Category: Articles

The misappropriation of Monastrell?

MONASTRELL

 

My first contact with Bodegas Monastrell of Denominación de Origen Bullas (DO Bullas) was a little confusing.

 

In this part of southern Spain, Monastrell is the darling grape variety – as a monovarietal, in a blend, it’s used in probably 90% of all red wines of the zone, and to very good effect as well. So, I could understand a winery wanting to take ownership of the name – but, surely all others would have a similar claim?

 

However, on talking to Alejandro and Alfonso, it was clear that their naming the winery Bodegas Monastrell, is in no way an attempt to misappropriate the name of the variety. Rather, it’s an example of paying homage to this wonderful grape. And, when you taste the wines they make with it – well, it’s clear they also pay homage through their craft!

 

However, of the wines they recently sent me to taste for Cork Talk, only one was made using Monastrell. The rest are from a new portfolio of wines under the banner of ‘Salto del Usero’, the name of a small area of natural beauty in Bullas, which boasts and inland ‘beach’ alongside the small lake.

 

Personally, in the now daily heat, with temperatures set to go even higher, I find myself reaching for white wines and rosados, before reds. That is until later in the evening, perhaps over a late dinner, or simply drinking with friends, when it’s cooled down enough for some full red wines, that don’t need to have been chilled! And in the latter case, you can’t gro wrong by sticking with the same bodega enjoying their outstanding Valché, or their Chaveo, or indeed the Almudì I was sent.

 

However, speaking of ‘reaching’, well, I’m not sure what happened but when I did just that, into my full, 40+ bottle wine chiller to retrieve the Salto del Usero Blanco Macabeo, it fell! Tragically, this was onto tiles, and – well you know how unforgiving they can be! All was lost – of that bottle, which is a shame, as I certainly enjoyed its elder sister, Salto del Usero Blanco Fementado en Barrica.

 

This latter wine is a very limited production Macabeo fermented in just two separate French oak barrels of 300 litre capacity. It’s quite a remarkable wine, whose aromas on opening started with passion fruit and papaya notes combined, a little later, with a certain smokiness.

There’s also a faint note of yogurt and crème fraîche on the nose with a little vanilla thrown in, coming, probably from the wine’s 200 days in oak, resting on its lees, with regular batonnage (stirring).

 

I tasted the 2017 vintage of this wine, in fact its first vintage as it’s a new line and whilst it is in perfect balance, and drinking, I’m sure as the wine maker would want, I believe it will also develop in the bottle (providing it’s kept under the correct conditions, of course) taking on different, more mature aromas. In truth I’m quite enamoured with this wine, and I’m predicting that it may well be elevated to the flagship white wine, of this, a predominately red wine DO – though good whites are also made here.

 

Unfortunately, I can’t comment on the un-oaked version of this wine, as you know, from the heartbreaking occurrence detailed above. Neither can I comment on the red wine that is in the same range, as it wasn’t included in the case, though it was mean to be so. Never mind, there was one red, as mentioned above.

An organic wine made with Monastrell, claro, there is also a little Tempranillo and Petit Verdot in the blend. My bottle had Almudì 2016 written by hand in white, above a DO Bullas ticket signed and passed by the Consejo Regulador. A collector’s item – except that I’d rather drink it!

After temperature controlled fermentation the wine was placed in nearly new French oak 300 litre barrels for about six months. The resulting wine has good fruit on the nose and palate – think plums and dark cherries, with a little minty note too. It has sufficient complexity and depth for it to be paired with meat dishes, which we did, but it’s also a lovely wine to simply sip with friends.

 

Plus, the aforementioned, now depleted, wine chiller keeps red wines, chilled (the whites colder) and I first tasted the wine when it was cool – ideal in summer! http://www.bodegamonastrell.com

 

Contact Colin: colin@colinharknessonwine.com; Facebook Colin Harkness; Twitter @colinonwine; www.colinharknessonwine.com

Spain in the vanguard re wine planning for climate change!

PROACTIVITY IN THE FACE OF CLIMATE CHANGE RELATED TO THE FIELD OF WINE MAKING

Yes, I know, this title looks like that of a University PhD student’s dissertation, but don’t be put off, it should be a fascinating insight into ongoing, behind the scenes investigations with the simple(?) remit of ensuring that we, and future generations, can continue to enjoy the fruits of Vitis Vinifera (the grape species from which comes wine!) – despite the ensuing problems of climate change.

