Articles

BODEGA INIESTA

DO MANCHUELA & VdlT CASTILLA LA MANCHA

PART TWO

This fledgling bodega (please see last week’s article www.costa-news.com click Cork Talk), just 2 years old now, has recently launched its first wines onto the market. As you can imagine, with such a name behind the bodega, the wines have been heavily publicised in the Spanish Press, and I have to say, to considerable acclaim too. This, I believe is the first critique in the English language Press – so another scoop for the Costa News Group!

Head winemaker, Juanjo Muñoz, was most interested in the fact that an English Journalist, living in Spain and having a knowledge of Spanish wines and wine-making, was interested in visiting the bodega. However when I arrived he was noticeably distraught. Torn between two responsibilities, he had felt bound to go for the choice that really is his raison d’etre, a major wine-making decision, and postpone our meeting for a couple of hours – would I mind?

Of course I was happy to wait whilst he and his assistant went to the lab to decide on the final blend for the new red wine they are about to release, all varieties concerned having been deemed to be in perfect condition for blending that very morning! I couldn’t wait to taste his decision!

Juanjo and I got on like a barrel on fire and he was delighted that I showed such interest in sampling wines from the barrica and tank in their various stages of development. So much so that when I returned home I realised that in fact I hadn’t tasted any of  Bodega Iniesta’s current crop of wines that are on the market right now! No matter – a quick e-mail and the next day a courier arrived with 6 bottles!

Bodega Inestia’s philosophy is that wine should be priced in such a way as to enfranchise everybody – I’m sure this comes from Andrés Iniesta’s family’s agricultural village roots. Therefore all their wines have an excellent price/quality ratio – something for which we are all searching these days!

There are two levels of wine produced – the first, what might be called their ‘entry level’ wines go under the name of  ‘Corazón Loco’. There’s a white, a rosado, a red and a dessert wine. Their attractive labels with a heart motif were perfect for Valentine’s Day (remember this next year fellas!) with the dessert 50cl bottle even having a red scratch and sniff heart embossed on the front.

Their presentation is designed to attract the younger generation many of whom have  in recent years erred away from wine, to beer and spirits consumption. Corazón Loco wines are therefore fittingly vivacious, fresh and easy to drink. But don’t think that  this means inconsequentially light in flavour and pleasure.

Corazón Loco Tinto 2010 is a joven (young) wine made from a blend of varieties that could differ each year according to the harvest. It’s a super fruit-driven wine with a gentle feel but nevertheless quite long finish and sufficient body and depth of flavour to make it a wine to enjoy on its own and with food – particularly cheese, meat dishes and stews. It’s the best joven wine I’ve taste so far this year!

Their Rosado 2011 is made from Bobal, indigenous to the area and producing deeply coloured rosé wines. It has a light mouth-feel but it’s no lightweight in flavour terms – rounded raspberry and loganberry fruit with rose petal perfume. Check this out with Paella as Spring arrives on the Costas!

Corazón Loco Blanco 2011 is a made from favourite blend of mine – Verdejo and Sauvignon Blanc. Typically fresh and vibrant with bold gooseberry notes the wine also delivers herby aromas, white flower perfume and a pleasing vegetal note with more exotic fruit in the mix too. The best young white of the year so far!

Bodega Iniesta’s flagship wines, produced under the auspices of DO Manchuela, have already made an impact on the DO and will, I’m certain soon start to see their opening high 80’s enter the 90+ Peñin points level and beyond.

Finca Carril 2010 Tinto is made from Tempranillo and Petit Veredot. Correspondingly dark in colour, the wine has a depth of flavour to match its very deep hues. Mature blackberry fruit with aromas of violet and the darkest of red roses blend with liquorice and mineral notes.

Finca de Carril Valeria 2011 Blanco is made with Chardonnay, fermented in French oak barrels with its lees for depth of flavour, elegance and structure, plus 25% Macabeo for fresh acidity and green apple flavours. Drinking very well now I think this wine could do with a few months more to integrate fully in bottle when it will come into it’s own and probably last a good 2 – 3 years.

