Blame it on Rioja

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.

A reader named Abel Iturriaga recently wrote in about a very pleasant experience he had visiting Bodegas Santiago Ijalba in Gimileo, a village in Rioja Alta situated about half-way between Haro and Briones on the old Logroño highway.

Ijalba tends towards the modern style, making two types of blancos, Ermita San Felices (stainless steel fermented in the Marques de Cáceres style) and Abando Blanco, late-harvest Viura fermented in American oak barricas (most barrel fermented whites use French oak) and kept on its lees for five months. Although the Abando Blanco is clearly produced in the modern way, my notes from a 2006 T. Edward tasting say that it still “retains the best traits of the traditional style–nutty and complex.” I quite liked the Ogga 2000 Reserva, a 100% Tempranillo-based wine made from 60 year old vines and aged for 17 months in French oak and 3 months in American oak. I found the wine to have “good acidity, a dose of pepper, and a lengthy finish. Nice balance of modern and traditional aromas.”

Oddly enough, the Ogga 2001 Reserva, which I ordered in January of this year at Casa Mono with my friend Colum Sheehan, the GM at Babbo, disappointed me, as it lacked the balance I really liked in the 2000; I found it a little too extracted and somewhat over the top. A quick glance at the bodega’s website today, and I discovered that the winemaker has done away with the 3 months of American oak aging for the Ogga Reserva, opting instead for a full 20 months in French oak, which I suspect is all or mostly new oak. I also learned that the 2001 underwent three days of pre-fermentation maceration, although I don’t recall if the same was done for the 2000. In my view, the 2001 still needs time to mellow. Not surprisingly, Jay Miller of the Wine Advocate quite liked the 2001 Reserva, giving it 91 points in his most recent review of Spanish wine.

And here we enter again into a debate playing out all over the world: does the movement away from established methods of vinification, even if we’re talking about a mere 3 months in a different oak type, make a wine any less regionally specific?

I think more important, and I suspect most of my sommelier colleagues would agree, is how does the food compatibility of a new version of the same wine compare with that of its predecessor? In this case, I have to say that I think the 2000 might be a better choice to enjoy with a meal, even as I fully understand the rationale behind the winemaker’s decision in this case to tweak his wine in a different direction.

Ogga 2001 Reserva is imported by T. Edward Wines.

Dutch Angle/Spanish Wine: (From left) ADM, photographer Nigel Barker, and Rebeca Gomez of Rioja’s Consejo Regulador, New York City, Wednesday, December 5, 2007. Photo: Kendyl Wright.

While admittedly not an avid television watcher, I’d be lying if I said it wasn’t pretty damn cool to lead a Rioja tasting a few weeks ago at the studios of photographer Nigel Barker, a judge on the CW Network’s America’s Next Top Model.

Mr. Barker is a professed fan of Rioja and of pretty much all things Spanish, having lived in Spain for many years with his family, and he struck up a friendship with Vibrant Rioja’s Kendyl Wright during September’s Fashion Week, for which Rioja was the official wine. In the event, Kendyl arranged for a tasting at the photographer’s studio in the Meatpacking District in early December and asked me to lead it.

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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.

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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).

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