Blame it on Rioja

Chanterelle Master Sommelier Roger Dagorn had told me that I would have fun traveling with seasoned food and wine journalist David Rosengarten, who accompanied us on our last trip to Spain, but I wasn’t quite expecting to find myself engaged in twenty-minute, Rioja-fueled, aristocratic English-inflected improvisational comedy act with Rosengarten and Chicago-based sommelier Russel Corzine on the front patio of Kate Zaharra restaurant overlooking the twinkling city of Bilbao at two o’clock in the morning.

Which is exactly what happened on our last night in Spain, which for multitudinous reasons was equal parts hedonistic, surreal, and belly-achingly hilarious. I am not sure what our audience of one, Kelly Bucher, thought of our stream-of-consciousness routine, but we were amused. The details of what we actually said are a little hazy, but I do remember at one point Corzine gesturing out to the city lights in the distance and saying something like, “Don’t you see the campfires of your loyal subjects, my liege? They burn tonight in anticipation of this momentous decision.”

I thought of this moment when I read Rosengarten’s terrific blog entry on the trip, “Love Letter to Red Rioja,” which betrays only the slightest hint of how that particular night ended, referring to the “baronial chairs” to be found in the wine-bedecked cellar of Kate Zaharra, where one begins the evening at this gem of a restaurant drinking wine and snacking on jamón iberico. It was precisely my decision to sit at the head of table when we first arrived, in one of those throne-like chairs, that led to all this “my liege” business and, ultimately, to our quasi-chemically-induced experimental theater.

Beyond all that rush of nostalgia, the article confirmed that my erstwhile traveling companion came to a conclusion about the wines of Rioja that demonstrates that he was most definitely paying close attention:

I arrived in Rioja with a smidge of cynicism about its now-famous modernization, because I really loved the way things were 20 years ago. But I quickly discovered something amazing. Red Rioja today is not a simple battlefield of traditionalists vs. modernists. Red Rioja today is a smorgasbord, where a very wide range of red-wine types is being generated. Sure, it ’s much harder to keep track than ever….but if you know what you’re doing, red Rioja is a very amusing playground.

He doesn’t know it yet, but José Valle is about to become my uncle.

I’m not sure exactly what’s involved in transatlantic avuncular adoption, but I’ll get that sorted out. First let me tell you why I want him to be my uncle.

José Valle is a retired Riojano from Logroño who, like a lot of residents of La Rioja’s capital, owns property in the countryside, in this case a three-room casita, or little house, near the town of Albarite, close to the banks of the Río Iregua, one of the Ebro’s major tributaries. Behind the house, occupying a a full three quarters of the property is his huerta, or vegetable garden.

Just two weeks ago, on our last day in the region, Sr. Valle cooked for our group of visiting sommeliers and journalists a memorable meal consisting of baby lamb chops, pork ribs, and sausages grilled over sarmientos, or grape vine cuttings, served with a salad of vegetables largely sourced from his back yard. To go with it, a line-up of wines supplied by the Consejo Regulador of Rioja.

I have been to Rioja four times in the last two years and have been the grateful beneficiary of some of Rioja’s most accomplished cocina. Whether classic or cutting edge, Rioja’s restaurants are the both keepers of the region’s fine gastronomic tradition and practitioners of its extraordinary hospitality. But there’s something about the intimacy of dining in someone’s home that is hard to top. And when your host is a charming fellow who not only raises your vegetables and skillfully grills your lamb chops but also makes the pacharan that you enjoy as a digestif (from sloe berries in his garden)–well, let’s just say that for many of us on the trip, myself included, this was the high point of the entire week.

José Valle in the garden of his home near Alberite, Spain.

At one point, I looked around, and the whole room was abuzz with animated conversation. Despite the fact that we were all kind of scrunched in around one long table, our elbows in each other’s feeding strike zones, a sense of well-being and the most basic comfort imaginable pervaded the room. Where just an hour earlier an unseasonably cold northern wind and the effects of having traversed the lower Ebro valley twice before lunch, were taking their toll on our group’s collective disposition, here we were now enjoying a meal none of us will soon forget.

