Strawberry Fields Forever

Les Freses de Jesús Pobre.

Spain never lets me down. I love wine from all around the world and am passionate about wines from everywhere and about the countries and regions that spawn them, but I always return to my first love – Spain.

I am only in this business because of my misspent youth in Spain and the healthy relationship – I hope – that gave me to alcohol. It certainly made me like wine, but I am not sure that is entirely the same thing.

Over the years I have seen huge changes in Spanish wine. Once upon a time only the reds were really good and even then only from one or two regions – principally Rioja of course. During my 34 years in the wine business the wine revolution has spread out throughout Spain and produced startlingly good results.

Rioja has got better and better and high quality reds are now made in more and more unlikely places and the reds of the south are now at least as exciting as the more traditional regions of northern Spain. Look out for red wines from Valencia and Utiel Requena made from the Bobal grape and wines from Alicante and Jumilla made from Monastrell – aka Mourvédre and Mataro.

Torres led the way with modern whites in the 1960s and ’70s and today the white wines of Spain are amongst the most exciting of all. Galicia, Rueda and Rioja all make world class white wines today, but so too do some much less well known areas like Terra Alta in Catalunya which produces blindingly good Garnacha Blanca / Garnatxa Blanc / Grenache Blanc. Albillo is making some stunning white wines in Castilla y León, while Merseguera is the white grape to watch in the Comunidad Valenciano, especially Alicante.

One of the really lovely things that I have noticed in Spain in recent years is the way passionate people are training as winemakers, working in the industry for a while to gain experience and then buying or renting small parcels of vines in order to craft very personal wines. These projects are really thrilling and you can see them up and down the country, budding winemakers nurturing forgotten vineyards and coaxing them back to life – or sometimes planting them from scratch – and producing wonderfully expressive wines. The classic examples of course are Enrique Basarte and Elisa Úcar’s Domaine Lupier in Navarra and Charlotte Allen’s Piritia in DO Arribes on the Western fringes of Castilla y León, but such micro-wineries can be found everywhere and they often give interesting impetus to regions that in the past have often been very over reliant on the local cooperatives. In much of Spain from the 1940s onwards big production was the thing, so the cooperatives churned out huge volumes of palatable – by local standards – wine to slake the thirst of local workers with almost no regard to quality as we would understand it today. All that is changing of course, but anything that can help that is all to the good and the creation of new, quality focused estates even in unlikely corners of Spain can only help.

The view from the family home, Casa Tranquilla – photo by Hilary Sadler, my brother. That mountain is the Montgó, you will note that we can see the sea between the land and the sky. Las Freses is perhaps half a kilometre round the terraced hill in the foreground, behind and to the left of the tree in the front and centre of the photograph you can just about make out the road that curves around to the crossroads.

I have family in Spain so visit rather a lot. Indeed my family have had a holiday home in the Xàbia, or Jávea, area of the Comunidad Valenciana since 1965, the year I was born and the year that I first went to Spain. Initially we had an apartment on the Arenal, or beach area, and I well remember standing on the balcony and looking out at orange groves and vineyards as far as my eyes could see. Today all you see is more blocks of flats – thankfully for the view they are all low rise. In the early 1970s my father had a villa built near the tiny village of Jesús Pobre some 12 kilometres or so inland and that is where he now lives.

Map of Spain’s wine regions. I have marked Javea and Jesús Pobre.

Last week was my father’s 91st birthday and so I popped out to help him celebrate.

Just around the corner from our house – and down a very steep hillside – is a crossroads. When I was a boy that crossroads was in a deep pine forest. As more and more villas were built, more and more land was cleared for more building, so the pine trees were cut down on our side of the road with a view to putting up some villas. Things move slowly in Spain and permission was not forthcoming, so as a stopgap the owner turned the land into a strawberry farm, which it remained for many years.

In the meantime there were quite a lot of vineyards around that grew Moscatel – Muscat – to produce the local Moscatel de la Marina, – also see here – a lightly fortified Muscat made from overripe and partially dried grapes. Slowly people lost the taste for this wine and the vineyards often fell into disuse, almost never grubbed up, but abandoned.

Les Freses complete with the Montgó and all that remains of the pine trees behind.

A few years ago the land around our village was declared agricultural land and no new building is permitted. The owner could no longer develop it and sold it to Mara Bañó who from 2009 has transformed it into a vineyard. She has also built a beautiful and superbly equipped micro-winery –  I have seen smaller, but not many – that is just full of the most wonderful new equipment and made me itch to have a go at winemaking.