And, I can promise that not all the following sentences will be as lengthy as the first!

Rather than the traditional aluminum foil wrapped bottles, designed to maintain the anonymity of the wines being judged in wine competitions, I thought it charmingly different to see bottles hidden as in the photo here, when judging one competition this year. (Well, ok, some sentences will still be long!). It puts a whole new perspective on the traditional French petit-déjeurner, non?

Once again, I was the only foreigner sitting on the panel of a Spanish wine competition, when I took my place on one of the two judging tables, impeccably professionally set up at the fairly recent competition, XX Concurso Nacional de Vinos, Premios Cofradía del Vino Reino de la Monastrell, in the city of Murcia. As my Spanish is a distance away from being fluent, I’m well used to being about 30 seconds behind the ambient conversation, whilst my brain tries to catch up.

However, from the aghast look on the faces of my fellow 18 judges, I wasn’t alone in thinking, towards the end of the session, that maybe the Judging Director, the eminent Señor Adrián Martínez Cutillas, retired Director of IMIDA (the Murcian Institute of Agricultural Research and Development) had lost a cork or two! The serving staff, up to this point so professional in their direction and delivery (the venue also serves as a restaurant and hotel training centre, whose stern director oversaw all!), approached the panels with two naked (so to speak) bottles of wine. Thus, to our collective chagrin, all was revealed – that’s the wine bottles, not the waiters/waitresses!

The usual 30 seconds after my fellows, I too was party to the deception, or rather, the lack of deception. These two bottles of wine were not actually in the competition, as they did not adhere to the rule that all wines submitted must be made of at least 50% Monastrell – it’s in the name, after all! Although, in a manner of speaking they were!

Wine made from a brand new, unique grape variety, created naturally in Spain!

Let me explain – these wines were the first to be produced using two ENTIRELY NEW, UNIQUE GRAPE VARIETIES! Which, fortuitously, leads me back to the title of today’s Cork Talk. Proactively,the wines had been made by grapes harvested from two different, brand new grape vines, grown naturally in controlled vineyards owned by IMIDA. As I said, fascinating!

And why could they, in one way, have been included in the competition? Well, in each case one of the parent varieties of this, the new variety, was, as you might have guessed, Monastrell – therefore, it taking two to tango, the pedant could argue that 50% of the wine was Monastrell! The others, for your interest, were on the one hand, Syrah; and on the other, Cabernet Sauvignon.

(Incidentally, on chatting subsequently with Señor Martínez, from the latter cross, brand new white wine varieties were also produced! I was amazed, but this was explained logically by Adrián who reminded me that Cab Sauv was also born of a crossing, many years ago, one of whose parent vines was Sauvignon Blanc!).

As far back as 2004 work began on this study. In fact, it was a spin-off investigation, following IMIDA’s collaboration with ITUM (Spanish acronym for Research and Technology of Table Grapes), charged with developing seedless table grapes, Murcia now being the largest producer of such grapes in Spain. The onset of climate change was obvious and the wine-making fraternity had (and has) to be proactive – or face the consequential loss of business! Enter Adrián Martínez and his team!

Despite my mother being a pharmacist, I’m no scientist, so the following is a very simplified, and needfully short, version of how these new varieties were produced, described to me in the car by one of the project’s other agricultural engineers as he drove me to lunch after the judging.

Pollen from Cabernet Sauvignon was crossed with flowers from Monastrell. This crossing produced seeds, which were then planted in isolation. Each seed that grows is now a new variety. In the case of the above cross, Cabernet/Monastrell, a staggering 382 different hybrids were produced, with Syrah/Monastrell producing 269!

The parent varieties of the new grape in this, as yet unnamed variety!

And the point of all this research? Well, in1863 the vine pest Phylloxera arrived in the vineyards of France (don’t ask me how, I’m no entomologist either!) and by the end of the century it had decimated the vineyards of Europe! It was a catastrophe for wine producers and consumers alike. Re-actively, a solution was eventually found.

Climate change will be the next catastrophe to hit agriculture, if we aren’t proactive – now. If it’s possible to ‘create’ grape vines that need less water and are resistant to rising temperatures, as well as, perhaps to different biological and insect pests, and any, as yet, unforeseen, attendant problems, then our precious wine will also be protected!

colin@colinharknessonwine.com Facebook Colin Harkness Twitter @colinonwine

Delight (Delit), defined:

A CAUSE, OR SOURCE, OF GREAT PLEASURE!