“Of course, in Rioja it’s customary at this point to enjoy a siesta,” José’s son Oscar Valle announced to all of us as our meal drew to a close, “But seeing as how we have only two rooms, that might be a little complicated.”

Truthfully, I didn’t want to leave. Ever.

“When I am here, in front of the grill, cooking for big group like this, that’s when I am happiest,” José said to my colleague Rebeca Gómez as we were walking out.

I think I can understand why.

Photo credit: Gretchen Thomas

Friday, September 12, 2008

Absolutely gorgeous morning in Rioja today, a little cold even, as we arrive to our first destination, Bodegas Fernando Remírez de Ganuza in Sanmaniego, a town in the Rioja Alavesa nestled right up under the Sierra de Cantabria mountains . The winery is just off the town’s main square, an impeccably clean and eminently modern facility cloaked in traditional garb, the kind of place that I imagine a lot of people conjure up when they imagine owning a bodega in Rioja. Most but not all of the winery’s vineyards are on a southward-facing slope just below the town, a stone’s throw from the bodega. The soil here is limestone and clay; elevation between 550 and 600 meters above sea level.

Export manager Luis Alberto greets us and is quite amenable to our suggestion that we begin with a tasting of the wines before continuing with the tour. Too often we’ve found ourselves hurrying through tastings after being led a lengthy tour, and knowing that our day booked solid, I’m determined to keep us on schedule.

Wine writer Gerry Dawes introduced me to the notion of certain modern Rioja winemakers’ having classic palates, and I think Fernando Remírez de Ganuza is one of them. I also think that these are the kind of wines that show better with some bottle age. The bodega’s now scarce 2001 Reserva, a wine we used to carry at Chanterellle and which I sampled again recently at a Tempranillo, Inc. tasting in New York, is a superlative Rioja, balanced, elegant, possessing heft for sure but so delicately structured, so remarkably alive with acidity, so aromatically dazzling, that I was half-tempted to buy a magnum of it for lunch.

The 2004 Reserva (90% Tempranillo, 10% Graciano; with 2 years in all new oak, 80% French and 20% American) on the other hand, while aromatically enticing (red fruit, violets, baking spices, and tar), struck me as a little young, a bit muted. I don’t expect that to be the case in a couple of years’ time. The bodega’s 2005 Trasnocho was a real eye-opener. Press wine is what you could call “squeeze wine,” the dense and extremely tannic result taking what’s left in the fermentation tank after the free-run juice is siphoned off and squeezing the hell out of it. Winemakers then typically add small amounts of this to their barrels, using it almost like a seasoning.

Not here. Using a method of his own design, Sr. Remírez de Ganuza drops a plastic membrane into his tanks and fills it slowly with warm water, gently pressing the contents for 24 hours (it used to be done in half the time, overnight, hence the name), so as not to extract the harsh and bitter tannins from the pips.

With 20 months in new French oak barrels and 12 in bottle before release, the Trasnocho is still quite tannic and certainly not your typical Rioja. It’s a beautiful wine nevertheless-very dense, very pretty, herbaceous, mouth-watering. It’s also unavailable in the U.S. market and, unsurprisingly, made in very small quantities.

Thursday, September 11, 2008

In the midst of pretty intense renovations, Bodegas Olarra, a big operation located not from Logroño, nevertheless still exudes a particular brand of 1970s lounge ennui/cool (for me, a feel most perfectly captured by Manfred Mann Earth Band’s 1976 cover of Bruce Springsteen’s “Blinded by the Light”), especially true for the interior design the tasting room. Which makes sense, since the bodega was founded in 1972.

The wines here really took the group by surprise. It’s our first tasting today; we’re swirling glasses by 10:00 am. We’ve just toured this sprawling estate, and we’re sampling wines in a room that could pass for a Kubrick set, and…most of the line up we taste today is delicious and full of personality.