In order to show continuity with the past Mara named her new estate and winery Les Freses de Jesús Pobre. I assume that les freses is the Valenciano word for strawberries, but Valenciano is usually the same or similar to Catalan and I understand that the Catalan word for strawberries is maduixes – so who knows.

I had wanted to try the wines ever since I heard about them, so dropped in and had a chat with Mara and tried all her wines that were available.

What I found amazed me. This area has no real tradition of producing quality wines at all and almost no tradition of producing dry wine, yet here were world class wines being made in a place that is never mentioned in any of the wine books.

As you might expect from a small estate made in a dry place by a young and passionate wine maker, these are “natural“ wines grown organically, fermented spontaneously with the wild yeast and have as little intervention as possible and as little sulphur used as is possible.

Mara does grow some black grapes and so a red wine and a rosé are in the pipeline, but the focus is the whites for the moment, which I think suits the region, its food and climate.

Given their diet – this near the coast anyway – it is strange how resistant the Spanish have always been to white wines. They even have a saying “si no es tinto, no es vino“, which means if it isn’t red then it isn’t wine and until very recently they lived by that. Nowadays the sheer quality of Spanish white wines seems to have broken that down somewhat and they are beginning to stock pretty good ranges of white in the shops and supermarkets. Even my favourite restaurant in Valencia, which used to only list 1 white wine, compared to 25 reds, has now greatly expanded its offering.

Young wire trained vines at Les Freses with the Montgó behind – photo courtesy of the winery.

Mara only grows one white grape at the moment, the traditional Moscatel de Alejandría – Muscat of Alexandria –  but she makes three very different wines from it. The estate forms a single, triangular shaped block on the lower, very gentle slopes of the iconic Montgó mountain which rears up very near our house like a huge squatting elephant. It rises to 753 metres above sea level and dominates the area. It runs west to east, so vines on its south face sit in a perfect sun trap. The soils are pretty rocky limestone with rich red clay too.

The wines

2017 Les Freses Blanc Moscatell Sec

100% Moscatel, harvested by hand and sent to the sorting table for a rigorous selection and manual destemming. Spontaneous fermentation in stainless steel, with its own yeasts and then aged for 4 months on the lees in 54 litre glass demijohns – that is very traditionally Spanish but usually only seen for rancio wines and dessert wines.

This is the standard wine from the estate and it is very appealing, lively with lifted notes of peach, peach skin, almonds and sea salt.

The palate is pristine, salty, mineral and ever so slightly smoky – those lees? – with a silky texture, taut peach and succulent grape flavours, enough acidity and freshness to balance it and that saline touch on the finish. Perfect with sea bass and much else I am sure – 90/100 points.

€10 per bottle locally.

It is at this point that I should admit that I generally avoid dry Muscat wines. I do not like it as a grape generally, finding it cloying, flowery and low in acidity. That being said I loved this, it really worked and I drank it all up!

Bush vines at Les Freses.

2017 Les Freses Àmfora Blanc Sec

This is the top dry white from the estate with a careful selection of the best fruit and then fermented in a big tinaja, which is like a big earthenware pot like a Qvervi in Georgia. They are very traditional in Spain and were widely used up until the 1970s/1980s. In those days they were usually buried in the ground and fell out of favour because they were usually very old and hard to clean so spoiled the wine in many cases. Nowadays they are much better made and easier to clean.

The nose is less vivacious and more dense but with lovely notes of almond and delicate orange.

This wine is much more about the palate and is more concentrated with a gorgeous silky texture that flows very attractively across your senses. There is dense stone fruit, the acidity feels more vibrant, there is a twist of orange peel, those almonds are toasted this time. It has that salinity and a tangy, vibrant feel that balances the viscosity and richness. This wine is amazingly intense and fundamentally dry, but the intensity of the fruit almost makes you think it is slightly sweet – so it feels sort of sweet and sour. A great wine – 92/100 points.

€20 per bottle locally.

2017 Les Freses Dolç

I actually do not know how this wine is made. It is not fortified, or doesn’t taste it anyway, so I think the grapes are late harvested and slightly dried.

It has a lovely golden caramel colour with aromas of light raisins, dates and figs, rich nuts, buttery caramel and orange peel.

The palate is sweet without being cloying. Caramel, creamy orange, fig, cinder toffee, intensely ripe apricots and fleshy peaches all swirl around the palate. A touch of bitterness and sweet spice keeps it balanced and accentuates the complexity. A stunning dessert wine of great class and complexity – 93/100 points.

