Blame it on Rioja

Rioja Superstar: Jesus Madrazo of Contino, September 14, 2007. Photo: John Barkley.

During our second hot air balloon flight over Rioja, when we were up higher than we had any damn right to be, I noticed our pilot Laureano turning his ear toward the sounds of unseen aircraft in the distance with a slightly worried expression on his face. I thought to myself, man, that would really suck if we get clipped by a plane right now.

Which made our visit to Bodegas Contino in Laserna, the first appointment on our docket after our early-morning, high-altitude brush with eternity, a particularly sweet reaffirmation of life.

It’s hard to think of a better way to celebrate life than raising a glass of Contino. Jesus Madrazo, winemaker at Contino and a member of the family that founded CVNE, Contino’s parent company, is one of Rioja’s unmitigated superstars, and his wines are spectacular.

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Above Navaridas, Spain, September 13, 2007. Photo: John Barkley.

As we were planning our DVD on Rioja, it was important to me that we find a way to capture visually the remarkable topography of the region. My dream was somehow to enter the Ebro valley more or less the way I did when I first came to Rioja in 1998, from the south, down from the Tierra de Cameros. But I wanted to do it from the air, to get a sense of how the region is just completely surrounded by mountains, with a meandering river squiggling its way across the center of the valley.

We soon learned that a helicopter was just too expensive and an airplane was impractical. So the Consejo Regulador’s Ricardo Aguiriano and Rebeca Gómez, good sports both of them, arranged for a hot air balloon (globo in Spanish) to get us up and over the valley, so we could get our shots. John Barkley and I went up the first day; Chad and I on the second. (For the record, I was perfectly willing to pass on going up one or both times, but it was decided that I was needed up there to point out what to shoot and to communicate with our pilot, Laureano Casado).

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Almudena Imhof at Bodegas Faustino, Oyón, Spain, May 31, 2006. Photo: José Guerra.

In the margins of a notebook I brought with me to Spain in May 2006, next to my tasting notes for the Faustino I 1996 Gran Reserva (“Firm tannic grip, terrific acidity, expressive fruit; not the most complex of the Gran Reservas I’ve tasted so far but utterly quaffable”), I recently discovered the words, “Open-toed olive shoes, olive suit, camo blouse, green eyes, elegant hands, articulate—lovely.”

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In the vineyards with Marcos Eguren, September 13, 2007. Photo: Jon Stamell.

ADM: Where are we now?

ME: Right now we are in Viñedos de Páganos. Our group has three bodegas in Rioja, Sierra Cantabria, Señorío de San Vicente and Viñedos de Paganos; one bodega in Toro, Numathia Termes; and one bodega that makes vino de la mesa (table wine), the one right behind us, Dominio de Eguren.

ADM: And what does this vineyard, this part of Rioja, have that makes it special?

ME: At Viñedos de Paganos, where we are right now, we make two wines, one of which is El Puntido from this parcel [gesturing over his right shoulder]. This parcel is 25 hectares and is a vineyard planted 75 years ago. In 2001 we decided to make one wine specifically from this vineyard, a site we had been eying for many years.

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Marcos Eguren at Viñedos de Páganos in Rioja Alavesa, in front of the vineyard used to make El Puntido. Photo: Jon Stamell.

As I mentioned in my last post, Marcos Eguren is member of a family of vine growers now in its fifth generation. The Egurens have been marketing wines under their own label since 1958, when brothers Guillermo and Victorino Eguren launched Sierra Cantabria with bother-in-law Martín Cendoya, a viticulturalist.

Today, Marcos Eguren, Guillermo’s son, heads both vineyard management and winemaking, having expanded the brand not only in Rioja, with Sierra Cantabria spin-offs Señorío de San Vicente and Viñedos de Páganos, but also in other parts of Spain, most notably in Toro, where Numathia Termes has raised more than a few eyebrows among the foreign wine press.

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Zaha Hadid pavilion at López de Heredia, Haro, Spain. Photo courtesy Bodegas R. López de Heredia Viña Tondonia.

In my last post, I mentioned that I had had an epiphany in a North Carolina women’s shoe store without explaining what that epiphany was.

As I began typing my response to Lawrence Osborne’s Men’s Vogue article, “Final Harvest,” I realized I was heading into more serious territory, ran out of time, and decided to post a teaser, figuring I would add the rest later that day.

Well, my word count kept growing and my other life intervened, but I did manage to carve out some time today to flesh out my thoughts and edit out a significant chunk of what was threatening to become a small monograph on the subject.

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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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