Since the bodega was founded in the 1970s, it’s unsurprising that American oak predominates here. Olarra’s Cerro Anon 2004 Crianza (82% Temranillo, the with the remainder made up of Viura, Grenache, Mazuelo, and Graciano) has an exceptional balance of fruit, acidity, and tannins. It’s juicy and thirst-quenching. On the modern end, I found the Summa 2001 Reserva a little too cherry bright for my taste, but a modern wine from Olarra’s sister bodega, Ondarre (which sources fruit exclusively from the nearby Rioja Baja village of Viana, in Navarra), the 2001 Mayor de Ondarre Reserva takes a subtler approach. The tannins are firm but the aromas–red fruit, baking spices, an earthy component–make you want to linger a bit longer.

On the way out, David Rosengarten, who, I am beginning to learn, is especially skilled as using his charm to get a little something extra out each situation without seeming overbearing, asks if by any chance there might be an older bottle of wine we could all taste. A few minutes later, our host Cándido Latorre shows up with a 1973 Olarra Gran Reserva. As expected, the wine offers all those tertiary aromas that makes fans of classic Rioja swoon (leather, faded roses, a faint toasty character). We leave quite pleased.

Next up is Sierra Cantabria, operated by the fifth generation of the Eguren family. After touring the family’s stunning Viñedos de Páganos property in the town of Páganos, where the Egurens are also planning to build a hotel and restaurant overlooking the La Nieta vineyard, we head to San Vicente de la Sonsierra to see the group’s Señorío de San Vicente bodgea and taste a selection of all of the family’s properties.

I’ve always liked the Sierra Cantabria line, the group’s classic brand, and I happen to love their most recent Gran Reserva release, from the 2001 vintage. I am not thinking that our group will unanimously swoon over their modern lineup, since I know that there are more than a few in our group who might find the style of these wines a little jacked up for Rioja.

But as we taste, eyebrows raise, including mine. A barrel sample of the 2005 Sierra Cantabria Cuveé Especial (6 months in combination of French and American oak, followed by 4 months in new French oak barrels), which our host José Manuel Azofra calls a transition our traditional wines to our terroir wines, has coffee, smoked meaty, licorice, minerally character with lots of perfume–all of which might sound a little an odd combo or how a nightmare date would smell–but I really liked this wine. A lot.

The 2005 San Vicente, 100% Tempranillo Peludo from a single 26 hectare plot in the Sonsierra zone of Rioja Alavesa, has just an incredible nose. Wow. Herbal notes, again licorice. Some might find the pronounced ripeness, even sweetness, of this wine a little much, but this is by far the best San Vicente I have tasted to date.

And then there’s the 2005 El Puntido from the aforementioned Viñedos de Páganos, a wine with a little less sweetness on the palate than the San Vicente, spicy, tannic, with high fruit notes (like an underripe black plum?); the 2006 Finca El Bosque, super-floral and perfumed; and the 2005 Amancio, with aromas of black fruit, violets and super, super-ripe fruit and ripe tannins on the palate.

It’s a sign of the style that predominates here that the bathrooms off the tasting room at Señorío de San Vicente have available little plastic packets with single-use toothbrushes and toothpaste inside them, so that tasters can brush off all that extracted pigment before moving on to their next appointment.

These wines are not for everyone (it’s not just style we’re talking here; the wines at the higher end are very expensive). But they are stunning: expressive, complex, and, yes, site-specific. It may be a little unwise to drink one of these wines before sitting for a color portrait, but man, they’ve got some life in them.

Wednesday, September 10, 2008

After yesterday’s light but persistent rain, we are all happy to see sunny skies again today. From what I am gathering, a little rain this time of year is not catastrophic, especially this year, which was quite dry. Harvest is still two weeks away for most vineyards in Rioja Alta and Rioja Alavesa, so there is time for the soils to bounce back, although I keep thinking about what Jorge Muga said about his bodega’s high elevation clay soils during our interview last year.

“The problem with clay is that it keeps the water too much. If it rains a lot in September, forget about the harvest.”