€17 per bottle locally.

The carob tart that I enjoyed with the Les Freses Dolç in Pedro’s, the main bar and restaurant in the small village of Jesús Pobre. I had never tasted carob before, except for nibbling on the beans plucked from the trees growing around our house when I was a boy, it was very good and perfect with the wine.

These are wines of the highest order, yet made quite casually by a single passionate person. They are produced in a place long written off by the great and the good of wine production and because they come from my spiritual home I was pretty emotional about them and more delighted to taste them than you can imagine. Do try them if you get the area – and I know lots of people do – you can buy them at the winery and in the local wineshops – such as this one: Vins i Mes, but not supermarkets. Many of the local restaurants – including Pedro’s – have them too.

I was put in mind of this quote by Matt Kramer the American wine writer: “The greatest wines today are not, paradoxical as this may sound, the so-called great wines”. The wines that excite me most and give me the most pleasure often come from the unlikely corners and forgotten places.

Clairette – a surprising white grape from the Languedoc

Whilst in the Languedoc recently I was able to go on lots of study trips of the wine areas and also to attend quite a few masterclasses – in fact I have been thrilled this year to learn that the French, Croat and Slovene words for masterclass are, well, masterclass!

The beautiful Domaine La Croix Chaptal – photo courtesy of the winery.

One of the best of these masterclasses was about a little known white wine called Clairette du Languedoc. The appellation / PDO was created in 1948, making it the oldest white wine PDO in the Languedoc. Only one grape is permitted, the Clairette or Clairette Blanche, which is really only found in the Rhône, Provence and Languedoc regions. It is a low acid, but high alcohol grape, so can make pretty flabby wines if you are not careful with it. It is widely grown in the Southern Rhône, where it is used as a blending grape, including in Châteauneuf-du-Pape. The grape lends its name to the sweet sparkling Clairette de Die, despite only 25% of Clairette being allowed in the finished wine, the rest must be Muscat – originally it was 100% Clairette.

In the Languedoc two areas specialise in the grape Clairette de Bellegarde, in the far east of the region near the Rhône, and Clairette du Languedoc, just west of Montpellier. So troublesome was the grape that in the past it was often used as the basis of vermouth rather than being drunk on its own, and further back in history it was a sweet wine – the dry versions were apparently called Picardon and the sweet ones Clairette. Luckily though, as is so often the case, modern know-how has come to its rescue and in the Clairette du Languedoc zone a modest renaissance is underway. The sea is only 20 km away and sighting the vineyards to catch the sea breezes and the refreshing Tramontane wind is very important to retain freshness.

Map of the Languedoc-Roussillon region, click for a larger view.

The appellation is the smallest in the Languedoc with just 100 hectares of vineyard and 18 producers, 7 of which are cooperatives, but it produces four styles of wine all from the single grape. Fresh, dry whites are made, as well as sweet versions, long wood aged rancio wines and fortified Vins Doux Naturels. I tasted examples of all of these and truthfully found the sweet versions to be a bit light and lacking, which is a shame as there is more sweet wine made here than dry. The drier styles quite excited me though and I brought one back to show in a tasting and it excited everyone there too.

The beautiful Domaine La Croix Chaptal – photo courtesy of the winery.

2014 Domaine La Croix Chaptal Clairette Blanche 
Domaine La Croix Chaptal
AC / AOP Clairette du Languedoc
Languedoc
France

This delightful estate is owned by Charles-Walter Pacaud who hails from the Cognac region, but fell in love with Languedoc’s Terrasses du Larzac while studying winemaking in Montpellier. He managed to buy this estate which has a recorded history going back to the 10th century, but Gallo-Roman archeological finds in the vineyards suggest the land has been in use for a lot longer than that. Most of what he produces is either Coteaux du Languedoc, Languedoc or Languedoc Terrasses du Larzac, with just one hectare being Clairette, but they are old vines that give better concentration and they grow on well drained stony and gravelly soil.

Charles-Walter Pacaud tending his vines – photo courtesy of the winery.

The grapes are harvested by hand, as required in the appellation, destined and spend a little time macerating on the skins for flavour and texture development. 30% is aged in new oak on the lees, with the rest aged in stainless steel tank on the lees for 18 months.

The aromas are quite beguiling, very mineral, herbal – especially fennel and vanilla – together with honey, almonds, peach skin and light toast. The palate is more fleshy with some burnt orange and a mouth-filling texture. there is even a very attractive touch of Fino sherry about it, just a point of oxidation that makes it quite delicious. The finish is very long and mineral and the more you come back to this wine the better it gets. A wonderful discovery, try it if you can – 91/100 points.