From the same line their Macabeo 2010 Blanco is now fully developed in bottle. It’s full flavoured with green apple again, rounded and ample with some patisserie notes combined with fresh acidity. Big enough to last for several months yet.

Finally, a quick mention about the potential of all those super wines slowly fermenting and developing ready for the next bottling. It’s clear to me that Bodega Iniesta has entered the market at an already high level and it’s certain to continue improving and will soon consolidate a position as one of the leading lights of the Denominación de Origen and the Vino de la Tierra under whose banners it makes its wines!

colin@colinharknessonwine.com and www.colinharknessownine.com

First Published in the Costa News Group’s four titles March 2012

BODEGA INIESTA

DO MANCHUELA & VdlT CASTILLA

PART ONE

Bear with me here, this is the wine column, I assure you!

For one who was once heavily involved in football: both amateur (I played in local leagues and coached schools’ and representative schools’ teams); and professional football (I spent six years as a professional scout for Liverpool FC) you may be surprised to hear me saying that over the intervening years I have become somewhat disenchanted with the sport.

Whilst I suppose that for me it will always be, to put it in the great Pele’s words, “The Beautiful Game”, I can’t help but feel that the name has become tarnished since those halcyon days when the Pele, universally recognised as his generation’s best exponent, astonished us with his supreme skill as well as his humbleness and exemplary conduct. I’m sure you’ve now guessed where I’m coming from.

Pele, Bobby Charlton, the late Bobby Moore, Franz Beckenbauer et al plus perhaps their more modern day equivalents like Gary Lineker, and fast-forwarding to the wonderfully gifted, Messi, for example must watch and read aghast at the shameful face of today’s football. It seems we can’t open our newspapers or turn on the radio and TV without hearing about, at best, the petty, petulant schoolboy squabbling of current practitioners of the now less than beautiful game; or indeed at worst, accusations of sexual harassment, violence and, currently in vogue, it appears,  disgraceful racism.

We’ll I recently experienced another side of professional football, one of which Pele and his like-minded friends would surely approve. At last a warm story about the most popular game in the world and, my wine-loving friends, a story related, you’ll be glad to know, to this column’s raison d’etre – wine!

Those of you who, like myself, retain at least an interest in football, despite all that’s currently wrong with it, will know the name Andrés Iniesta, scorer of Spain’s World Cup winning goal in 2010 and, put simply, one of the best players in the world. Indeed his invaluable contribution to Barça’s midfield is one of the main reasons why Barcelona currently enjoy being lauded as the best club team on Earth. In sporting terms he really is a living legend!

And it’s Andrés Iniesta who has managed to put a smile back on my face, not just when I see him play, but also because of a little known off the field activity in which he is involved.

Señor Iniesta, Andrés father, and his family have always worked the land around a small village Called Fuenteabilla, not so far from Albacete. As a young man and using a horse he used to plough the fields surrounding the relatively grand finca of the wealthiest man of the village, dreaming a seemingly impossible dream of one day owning his own land and planting vines to make and sell vines, on a small scale of course.

Well, when his son Andrés achieved part one of his own apparently intangible dream by signing as a professional player for Barcelona he used a significant part of his signing-on fee to realise that of his father. The wealthiest family of the village were approached, a price was agreed and Andrés was able to present his father with not not only the land surrounding the finca, but the finca as well! Bodega Iniesta was born!

On a gloriously sunny but very cold morning in early February I exited the state-of-the-art building with Chief Wine Maker Juanjo Muñoz who pointed out to the rear, across pristine vineyards of neatly pruned 50+ year old vines, the white finca on the horizon which sits happily amid the vines of Bodega Iniesta. Inside the grape reception area the temperature was wine-friendly, though not so journalist-friendly, and my fascinating tour began.

Bodega Iniesta is not a Glitterati trophy bodega as are other wineries in different countries. Famous Rock Musicians, Actors, Film Directors and Sports-people have invested in wine operations, some with more success than others, and some, really with no other thought than simply expanding their fame, and wealth, hopefully.