Marqués de Vargas
Our first stop, a single estate winery just outside of Logroño, in an area known as Los Tres Marqueses, for the large holdings of land here originally held by three distinguished marquis: Vargas, Murrieta, and Romeral (the last property of which I am told has been broken up, though I have noticed that the brand lives on, bottled by the bodega giant, AGE). On our brief tour of the 70-hectare Marqués de Vargas property, in fact, I notice that Marqués de Murrieta is right next door.

Although the inclusion of Cabernet Sauvignon in blends here is not advertised (it is referred to in materials here as “other varieties”), it’s abundantly clear that the property has considerable “grandfathered” plantings of that French variety.

I have tasted Vargas’ wines before and have quite liked them, but today I am still quite taken aback by their wines’ high level of quality and distinctiveness. Careful grape selection and handling, along with spare-no-expense winemaking, are likely the keys here to the wines’ deliciousness, but so too is the interesting fact that the winery uses a lot of Russian oak.

I was a little at a loss to describe the aromas of the one wine here that uses all new Russian oak, the 2004 Marqués de Vargas Reserva Privada–aromatic green herbs? a pencil lead-like minerality?–but I do know that I really liked it. Winemaker Javier Pérez Ruiz de Vergara called the aromas of Russian oak floral and feminine, saying that women tend to like this wine. David Rosengarten, who said that he picked up a lot of vegetal character in the wine, guessed that it had more to do with the 20% Cabernet Sauvignon in the blend.

Dinastía Vivanco
For years, the wines of this bodega, based in the Rioja Alta town of Briones and now managed by the Vivanco family’s fourth generation, played second fiddle to its terrific–and, I might add, non-self promotional–Museum of Wine Culture. I am pleased to say that this is no longer the case.

Winemaker Rafael Vivanco, who graduated two years ago with a Diplôme National d’Oenologie from the University of Bordeaux, is as kind and unassuming as he is influential. He’s also recently made some killer wines. I’d like to spend some more time in the future writing about the entire lineup we tasted today, a portfolio slowly making inroads in the American market, but for now, as an expample, let me say that Rafael’s latest blanco release, from the 2006 vintage, took everyone by surprise. Sourced from the best Viura plantings Rafael could find and kept on its lees for several months, the 2006 Dinastía Vivanco Blanco is as vibrant a white wine you’re likely to find anywhere in Rioja. With correct tree-fruit aromatics and a hint of citrus on the nose, the wine gives no hint to the mouth-watering acidity that hits the tongue on first taste.

“Other whites in Rioja are less acidic and focus more on the oak,” Rafael says. “Natural acidity is very important to me.”

Bodegas Franco-Españolas
Not so long ago, vineyards north of Logroño crept right up to the Ebro River, a stone’s throw from the city center. That was exactly the case at this venerable old bodega just down the street from the town’s former slaughterhouse. Inside you’ll find old photographs of the vineyards that once grew behind the bodega’s late 19th century structure, where now apartment buildings stand.

And speaking of photographs, found out today that back in the early 1950s, the city’s official photographer took images of Ernest Hemingway in front of this very bodega, while the author was traveling up to Pamplona in the company of bullfighter Antonio Ordóñez. Lost for half a century, these images were recently discovered by the photographer’s son in his father’s cellar, and he generously handed them over to the winery. The one that appears here shows Hemingway arm in arm with one the bodega’s floor sweepers. Story goes that the American writer was quite charmed that this gentleman happened to be wearing a Hawaiian shirt.

Tuesday, September 9, 2008

Into the Upper Ebro Basin

To enter Rioja by car from the northwest, there are two ways you can go: the A-68 (an autopista, or expressway, a toll road), which passes just below an enormous hilltop statue of San Felices (patron Saint of Haro and guardian of the vineyards) before dipping into the Ebro Valley; or, the N-124 (a carretera nacional, or highway), which follows the course of the Rio Ebro towards a narrow gorge called the Conchas de Haro before plunging into a tunnel hollowed out through the limestone massif that forms Rioja’s “northern wall,” as RODA’s Agustín Santolaya calls the region’s chain of northern sierras.

