Blame it on Rioja

In this, the third and final installment of Doug Frost’s lead up to the first wine of a Rioja seminar held at the Culinary Institute of America’s Greystone campus during that institution’s Worlds of Flavor Conference earlier this year, our esteemed MS/MW takes us up to the modern era, again using the López de Heredia Viña Tondonia ‘81 Blanco Gran Reserva as a point of reference, singling the wine out as coming from another era.  It is this wine and this house to which Doug makes reference at the beginning of the clip, as we have just learned that the wine spends 9 and 1/2 years in oak before bottling.

Unfortunately, we’ll have to end it here, since the video of the last part of Doug’s speech, in which he briefly touches on the winemaking mechanics of the ‘International style,’ a later and even more modern development, is unusuable. Once I find a way to put the audio over other images, I may release it as a podcast or as another posted video

Fast forward to the 19th century, when phylloxera decmates the vineyards of France and panicked negotiants from Bordeaux, fearing the sudden loss of their overseas markets, look south for salvation. Modern Rioja is born.

Along the way, pioneering bodegueros discover that some barrels are aging with enviable grace. Thus, the Gran Reserva is born.

Check out part two of Doug Frost MS, MW’s introduction to Rioja last month at CIA Greystone in Napa. We are just about to get to our first wine, López de Heredia Viña Tondonia Blanco Gran Reserva 1981.

Stay tuned.

Part of what makes Doug Frost MS, MW such an effective wine communicator is that the guy has a knack for scene setting. It’s also one of the reasons why I feel a strong sense of kinship with him.

The first wine he presented at a Rioja seminar last month in Napa, during the Culinary Institute of America’s “Mediterranean Odyssey” Worlds of Flavor Conference, was a López de Heredia Viña Tondonia 1981 Rioja Blanco Gran Reserva, the product of an archetypically classic winemaking house  quite familiar to any reader of BioR and/or close follower of Spanish wine.

But, hold on a second. Before we get to the wine in question, the scene needs a little settin’, and that’s where Doug Frost comes in.

Twenty-two minutes later, we’ve only just crossed over into the 20th century.

I can’t really blame him.

To understand what makes López de Heredia a ‘classic’ house and this classic style of winemaking developed, you really have to start at the beginning of winemaking in Spain,  at least as it existed in the first few centuries of the common era, around the time that the Romans introduced to the Iberian peninsula an innovation that would remain largely unchallenged for centuries to come as the ‘correct’ way to make wine:  the sandstone press or lagar.

And though it is widely known that Rioja is typically a blend of several different grape varieties, what is not so widely known, I would imagine, is why this is the case.

To uncover the origins of the winemaker’s ‘field blend,’ and to learn how a proto-Rioja might have tasted, check out Doug’s short clip.

More installments to follow.

Doug Frost MS, MW at the Worlds of Flavor Conference at CIA Greystone, November 8, 2008.

Over the weekend, at the Culinary Institute of America Greystone’s Worlds of Flavor Conference in California’s Napa Valley, “A Mediterranean Flavor Odyssey,” I sat in on “Delicious Pairings: The Wines of Rioja and the Best of Basque Tapas,” a seminar I helped put together, hosted by Doug Frost, one of only three people in the world to be both a Master Sommelier and a Master of Wine, and Patxi Bergara, San Sebastian’s most creative pintxos chef.

I had wisely decided to set up my FlipVideo Camera in the front row, and although I plan to post Rioja-related clips here at some point, I decided to begin with something a bit more general: a short, two-minute commentary by Doug Frost on the notion of a universal palate.

Incisive and perceptive, his comments are also very, very funny.

The time has finally arrived: the Culinary Institute of American at Greystone has just announced the release of “Discovering Rioja,” an educational documentary on the region now available in both webcast form and as a free DVD from the Prochef.com website.

“Vendimia con comportones en 1920.” Photo courtesy Bodegas R. López de Heredia Viña Tondonia.

In just a matter of days, CIAprochef.com, the Culinary Institute of America’s online home, will launch “Rioja: Tradition and Innovation at the Frontiers of Flavor,” a webcast/DVD that represents the culmination of nearly fourteen months of collaborative effort between CIA Greystone in Napa and Vibrant Rioja, and a production to which I am proud to say I made a significant creative contribution.

One of the most painstaking but ultimately most rewarding tasks I was assigned was the sourcing of still images to use as cutaways during the voice-over narration between interviews. Countless individuals, governmental organizations, and bodegas sent us a treasure trove of visual material, enough to turn our humble two-hour production into a multi-part Ken Burns-style video document if we had the time and resources to do so.

As befits a wine region with such a storied past, the most compelling images were largely those captured long ago.

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