It’s clear from the outset that Andrés Iniesta has inherited his family’s passion for the land, for the vine and ultimately for the wine produced on it. The philosophy of the bodega is to produce wine that tops the price/quality ratio list where a celebrity’s wine will not boast celeb prices. No wonder a banner in the village proudly proclaims, ‘Iniesta Siempre Contigo!”

Part two next week!

First Published Costa News Group February 2012

SPANISH WINE GUIDES

PART TWO – THE PROENSA GUIDE + LA GUÍA DE ORO

Following on from last week’s article focussing on Spain’s comprehensive and most widely used wine guide, Guía Peñin, time now to concentrate on two other guides. One, Guía Proensa De Los Mejores Vinos De España has a similar format, though simultaneously pleasingly different too; and the other, well a whole new concept really.

Most important to we Spanish wine enthusiasts though, is how much use are they regarding advising us about the wines we should be buying here in Spain. Well I think they each play an important role in guiding us through the wine shop and supermarket shelves. And I’m delighted to have access to all three.

The Proensa Guide is named after it’s founder and author, Andrés Proensa, a journalist born in 1958 in Madrid. A lover and aficionado of all things Gourmet in Spain he teamed up with a group of like-minded people, specialising in Spanish wine and was responsible for the Guís de Vinos Gourmets  from 1985 – 1993.

Following this success, he created La Guía De Oro (to be discussed next) until he passed on the business to my friend Jesús Iniesta in 2002, for whom I wrote several articles in English in his Vinos De España magazine. He then decided that there was a call for another guide to Spanish wine, creating Guís Proensa in 2002 – making this year it’s tenth anniversary.

Señor Proensa also edits and is the Director of PlanetAVino, a bi-monthly magazine that I have read and enjoyed several times, though it is now available for subscribers as an e-magazine. Clearly here is a man who has dedicated his working life to information diffusing about all that is good in the Gourmet world of Spain, with a clear emphasis on Spanish wines.

And it’s clarity that is the buzz-word for his Guía Proensa. The lay-out of the confidence boosting hard-back guide is clear and concise. There is some information about him, but more so about the aims of the guide and its raison d’etre. I also found this familial styled guide to be most interesting in his opinions of the strengths and weaknesses of the Spanish Wine Trade, including a historical perspective where he comments, for example on the dramatic improvements made in white wine production here, as I have myself.

There is a section dedicated to short summaries of the previous ten years, on this its tenth birthday. It also explains the scoring system employed, the language used (don’t forget this is a multi-lingual country) and of course its complete impartiality, crucial if we are to believe anything in a guide!

There are drawbacks though. Despite its claim to include the Best Wines of Spain, there must surely be some omitted as some Denominaciónes de Origen have only one wine and one bodega mentioned. However, as a counter argument it this could simply be explained by the fact that no matter how good a guide is it has to be subjective.

Also, like the Peñin Guide, for me it has too great a concentration of Rioja wines with many more pages devoted to this DO which for me is woeful need of an overhaul. Although I’m pleased to see that mostly sensible marks are awarded, and importantly, to those wines which deserve them.

But for me there are two main draws. Firstly its obvious honesty and its unwillingness to jump on any ultra-high point bandwagons; and secondly its user-friendly layout, language (as long as you speak Spanish that is!) and general feel. Señor Proensa has cleverly created an older, more experienced Uncle of a wine guide who doesn’t pontificate but rather leads the reader on a gentle adventure of discovery.

Furthermore it is now available in English via the internet www.proensa.com . I commend it to you.

La Guía De Oro is now an internet guide (though as yet only in Spanish), perhaps making my 2010 hardback edition a collectors item for wine enthusiasts of the future? Its Editor, Jesús Iniesta explained in an e-mail to me that it doesn’t score wines and bodegas like the other guides do, perhaps it’s felt that there is too muich compoetition, or just that there isn’t the demand or the need for another similar guide? Rather, it studies and lists all the other guides’ marks and the medals and plaudits each wine has garnered.