Both are dramatic ways to see Rioja for the first time.

One minute you’re driving through a landscape of wheat fields and forests under cloudy skies fed by the Atlantic Ocean, and then, almost before you can blink, boom!: You’re under blue Mediterranean skies gawking at a stunning panorama of almost nothing but vineyards stretching down into the upper Ebro basin as far as the eye can see.

Tondonia
Our first visit, 10:30 a.m. In retrospect, I wish we had scheduled this visit a little later in the week. This is the visit most anticipated by our group, and it’s over way too fast. Bodegas R. López de Heredia Viña Tondonia, where everything is done more or less the same way it has been for decades, is presently in the midst of a great flowering of recognition and praise, particularly among journalists and sommeliers.

Winemaker Mercedes López de Heredia recognizes me from last year’s interview and I’m quite flattered. Our tasting takes place in the bodega’s cobweb-strewn 19th century bottle cemetery. The whites, all Gran Reservas and all from the Tondonia vineyard, are all astonishing and change in the glass as we taste.

“We can guess, based on the weather conditions, tasting the wine as it ages in the barrel, how a wine will develop in the bottle,” Mercedes tells us. “But for the most part, we don’t know. It’s a mystery.”

The 1970 Blanco has searing acidity and shows remarkable potential to age even more. The 1976 is the most developed of the bunch; its aromas sweet and seductive, a little reminiscent of agua de panela, a raw sugar cane-based hot beverage popular among Colombia’s working class. Twenty minutes later the ‘76 smells like toffee. Remarkable. The 1964 is somewhere in between the ‘70 and ‘76: still very much alive but with all the hallmarks of graceful aging. The 1981, the bodega’s most recent Gran Reserva release, is a little tight at first, and seems positively childish compared to the others. Never thought I’d call a wine from 1981 young.

Viña Real
CVNE has a trifecta of killer properties in Rioja. Imperial is based in Haro, is made entirely from Rioja Alta fruit, and is the most classically styled of the three labels. Viña Real is all Alavesa fruit and comes from one of the region’s most impressive wineries, a gravity-fed, amphitheater-like bodega with barrels rooms that were excavated deep inside the sandstone mountain. And then there is Contino, a terrific single-estate property in nearby Laserna managed by the affable Jesus Madrazo.

In our visit to Viña Real, hosted by José Luis Ripa, we taste wines from all three bodegas. The 2005 Viña Real Crianza has pretty strawberry fruit and a licorice/tar-like spicy mineral character on the nose. The 2001 Viña Real Reserva has aromas of sweet red fruit, moderate alcohol levels considering the ripeness of the year, and excellent length. The Contino 2004 Reserva, with a high proportion of Graciano, has great aromatic complexity on the nose (along with a noticeable whiff of alcohol, which I hadn’t noticed in Reserva’s from earlier vintages). My favorite of the bunch is the 2001 Imperial Reserva, with focused but subdued fruit, a small dose of tobacco pouch-like earthiness, and excellent balance.

THESE ARE NOT SHOTS: A scene from Bar Aralar Taberna in San Sebastián.

This week I will be posting daily reports from a trip I made to northern Spain last week with a group of sommeliers and journalists from the U.S. We spent most of our time, of course, paying visits to Rioja bodegas and vineyards, getting to know a bit more about the stories behind the bottles we tasted, but we began our journey in San Sebastián, where, in all of the great pintxos bars downtown you basically have five options by the glass: un cidra (cider), un txacolí (a spritzy, refreshing white wine made in nearby Guetaría with white and red grapes), una caña (a short glass of beer), un crianza (i.e., a Rioja crianza), or un reserva (i.e., Rioja reserva)*.