This would be wonderful with rich fish dishes, shellfish with garlic butter, fish pie, Coquilles Saint Jacques, chicken and all manner of cheeses too.

Sadly this excellent wine is not available in the UK, so contact the winery direct. I cannot find any other examples of the region available here either, so make sure you try it when you are over there.
For US stockists, click here.

Wine of the Week – a fine Tawny Port

Vineyards on the banks of the Douro in Port country.

I am in a real Port mood at the moment. I cannot imagine why as it is spectacularly unseasonal, but I just seem to have tasted a few Ports recently that have fired up my imagination for this wonderful wine style.

I like Port, I have always liked Port and enjoy it very much, but I don’t actually drink very much of it as it can be pretty heady stuff – especially the rich Ruby types – including LBV – and Vintage.

However, there are lighter styles – Tawnies – and it is some these that I have tasted and enjoyed of late. I say enjoyed, I mean loved!

It is always fascinating to taste a range of Ports and recently I was fortunate enough to taste my way through several that really pleased and impressed me. I will write more about some of those soon, but today I have chosen one of my favourites as my Wine of the Week.

Ruby ports ageing in wooden vats at Quinta do Noval.

Sandeman 20 Year Old Tawny
Sandeman
Villa Nova de Gaia
Porto
Portugal

We have all heard of Sandman I am sure. Who can have failed to see the iconic caped figure – The Don – on a label or in advertisement at some point, but many of us might not be aware quite what a venerable company it is. It was founded in 1790 by George Sandeman – a direct descendant, also called George Sandeman, is still involved with the company – a young Scot who quickly made his mark. It helped the development of his business that he served on the Duke of Wellington’s staff during The Peninsular War. The Duke, although a great soldier and fine commander, was a notorious snob who looked down on anyone who was not of the nobility, so tended to fill his staff with the scions of wealthy and titled families. Throughout the long campaign these young men were able to enjoy George’s Ports and I am sure that the preference for Sandeman’s Port stayed with them throughout their lives. Certainly business was good for a long time to come, with Sandman being a byword for quality until well into the twentieth century. There was a bit of a dip in its fortunes for 20 years from 1982 when it was taken over by Seagrams, but in 2001 Sandemans became part of the impressive Sogrape group and its future now seems bright.

Although Sandman produce all the important styles of Port, including some superb vintages and single quinta vintages, they appear to be something of a Tawny specialist. A true Tawny Port is one that has been aged for a long time in wood – the best examples are sold with an indication of age on the label, 10 year old etc. All that time in wood makes the wine paler and more orange – or tawny – and less sweet and more nutty and caramel-like than a Ruby Port or an LBV. They can be served lightly chilled too, which makes them more versatile wines.

It is really the maturing that defines a Tawny’s style. It is a blend of different vintages and vineyards aged for different lengths of time in different wooden vessels, none of them new – they don’t want the oak to dominate. This particular Tawny is a blend of wines varying from between 15 and 40 years old.

Tawnies and Colheitas (single vintage Tawnies) ageing in cask at Quinta do Noval.

The nose offers a lively mix of rose hips, orange, apricot and caramel, while the palate is creamy with a buttery caramel quality and a rich nutty feel. There is plenty of fruit too, but it has evolved into a gentle plum, raisins and dried red fruit together with a dash of spice. It doesn’t really feel that sweet, although it is, as the nutty and slight salty feel dominate the palate giving it an umami feel and the illusion of savoury richness. The alcohol is nicely balanced and is part of the whole, while the finish is long and satisfying, helped I think by a nice seam of freshness. A glass or 2 of this before going to bed would make all feel right with the world. Mind you, lightly chilled it would make a lovely late afternoon tipple too, or after lunch, or elevenses, you get the picture. A glorious example of fine Tawny port – 92/100 points.

Available in the UK at around £30-35 per bottle from Waitrose, Waitrose Cellar, Slurp, Hedonism Wines, Corking Wines and Lea & Sandeman.
For US stockists, click here.

 

 

Wine of the Week 36 – an amazing sweet Muscat

There’s always a time for a dessert wine, they are often the most popular wines at tastings and that proved to be the case recently when I tutored a tasting on Navarra wines at Dulwich Wine Society – although all the wines met with great approval actually.

