I don’t often learn about wine from the postman, but a knock on my door this morning made me realise that the Viña Sol wine brand, made by Miguel Torres in Spain, is now over 50 years old having been produced in every vintage since 1962.
Viña Sol cannot be underestimated, it certainly put Miguel Torres squarely on the world wine map, showed that Catalunya was an up and coming wine region and proved to sceptic drinkers everywhere that Spain could make bright, crisp dry white wines.
At dinner with Miguel Torres in Vilafranca del Penedés in 2011.
The wine is still good and at the very least provides a well made and reliable wine to cling to when all else fails. Nowadays the grapes are sourced from Denominación de Origen Catalunya which covers the whole region, but the quality remains high. Made from the local Parellada – also one of the key Cava grapes – Viña Sol is bright, crisp, fresh and lively and at only 11.5% alcohol is light and very drinkable indeed. Above all I always think of Viña Sol as a fresh wine, so I was amused to read the slogan in the leaflet that was also in the box: “Fifty years of freshness“.
It is no mean feat for someone to have created a wine that is still popular and respected after 50 years of production, but of course that is just one of the things that Miguel Torres has achieved. During that half century he was also one of the people most responsible for modernising Spanish wine with the introduction of modern wine making techniques including the use of stainless steel and cold fermentation. He also brought French grape varieties to Spain to help produce a more internationalised range of wines in the 1960s, before championing Spain’s native grape varieties in more recent times.
All that of course would be more than enough for most of us, but from 1979 he did all this all over again in Chile and was at the forefront of modernising the Chilean wine industry and it’s outlook too. Not many people can claim to have anything like the level of influence on the world of wine that Miguel Torres has and continues to have with his strong brands and wide range of very good quality wines.
The box containing 2 bottles of Viña Sol & decorated with reproductions of Viña Sol labels through the ages.
I know that Viña Sol is 50 years old because this morning my postman thrust a parcel into my hand – always an exciting event. When I opened it I found it contained a wonderful gift box decorated with photographs of Torres wine being made and loaded onto trucks. These pictures have no date on them, but do have that unmistakable feel of the 1960s, that look of a world very alien to our own and yet not totally different either.
The 2 bottles, snug in their box. The current label is on the left, “Spanish Chablis” on the right.
Nestling inside the box are 2 bottles of 2012 Torres Viña Sol, one with the current label and screw cap, while the other is dressed in the traditional style that I remember from my childhood. It is complete with a real cork and rather bravely the label even proclaims itself to be “Spanish Chablis” just as Viña Sol used to be labelled back in the ’60s when wine was still considered to be a “French” thing, by British drinkers anyway.
I am thrilled by this gift box, happy memories spent drinking Torres wine came flooding back, but it has given me a real problem. Do I keep the lovely special edition bottle with the old style label, or simply drink it and enjoy it as wine should be?
Whatever I decide I will wish Viña Sol a very happy birthday.
Torres Viña Sol is widely available in the UK from Waitrose, Majestic, Tesco, Ocado and Wine Rack among many others.
Quentin Sadler's Wine Page 