Blame it on Rioja

I have long been a fan of Loriñon, the workhorse brand of Bodegas Breton in Rioja Alta, whose winemaker, José María Ryan, oversaw dramatic innovations at Viña Real across the river in the early part of the decade. But only recently have I come around to tasting their whites, and though I have never been especially fond of barrel-fermented modern white Rioja, I quite like this subtle incarnation made from 100% Viura, fermented in American oak, and kept on its lees for four months before bottling.

If the Sierra Cantabria group’s Organza blanco is Rioja’s buttery answer to oaky Napa Valley Chardonnay, I’d say that Loriñon is Rioja’s ‘mountain fruit.’ Lean and lemony, with just a hint of oaky/yeasty richness, Loriñon’s barrel-fermented Rioja blanco offers more complexity and weight than Rioja’s neutral stainless steel-fermented sippers without sacrificing food-loving acidity.

And speaking of food, here is the recipe for a pintxo (tapa) whose compatibility with this wine I can personally vouch for: The Bergara Cocktail from the great Bar Bergara in San Sebastián, whose chef/owner Patxi Bergara paid a special visit to the Napa Valley this week for the Worlds of Flavor Conference at the Culinary Institute of America at Greystone in St. Helena. I’m out here this week to help coordinate the Rioja campaign’s participation (promotion of our collaborative DVD, a series of themed tastings, plus two seminars led by wine badass Doug Frost MS MW), and it just so happened that we were pouring the Loriñon blanco last night when Señor Bergara arrived at our booth with several trays of the Bergara cocktail.

Let’s just say that this particular moment called for a very brief work stoppage in the interest of research.

Bergara Cocktail

40 slices of pineapple in syrup
40 boiled king prawns
10 apples
1 med. jar Mayonnaise, 1 med. bottle Ketchup, 1 small bottle Tabasco
3 small tins trout roe
1 Pullman loaf

1. Combine Mayonnaise, Ketchup and Tabasco in a large mixing bowl and stir until well integrated. Reserve.
2. Dice pineapples, king prawns, and apples, and fold into mixing bowl with reserved sauce. Keep mixture chilled until an hour before serving.
3. Using a small cookie cutter, cut four small disks out of each slice of Pullman loaf and, using a baking sheet, toast both sides under the broiler.
5. Scoop fruit and prawn mixture onto each toasted disk of bread, just enough to cover.
6. Garnish with small dollop of trout roe.
Makes 80 pintxos.

Bodegas Bretón Loriñon barrel-fermented Rioja blanco 2006 is $11.99/bottle at Winerz.com

Cold and overcast November days in the Northeast invariably induce cravings for robust meat dishes and, for reasons I cannot fully explain, today that craving is for venison. A couple of years ago, Chanterelle chef David Waltuck served roasted loin of venison with three purees (chestnut, parnsip, and sweet potato), and that is exactly what I have in mind (and what I would make for dinner tonight if I didn’t have to work).

Classic Rioja, which is to say, Rioja aged exclusively in American oak and possessing that beguiling aromatic trio of cigar box, cherries, and dill, is venison’s perfect foil, and the wine I have in mind today that fits that profile perfectly is one that retails for less than $15: Marqués de Tomares Crianza 2005 from the bodega formally known as Unión de Viticultores Riojanos in the town of Funemayor in Rioja Alta.

Made from 90% Tempranillo with 7% Mazuelo and 3% Graciano, with a year in American oak barrels, this particular Tomares Crianza from the warm ‘05 vintage (tasted two weeks ago), was not only highly quaffable and pleasantly fruity but also possessed as much elegance and finesse as one would expect from a Reserva.

Given its food pairing facility with any number of late fall and early winter dishes, the wine’s modest price tag argues in favor of a case purchase with reservation, a cold-weather, go-to stash to warm palate and belly on many a chilly evening to come.

Marqués de Tomares 2005 Crianza is $14.99/bottle at PJ Wine in New York City.

Walking into Manhattan’s Tia Pol is a little like stepping into a time and space warp for me, so squarely does the whole experience take me back to the pure and soul-edifying pleasure of discovering the tascas of Madrid when I was living there for a couple of years in the mid-nineties.

And for one night next month, the mid-nineties are in fact coming to Tia Pol…1995 and 1996 Gran Reservas from Bodegas Fernando Remirez de Ganuza to be exact, just two wines in a lineup of big hitter RdeG wines to be served at “Meticulous Selection” (a reference to FRdeG’s near obsession with grape selction and handling), one in a series of high-end wine dinners that Tia Pol and kick-ass Spanish wine shop Tinto Fino are throwing this fall.

The event takes place on Tuesday, November 11 at 8pm. Other FRdeG offerings wll include the bodega’s Erre Punto blanco (as of yet unavailable in this country) and their sensational 2001 Reserva. Tia Pol chef Andrew Donovan will be pairing food; my friend/colleague/hero Kerin Auth of Tempranillo, Inc. will host.

Tickets are $175 per person. For reservations, which are very limited, contact Lauren Whitfield (212-675-8805/lauren@tiapol.com) or Stephanie Mannatt (212-254-0850/stephanie@tintofino.com).

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.

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.

Had the privilege of enjoying ripe local tomatoes twice this past weekend, first at Chanterelle, where I had lunch with two friends on Saturday, and again last night at Dressler in Williamsburg, where giant tomato disks are stacked together with hunks of watermelon, a summer perennial that’s getting a lot of play these days on both restaurant menus and on the glossy pages of fancy food magazines.

The appearance of tomatoes in local markets (and of corn and peaches) defines late summer for a lot of folks like me, and like with every seasonal bounty, there is always a quest to see how many different ways we can use them at home.

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RIOJA MASTER CLASS: Chad Wilmouth of the Culinary Institute of America Greystone, left, records Jorge Muga’s introduction to the topography, soils, and microclimates of Rioja, on a roadside overlooking the Ebro valley near the town of Villalba de Rioja, Spain, September 10, 2007. The narrow gorges that demarcate the northwestern limit of Rioja viticulture, Las Conchas de Haro, are visible in the background. Photo: Jon Stamell.

It’s been really thrilling going through all of the footage John Barkley and Chad Wilmouth recorded while we were in Rioja last September; since I was always busy interviewing, I rarely took notes and felt afterwards somewhat detached from the material, that is, until I got a hold of all the interviews, in their entirety, in a series of DVDs John handed me in mid-December.

One of the most impressive and certainly the most comprehensive of those interviews was the interview, or rather series of interviews, I had with Bodegas Muga winemaker Jorge Muga. As I was taking notes watching the footage, I ended up transcribing maybe 75% to 80% of his comments, so wide in scope were the topics he covered, so detailed and easy to comprehend were the things he said. And while his focus was primarily on his family’s vineyards and his bodega’s wines, Mr. Muga had also a lot to say about the region as a single entity, as well as the soil and microclimatic variations of its constituent parts. I can’t wait to see it all integrated into the final DVD.

In the meantime, I finally got around to editing some of the audio that Chris Fleming made available to me over the summer, including over two hours of his own interview with Jorge Muga, discovering in the process that many of the topics covered in the DVD interviews are also dealt with in depth in the audio Chris captured at Bodegas Muga last spring. I remember Chris telling me how impressed he was with Sr Muga’s presentation, calling it “a master class in the viticulture of Rioja,” so it seems appropriate that we should begin with him.

Jorge Muga’s edited comments, tied together with some of my own brief commentary, comprise the first edition of the Rioja Podcast, linked below. I hope you find it worthwhile.

 

 Rioja Podcast 1: Jorge Muga at the Frontiers of Rioja: Play Now | Play in Popup | Download (228)