By the way, if you live anywhere around the Dulwich area by the way, it is well worth joining this august wine tasting group. They meet weekly, which is very impressive, I don’t know of any other such society that meets more than once a month. They are nice people, full of enthusiasm and they seem to like having me round to tutor tastings. This my 18th tasting for them in 22 years, I was only just 28 when I first presented to them and have recently turned 50! How that time has flown.

So, my topic was Navarra, that wonderful, half forgotten wine region that neighbours Rioja in the north of Spain. I visited Navarra not long ago and was very impressed by many of the wines, excited about them even and am still astonished that so few are easily available to the UK wine consumer.

Map of Navarra – click for a larger view. High-res non-watermarked versions of my maps are available by agreement.

If wine drinkers have a mental picture about any sort of wine that Navarra produces at all, it is probably the rosés / rosados made from Garnacha / Grenache, but that is just a tiny part of what Navarra produces. While I was there I tasted magnificent Chardonnays – like this one and this one too, superb Cabernet and Merlot blends – like this one and this one, and tasted stunning Tempranillo blends – like this one and this one.  I also got taste wines that I was not expecting at all, like the wonderful old vine Garnacha / Grenache wines that they make in Navarra. They grow these vines high up in Navarra, in the mountains, where the air is cool and the climate is dominate by the Atlantic rather than the Mediterranean. I found this created the most amazingly different Grenache with freshness, acidity and elegance, they really are something special and I have written about different examples here and here. So, there is lots going on in Navarra, many different styles and a big variety of grapes being grown – the list above barely scratches the surface.

Perhaps it is this very diversity that is Navarra’s problem? It is possible that because people do not know what to expect from a bottle of Navarra? That they don’t look on Navarra wine as an old friend as they often do the products of neighbouring Rioja. That’s only my theory, but it might in part account for Navarra’s lack of visibility on wine shop and supermarket shelves.

Whatever the reason, it is a great shame as Navarra produces superb wines in a wonderful array of styles – even dessert wine and one of those wowed the good people of Dulwich Wine Society the other night, and so I have made it my Wine of the Week.

Moscatel Capricho d’Goya
Bodegas Camilo Castilla
Corella
D.O.Navarra Ribera Baja sub-zone
This wine is bonkers! It is amazingly concentrated and ripe with deep prune, fig and raisin characters, rum, caramel and nutty toffee too. It is made a bit like a Madeira, being aged for 3 years in glass demijohns on the roof of the winery. They leave it out in all weathers, to concentrate in the searing summer heat and the snows of winter. After that it spends a further 4 years in barrels developing rich, figgy, molasses-like characters before being bottled.

Capricho d’Goya ageing in old barrels – permission of the winery.

Capricho d’Goya ageing in glass demijohns outside – permission of the winery.

This wine is so, so lovely, like sticky toffee pudding in a glass – who needs the dessert? In style it is like a joyous cross between Pedro Ximénez (PX) and Rutherglen Muscat with more freshness and salinity. It is intensely sweet, but also has an intense savoury richness, a seam of refreshing acidity and great complexity that makes it a joy to just sip and contemplate. This truly is a great wine – 93/100 points.

Available in the UK from Greys Fine Foods @ £15.755 per half litre / 500cl.

This is a superb sweet wine, one of the best Muscats that I have ever tasted, probably the very best in fact. It deserves to be more widely known and appreciated, as does the Navarra region and all the wonderful wines that it produces.

 

 

Navarra – diversity, delights & surprises

 

Navarra’s landscape – count the windmills – Don Quixote would have had his work cut out today!

I have recently returned from my first wine trip to Navarra and I am excited, as well as mystified, by what I found.

History long ago robbed Navarra of its coastline, although the northern tip is very near the sea, while modern economics has so far deprived the region of an international airport, so the easiest way to visit is either via nearby Bilbao or Biarritz and it is well worth the effort.

The thronging streets of Pamplona.

Pamplona’s beautiful city hall.

One of Pamplona’s many excellent bars.

Dinner, Spanish ham is the very best thing with any wine.

Pamplona, the region’s capital, is a compact, handsome Spanish city with a lovely mediaeval centre whose main square, the delightful Plaza del Castillo, is surrounded by enticing little streets lined with superb tapas bars and teeming with life – except on a Sunday night. The square itself is home to the famous Café Iruña which is well worth a visit as it is a great bar serving just about anything you could imagine from chocolate y churros to full meals. It is also a tourist attraction itself though, as it is an incredibly beautiful building whose sumptuous interior dates from 1888 and was once Ernest Hemingway’s watering hole of choice – indeed their restaurant on the mezzanine floor is named in his honour and there is a bronze statue of him at the bar.