As such Jesús says it’s more like a Guide of Guides and is therefore original and of more use. Well I understand the theory, and agree that this may well be something worth looking at, but I have and at the moment, it isn’t working. Yet? – well who knows. The site is operational in that you can go to www.laguiadeoro.es but, unless my internet was having a particularly bad day, there’s basically nothing there. I hope it’s a work in progress!

First Published in Costa News Group February 2012

BODEGAS TERRAS GAUDA SEES RED

ALL THAT GLITTERS IS NOT JUST GOLDEN HUED ALBARIÑO

Reading back I note that I was quite voluble with my praise of the white wines of  Bodegas Terras Gauda made in their homeland of DO Rías Baixas in Galicia, North West Spain. Well, having now tasted all their red wines, made in nearby DO Bierzo, I’m going to be equally complimentary – clearly this is a bodega to watch!

Mencía, indigenous to DO Bierzo, is a remarkable grape variety. It’s unique with a flavour and even, mouthfeel, like no other I’ve tasted. Its wines are deeply coloured and fruity and when made from older vines whose yield is low but whose grapes are the richer for it, the resulting nectar can be opulent and full flavoured, yet beguilingly elegant too. I always like to have a bottle or two in my cellar and because of its natural acidity it will also age well.

Pittacum 2007 is such a deeply coloured wine. It’s had 8 months in French and American oak after a month left in its fermentation vats where all the colour, flavour and tannin are concentrated. The 100% Mencía grapes were harvested by hand into small capacity crates and once at the winery the selection table was rigorously employed ensuring that only the best bunches were included.

Initially quite closed on the nose, the aromas soon start to develop – damson with notes of mint flavoured meaty gravy. On the palate bitter, dark chocolate blends sublimely with the damson and a curious, but attractive, aroma of old rope being untied. Its finish is mid to long, with a dark fruit liqueur chocolate end.

Its older brother, Pittacum Aurea 2007, is made from 100+ year old vines and again it’s a little closed at first. On the palate the first hit is juicy black plum and damson with acidity and mature tannin. During its first ten minutes it may seem a little lacking in depth to be able to develop further, but soon after, the wine comes alive.

Coffee and wooden barrel aromas mingle with damson fruit and, arriving late but making a significant and appreciated contribution, slatey mineral notes, with a certain earthiness too. It has a long, bold finish with dark fruits and cedar and mineral character. It has a well-earned 94 Peñin Points – making it one of the best Bierzo wines available! Decant before serving (if you don’t have a decanter [naughty, you should have!] pour it into the glass half an hour before you intend to drink it).

Perhaps my favourite, however, was the 92 pointer, Quinta Sardonia 2007, a VdlT Castilla y León, – just for the pure pleasure of drinking! It really is a super fruit-charged mouthful, and no wonder, considering the seven different varieties in the blend!

QS is made with Tinto Fino (aka Tempranillo), the lion’s share in fact making 52% of the blend, but aided and abetted by: Cabernet Sauvignon; Merlot; Syrah (only 5% but surely impacting significantly on the overall juciness of the finished product); Petit Verdot; Cabernet Franc (interesting this because, if Mencía shares any characteristics with another variety, it’s Cab. Franc); and finally Malbec! Now that’s a lot of wine in a single mouthful!

Its colour is a glorious dense and dark cherry, picota, red. On the nose there is an inviting, actually addicting intensity with cassis and mountain herbs to the fore. On the palate you’ll find ripe plums, a touch of black pepper with a hint of black olives too. There’s been oak ageing, 16 months in fact, but it’s been in subtle French oak and has been handled in an exemplary fashion with the vanilla input blending perfectly with  the wine, contributing to the final flavour in an integrated, graceful manner, rather like the double bass in an orchestra.

Indeed this symphonious, sexy wine is sensual in every way. Drinking perfectly now, it has the mature tannin, fruit content, acidity and alcohol (15%!) to age for another 3 – 5 years, but I doubt you’ll be able to keep your hands off it!