Monday, September 9, 2008

ARRIVAL
All members of our group accounted for at Bilbao airport. The ever-agreeable Kelly Bucher of the Vibrant Rioja team, a veteran of last year’s whirlwind sommelier/CIA production combo-platter trip that nearly did us in, is my co-host. Alfredo Ogueta, with whom I have traveled in Rioja now on four occasions, is our driver again for this trip, an enormous asset, given his driving skills, impeccable promptness, and his willingness to make phone calls to bodegas and Rioja’s Consejo Regulador, our hosts, on my behalf.

Lost luggage among one in our group sadly meant that our original plan to have lunch in the town of Guetaria at Elkano–a fish restaurant that Gerry Dawes once called “one of the finest in Spain, if not the world”–would not be possible. I had grappled with the wisdom of going straight to lunch from the airport but had concluded that most food and wine people would be willing to push through their jet lag to enjoy such high quality fish and one of Europe’s best wine lists, but my theory would not be tested today.

It was decided that we would go straight to our hotel in San Sebastián and enjoy pintxos later that evening in the city’s old quarter, or parte vieja.

Kelly and I step outside to go over the night’s plan and extract Euros from an ATM a block away. A woman in her early twenties in line behind us wears a t-shirt from CBGB, the infamous, now defunct punk club two blocks from my apartment. We step out onto the promenade overlooking the city’s famous Concha inlet and beach. The weather is perfect and, for a moment, I silently try to calculate a way to run upstairs, throw on a bathing suit, race into the water, come back, shower, and dress, all in time to meet everyone in the lobby in one hour. I abandon my dream.

OUTING
We’re a pretty big group, nine in all: Kelly, myself, plus five sommeliers from around the country and two journalists. They are:

Russel Corzine, Sommelier at Joe’s Prime Steak, Seafood, and Crab, Chicago, IL

Kelli Farwell, Wine Director for the Dressler Restaurant Group in Williamsburg, Brooklyn

Rosie Gordon, Sommelier at Plumpjack Cafe, San FranciscoDavid Rosengarten, freelance journalist

David Rosengarten, freelance journalist

Tim Teichgraeber, freelance journalist

Gretchen Thomas, Beverage Director, Barcelona Restaurant Group, Connecticut

Barbara Werley MS, Beverage Director, Pappas Brothers Restaurant Group, Texas

Wild mushrooms, ham, and hake at Casa Tiburcio, San Sebastián

We make our way through the many pintxos (tapas) bars in the parte vieja, an activity the locals call txiquiteo [chee-khee-TAY-o] named after the squat little wine glasses the locals call txiquito (and Riojanos call chatos). Although it’s a Monday, with a couple of my favorites (Bar Borda-Berri, Goiz-Argi) closed for the evening, most bars remain open, including Bar Aralar Taberna, where slices of gamey jamon ibérico pair nicely with a Campillo 2007 Rioja Rosado as well as an uncharacteristically ripe 2001 Viña Alberdí Reserva from Bodegas La Rioja Alta); La Cepa, home to the best revuelto, or soft scramble, in the world, made with ultra fresh gambas and eggs no more than two days old; and Casa Tiburcio, whose wild mushroom dish (which includes the glorious perechico, a mushroom I have written about before) was lemony, earthy, and prodigiously habit-forming.

We finish our night at Bar Bergara across town, known for its creative pintxos. A canape topped with a mousseline of wild mushrooms, cream, and shrimp thrown under the salamander for a few seconds sounds simple enough, but, man alive, it put me under a little happy-trance, an experience punctuated by occasional snorts of Roda I 2004 Rioja.

By that point most of us are at the end of the line. I do wish we could stay here for another day or two. The beach is calling out to me. But we have a few big days ahead of us. It’s time to rest before heading over the mountain into San Sebastián’s chief supplier of red wine, Rioja.

TARANTINO TAPAS CRAWL: From left to right, Gretchen Thomas, David Rosengarten, Tim Teichgraeber, and Kelli Farwell in San Sebastián.

*The reason for the masculine article preceding a feminine noun (un crianza, un reserva) is the unsaid “vaso de,” or “glass of,” or “vino de,” or “wine with”