Hemingway at the Café Iruña.

There is much for a hedonist to enjoy in Pamplona and I would highly recommend that you spend a few days there. I was also very glad to renew my acquaintance with Olite which is a small Navarran town that is home to the 14th century Palacio Real de Olite and whose Parador is in a 15th century palace and castle. I spent my 4th birthday there and well remember the mixture of excitement and trepidation I felt when passing the suits of armour on the stairs leading up to our turret room – perhaps I had watched too much Scooby-Doo, as I was certain they would come to life and attack me!

The heart of Olite.

Lovely though all that was, I was here for the wine. I really wanted to get to grips with what made Navarra tick, how its wine industry sees itself and what it does well. I had some ideas, but what I experienced was a real surprise.

I found a very mixed picture indeed. I know the region produces a great deal of Garnacha (Grenache) rosé / rosado, but I went there expecting to find a confident wine region that produced good quality Tempranillo based red blends. In the main I anticipated tasting lots of good wines a bit like Rioja, but offering better value for money and which had some Cabernet and Merlot in them. In my mind Navarra was right up there with Rioja and Ribera del Duero as a quality wine region, but was somehow ignored by the consumer.

Well, broadly speaking I was right about the value for money and the general quality, but not much else. What I found instead was a wine region with incredible variety. In fact if there was any single message I could take away it was that Navarra has great diversity and produces an extraordinary array of wines.

Which we are all used to from the new world, but not so much from European regions and it makes it very difficult to sum up what Navarra is all about. Which must be at least one reason why it is so hard to find Navarra wines for sale in the UK – diversity of styles is not an easy sell. Try as I might I just cannot sum Navarra up in a simple phrase or single style, which might make the wines difficult to sell, but it also makes them pretty interesting.

However this lack of a single identity seems to echo that of the region itself. The place is cool, green and mountainous in the north where it borders France’s Basque regions and at one point is just 12 km from the Atlantic. To the south Navarra is a hot, arid plain and more like the Spain of our imaginations – in fact every time we ventured south of Tafalla the rain stopped and the landscape was noticeably drier.

Historically too the region has a very mixed heritage. It was once home to the Vascones, a tribe who managed to negotiate a respected place for themselves within the Roman Empire and the whole Ebro Valley became Romanised, rich and known as Ager Vasconum. In later history these people became both the Basques and the Gascons and the wider area became the Kingdom of Navarre. This country straddled the Pyrenees and from 1224 was ruled by French dynasties including that of Thibault 1 the Comte de Champagne – which partly explains why Taittinger Champagne is so widely available in Pamplona. It was not until 1512 that Navarra was incorporated into Spain, making it the last piece of mainland Spain to be absorbed. Even then it retained its own systems and some autonomy, while the people still kept many of their traditional freedoms that made Navarra less feudal than much of Spain.

A glance at my map will show you that the Navarra wine region only covers a part of the southern half of the region. They shy away from growing grapes in the cooler north or the mountains – even though Navarra has land very close to Getariako Txakolina and borders France’s Irouléguy regions – and plant solely where there is more sun to ripen the grapes.

Many of the wine areas are very close to Rioja and indeed some parts of Navarra’s southern fringes that hug the Ebro River are included in the Rioja Denominación de Origen Calificada / DOCa rather than Navarra’s Denominación de Origen / DO.

In all honesty I find it very hard to get to grips with Navarra’s wine history. It would appear to have all the same things going for it that made Rioja such a force to be reckoned with – in fact it is even closer to Bordeaux and has more French connections if anything. So why phyloxerra was the making of nearby Rioja, but almost destroyed Navarra seems to be something of a mystery. Of the 50.000 hectares of vines in production before Phyloxerra struck, 48,500 were wiped out and it took a long, long time to recover and even now they only have some 12,000 hectares.

Having studied the history of Rioja to some degree and toured Navarra, it strikes me that even today Navarra is a land of grape growers and estates, whereas Rioja is only just returning to being a land of wine estates after a century and a half of being dominated by producers who mainly made wine brands with bought in fruit. The difference might be as simple as that, Rioja was in great part controlled by big producers with the money and knowhow to turn bought grapes into good wine and Navarra’s growers would have struggled to keep up with nothing like the clout or economies of scale.