Quite a claim for a wine, don’t you think? Well, I’ll get on to Delit, from Bodegas Finca Collado, DO Alicante, a little later. I’m first going to talk about their white wine, Finca Collado Chardonnay/Moscatel – which certainly gave me great pleasure!

In DO Alicante there is a plethora of wines made with the Moscatel grape variety. Think white Alicante, think Moscatel. These days, most are successful, gone (more or less) are the days when Moscatel wine meant unbearably sweet white wine. Clone selection; market demand; new, young winemakers coming on-board; ethnic cuisine pairings; and some impressive pioneering work from one or two older generation wine-makers who took the risk – have all played their part.

There are still Moscatel dessert wines, horses for courses, which are excellent, and in my view these should remain in the DO Alicante general portfolio. However, these days most Moscatel wines in this area are in a far, far drier style, endearing them to Asian cuisine, Moroccan dishes and others, as well as making them lovely aperitif drinks on warm and hot Spring and Summer days and nights.

Moscatel is listed in the ‘Aromatic Varieties’ category – and the aroma is very easy to spot – it’s one of the very few grape varieties that actually smells of grapes, or perhaps raisins would be the better description. At a blind tasting it’s a breeze, stands out a mile, giving the taster some confidence to continue!

But not this one!

It’s true that Finca Collado’s Moscatel is only 35% of the blend, but that would normally be easily enough to get the taster on the correct scent, even bearing in mind that the 65% Chardonnay was fermented, and shortly aged, in oak! The secret, as Samuel, son of the founder, told me, is the early harvesting of said Moscatel. The theory being that it’s in the last weeks of the growing season that these raisin/grape aromas really start to develop, so, if picked early we retain fresh acidity, and have a slightly less typical aroma.

I thought this wine exceptional, and will certainly be looking for more, this summer and beyond! It’s super summer drinking, fresh and refreshing, yes, but that’s not all – it’s rounded, but fresh, has elegance, depth and body too. When tasting it I kept thinking that it reminded me of another variety, a French grape, but it took me a while to remember. There’s a melon fruit note to this wine, redolent of the lovely wines of southern France, made with Marsanne and Roussanne, along with faint citrus and mango notes, with a super floral bouquet too.

And the delightful red? Well, Delit, from Bodegas Finca Collado, is a wine of its time. Monastrell is the variety used – one of my favourite grape varieties, so it definitely started on the front foot for me. It’s only just been released, after two years in the bodega where the grapes, hand harvested from 70 yrs old vines in 2016, went through fermentation and subsequent aging in 300 litre French oak barricas, slightly larger than usual 250 litres, meaning a touch less oak influence.

This wine is a monovarietal, making use of old vines grown in the area around the bodega’s location, the Salinas Valley, close to the Salinas lake, and rising into the foothills of the Sierra Salinas mountains, by growers who, before, were content to simply sell to the local co-operative. An agreement was reached where the grapes would be guaranteed to be bought by Finca Collado, provided that vineyard management could be exclusively carried out by the Collado winemakers and staff. The arrangement worked well, though Finca Collado was also thinking of the future, looking in fact for total control – i.e. the owning of these venerable old vineyards. Another agreement was reached, and the vineyards duly acquired.

The bodega now has a good selection of international and national/local varieties, making wines for sale in Spain, but also with a view to creating and expanding international markets. I’m certain they’ll do well.

Delit is a wine that makes you reach again for the bottle after you’ve finished the first glass. It has some dark fruits, plum and damson, as we would expect from this variety, with some Picota cherries too, plus, simultaneously, elegance and power on the palate. There’s also a pleasant, if light, tough of mountain herbs on the nose – bay and thyme.

Finca Collado (www.facebook.com/fincacollado/) is a young bodega on which we should keep a watchful eye! For example, I hear, from Samuel, that there will, quite soon, be a rather special red wine, released only in Magnum, destined to become a flagship of the winery; along with a white, a little later, made with old vine, lees-aged Malvasía. You can guarantee I’ll be looking to get my hands on a bottle each of these!

‘Delightful’ wines!

