considerable amount of Garnacha planted, especially in Rioja Baja. Mazuelo and Graciano combined make up less than 5% of all plantings, with Graciano making up a little over 1% of Rioja’s total vineyard.

Notoriously hard to grow, highly susceptible to diseases, and largely low yielding, Graciano has reputation problem. So much so that wine growers will tell you,

“Graciano? Gracias, no.”

But based on recent travels and conversations with winemakers who looking closely at their vines and their wines, Graciano, even in its tiny representation, is a critical part of the equation.

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Breakfast today, courtesy of LESP. Photo: ADM

One of the more glorious advantages of living on the Lower East Side of Manhattan is my proximity to Russ & Daughters. The Harry Winston of smoked fish, a downtown New York landmark, and a living history of classic Jewish-American gastronomy, Russ & Daughters today is owned and operated by third-generation Mark Russ Federman, alongside members of the family’s fourth generation, including his daughter, Nikki Russ Federman.

Every so often, when I need a physical and/or emotional boost, I walk down to their Houston Street shop, take a number, and breathe it all in, settling my excited nerves until it’s my turn to order.

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I guess Dr. Vino and I are not the only ones with outdoor summer drinking on the brain. I woke up this morning to find an article in the New York Times about just that, called, summerily enough, “Ah, the Heat, the Crowd, the Park, and the Booze.”

“New York City is somewhat of a drinker’s paradise year round,” reporter Cara Buckley writes on the first page of the Metro section, “but a certain extra layer of permissiveness seems to infuse the city in the summertime, along with a wellspring of opportunities to get sloshed, slightly or mightily.”

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One of these days I will use the word “summer” as a verb, and at the end of that sentence will be someplace–Shelter Island, the Catskills, Andalucia–that conjures up lazy afternoons and high-end seasonal foodstuffs, but until that day comes, I make it a point to compile a list of cool outdoor summer activities that take place in the city, which is where I’ll be summering this year.

Two of the season’s best outdoor events involve film and food, are both just a stone’s throw from the East River, and began last week: Socrates Sculpture Park’s Wednesday night Outdoor Cinema Series and The Brooklyn Bridge Park Conservancy’s Thursday night Movies with a View,a few miles downriver.

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A friend of mine who, like me, has grappled with the lures and snares of cigarette addiction over the years, told me recently that a long period of non smoking once ended quite abruptly after viewing “Dont Look Back,” D.A. Pennebaker’s black-and-white mini-chronicle of Bob Dylan’s 1965 UK tour, in which our star is seen smoking pretty much at all times.

I thought about this while reading “Music ‘Can Enhance Wine Taste,’” a BBC News report of a university study on wine and music, which found that “people rated the change in taste by up to 60% depending on the melody heard.

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