So, Navarra missed its moment and had to watch as Rioja became the dominant Spanish wine region and for a long time the only one with true international demand and world renown. The consequences of that are still apparent today and I was really very surprised how there is no clear identity for Navarra even now. They use a broad palette of grapes and produce many different styles of wine. Which makes it slightly harder for the consumer to navigate their way around, but much of what I tasted proved that Navarra is well worth the effort.

Map of Navarra – click for a larger view. High-res non-watermarked versions of my maps are available by agreement.

Navarra’s Sub-zones & Climate
Navarra, like Rioja, is made up of sub-zones – 5 of them in fact, however they do not seem to be mentioned on the labels or wine details. So although they are different, have varied soils and differing climatic conditions, the consumer does not really notice whether the wine is from one or the other or is a blend from across the region.

Senorio de Saría in Valdizarbe.

Valdizarbe is the most northerly and cool, often with chalky soils.

Tierra Estella.

Tierra Estella is a beautiful and lush place with limestone soils and gently warm with noticeably moist ( sub-humid) conditions – it was certainly damp while I was there.

Old vines in Baja Montaña.

Baja Montaña is unlike all the other sub-zones. It produces very little wine and is high and cool, however these sunny, but cool hilly vineyards have well drained gravel and limestone soils that together with cool nights seem to be able to produce some astonishing wines – this struck me as a place to watch.

Bodegas Inurieta in Ribera Alta.

Ribera Alta is a large area that accounts for around a third of all Navarra production. The soils are sand and limestone in the main with a gentle Mediterranean climate that makes it warmer than the 3 northern sub-zones.

Vines in Ribera Baja.

Ribera Baja is actually south of Rioja and is the warmest and driest part of Navarra with an arid Mediterranean climate that produces piquillo peppers as well as being home to the largest number of bodegas in Navarra. This arid plain is a sun trap with sandy soils. Moscatel / Muscat performs well here as well as the red varieties.

Piquillo peppers hung out to dy.

Right now these sub-zones seem to me to be largely an irrelevance which reduces the impact of a simple message about Navarra DO. Remember that Rioja on the whole ignores its sub-zones, but perhaps they will become more important and relevant as Navarra builds its following.

Rosado – Navarra’s standard-bearer
I suspect that most wine drinkers will have tried a Rosé Garnacha from Navarra – even if they unaware of what it was. These wines are hard to avoid in Spain and are perfect with tapas – our little group of wine writers tasted quite a few examples while in Navarra and many were very good indeed. I have not always been excited by Garnacha rosado, usually being more tempted by Tempranillo or Bobal versions, but the sheer pleasure that some of them delivered has turned me – all of these were deliciously drinkable if undemanding and I would happily drink them with anything or nothing:

2012 Garnacha Rosado Mediodia
Bodegas Inurietta
This is also sold by Adnams as their Adnams Selection Rosado ‘Monte Arlas’

2012 Nekeas Garnacha Rosado
Bodegas Nekeas – they also produce Morrisons Signature Navarra Garnacha Rosé

2012 Gran Feudo Garnacha Rosado
Bodegas Chivite
We actually had this a few times as it is omnipresent in Pamplona’s tapas bars – indeed it is the best selling Rosé in Spain.

It is delightful and goes with anything at all – a vibrant, happy, juicy wine bursting with fruit.

2012 Señorio de Sarria Garnacha Rosado
Bodegas Señorio de Sarria

A lovely, vibrant and bright wine with rich red fruit, almost, but not quite sweetly ripe and a nice dash of tangy acidity. This would perhaps be my choice as representative of good Garnacha rosado.

2012 Ochoa Rosado de Lagrima
Bodegas Ochoa
This is made by the delightful Adriana Ochoa who has worked around the world, especially in Australia with Yalumba and the influences show – both ways actually as she persuaded Yalumba to make Tempranillo. This was the palest rosé that I tried on the trip and it was made from a 50/50 blend of Cabernet Sauvignon and Garnacha. It was perhaps the most delicate that we tasted, which gave it a little more class with some minerality, fresh acidity, red fruit and even a touch of tannin making it balanced as well as delicious – it was perfect with our delicious alfresco lunch.

However, some producers make more complex and demanding rosés as well and these are really very special:

2012 Señorio de Sarria Viñedo N° 5 Garnacha Rosado
Bodegas Señorio de Sarria
Made from 56 year old vines, this is quite superb with real wine aromas of earth, mushroom and savoury herbs as well as bright red fruit notes. The palate is rich, full and textured with ripe red fruit and brambley fruit balanced by a bite of acidity and excellent balance. I really liked this very much indeed, it is intense and full of flavour, a great rosé – 89/100 points.