Contact Colin: colin@colinharknessonwine.com; www.colinharknessonwine.com; Twitter @colinonwine; Facebook Colin Harkness; Youtube: Colin Harkness On Wine

Black Chardonnay? Orange Wine? How Can This Be?

ORANGE WINE & BLACK CHARDONNAY

Bodegas Pigar, whose co-founder (recently, and with his father), Juan Piqueras, International Wine & Spirits Competition Gold Medal winning wine-maker (when working for another winery) crafts a Spanish Chardonnay, that I believe will become a benchmark for its style. He also makes a super Orange Wine – and yes, you are starting to hear more about this newly revived, but ancient (that’s 8,000 yrs!) method of making wine!

Let’s start with the Chardonnay. (Incidentally, I used to know a dog called Chardonnay, a beautiful Golden Retriever, named presumably after an Aussie Chardy, because of the colour! However, she perhaps might have been named after a Black Retriever – you’ll understand why soon!).

Juan’s Pigar Chardonnay 2017 isn’t in the style of such a richly coloured Aussie Chardonnay; nor is it like an opulent, oak first Californian one of a few decades ago. It isn’t a steely Chablis, or an elegant Burgundy. It makes its own mark – and all the better for it. However, its creation does owe something to an old style Burgundy!

Juan’s Chardonnay vines are but ten years old and grown in dry soil, yes, but it’s quite fertile too, which in some ways is the antithesis of modern fine wine making. The nutrients in the soil provoke lots of bunches, which is what Juan requires for this wine, as lots of bunches mean that the grapes remain very small and, crucially, ripen slowly. This, in turn, means that they maintain the exact level of acidity that he requires.

Now for the Burgundy bit: Black Chardonnay (presumably translated from the French?), is the name given to an old (perhaps 80yrs) method of wine-making, from Chardonnay’s natural home! The juice from the grapes is subjected to the oxygen that’s in the air, turning it almost black! However, soon the phenols that are in the must (juice), because of the crushing (note, crushing, not gentle pressing), start to feed on the oxygen, magically eradicating it and returning the chardonnay juice to its natural colour, before fermentation, using wild yeasts! Fascinating* – and completely new to me!

For extra texture, as well as a contribution to the flavour of the wine, this Chardonnay is left with its lees for six months, with stirring, resulting in a slight, very pleasing creaminess. However there is also the fresh, and refreshing acidity, which keeps the wine fully alive.

The result is an astonishingly good, Spanish Chardonnay!

Juan has also just marketed his Orange or Amber wine. Orange wines are made from white wine grape varieties, but with extended skin contact – as in red wine making. This long skin contact gives the wine an amber, or orange colour – but a lot more too! I’ve tasted several Orange Wines recently and I have to say, I’m a fan – though they are dividing commentators.

I actually think that they will eventually be accepted by most wine people, and ultimately most consumers as well. I hear, for example, that it’s common in Canada for Orange Wines to feature on restaurant wine lists, up there with whites, reds, rosés et al. Conservative minded Spain (wine-wise, that is, given the recent change in Prime Minister!) will take some convincing – but I’m predicting that it will happen!

If you’d like to try this ‘new’ style of wine, Pigar Orange Wine is available now. The generally accepted idea is that such wines do better when they are made from aromatic varieties – Moscatel is such a variety, of course, and prevalent in the Costa Blanca. It is used in Juan’s Orange Wine, but at only 10% it’s contribution has to be less than that of the other shareholder, Tardana, also known as Planta Nova.

This variety is rare, used mostly just in Utiel-Requena. Along with the Moscatel, it was kept in contact with the skins for 25 days and fermented in tinajas, earthenware amphorae, where it was aged for four months. I love it!

But how to describe it! It has a certain nutty aroma, there’s a sense of it being a little like a spirit in its mouthfeel and flavour and smell, with faint touches of very dry cider (the English type, served cloudy – though the wine is clear) and perhaps bruised apples and pears. Astounding – you have to try it!

Bodegas Pigar is a work in progress. Juan has established himself and his wines in the market place – however, he is not satisfied with just that. He’s just produced a Sparkling Wine, made with the very old and DO Utiel-Requena de-listed variety, Royal, by the Ancestral Method, which precedes the Champagne Method, now known as the Traditional Method. You can contact Juan Piqueras here bodegaspigar@gmail.com