2011 Chivite Collecion 125 Rosado
J. Chivite Family Estates
Now quite seperate from Gran Fuedo, the Chivite Family Estates are at Aberin in the Tierra Estella Sub-zone. This is an ambitious wine that aims to be a fine rosé wine. Made from a blend of Tempranillo and Garnacha it is aged on its lees for 6 months in French oak barrels with weekly lees stirring to add texture and complexity – an astonishingly good rosé, one of the very best I have ever tasted – 91/100 points.

The Whites – focus on Chardonnay
I really like white wine and have taken to it more and more the older I get. I particularly like Spain’s white wines nowadays. Navarra’s whites puzzled me a bit though, with few exceptions the favoured white grape of the region seems to be Chardonnay and while I have nothing against Chardonnay, many consumers do – in the UK anyway. What’s more, if I want Chardonnay then my thoughts would not really turn to Spain, unless I was in Spain, but then I would want an Albariño, Godello, Verdejo, barrel fermented Rioja or even Txakoli – all classic Spanish styles. I can see that a Spaniard might want a Chardonnay from time to time, but I really think Navarra producers are holding themselves back by over relying on this grape.

That being said there were some very nice examples and  some that excited me. The lively and fresh unoaked 2012 Chardonnay from Bodegas Señorio de Sarria – think slightly tropical Chablis with a hint of lactic creaminess, while the 2012 Gran Feudo Chardonnay from Bodegas Gran Feudo / Chivite was a little more textured and creamy – but still with good acidity and freshness – was also a lovely wine, both score 87/100 points.

I was also excited by the 2011 Nekeas Barrel Fermented Chardonnay made by the charming Concha Vecino at Bodegas Nekeas. It was textured and beautifully integrated with peach, cinnamon, poached pear, gentle oak spice and creaminess all balanced by fresh acidity that kept it delicate and elegant. I would certainly order that if I saw it on a wine list in Spain, it would be wonderful with a sole or a creamy fish pie. This lovely wine is so well balanced it would win many people back to Chardonnay, Concha believes it to be one of the very best in Spain and considering it sells in Spain for around €8, then I think she is right – 91/100 points for quality and value.

The one Chardonnay that I have tasted from Navarra which is on a completely different level of complexity is the 2009 Chivite Collecion 125 Blanco from J. Chivite Family Estates. This superb wine spends nine months on the lees in Allier oak and is beautifully rich, creamy, textured and opulent, but well balanced with lovely acidity and good integration of the gently spicy and nutty oak. It isn’t cheap, but is very fine and complex. This is a wonderful wine, wherever it comes from and some claim it to be Spain’s finest white – 93/100 points.

Sauvignon Blanc et al
As for whites made from anything other than Chardonnay, I only tried a few. Bodegas Inurietta make something of a speciality of Sauvignon Blanc and produce 2 versions. Their unoaked version is called Orchidea and is a nice, direct, limey and attractive Sauvignon. Their oaked version, Orchidea Cuvée is more complex, textured with a leesy lime curd character and a cut of grapefruit-like acidity, it’s a lovely and interesting wine but sadly they only make 5000 bottles.

Much as I liked all of these – and I really did – I kept wanting some whites that were just a bit more – well Spanish, or different at least. They planted the French varietals in Navarra because of their historic links north of the border, so what about Basque grapes to give some difference – Gros Manseng makes stunning whites in Gascony and the Basque lands, so what about some more diverse white grapes guys, something you could make your own?

The Reds
For most Spanish wine regions the red wines is what it is really all about and that is certainly true of Navarra. Navarra has long grown the classic Spanish grapes that we normally associate with Rioja, but that are widely grown throughout Spain, Tempranillo, Garnacha and even Graciano and Mazuelo. Over the last 40 years or so though most producers have added classic Bordeaux grapes to their vineyards. They always say this is because of their traditional link with Gascony and Aquitaine north of the Pyrenees and those regions do indeed grow Cabernet Sauvignon and Merlot – I even heard of some Malbec in Navarra too. However these traditional grapes were apparently helped to return to Navarra – if indeed they had ever grown there before – by Juan Magaña who had worked in Bordeaux and wanted to create Navarran wines with the finesses and sophistication of top Bordeaux. To that end he famously smuggled cuttings over the border during the early 1970s – when Spain was still a dictatorship and near siege economy. He planted his vineyard and built Bodegas Viña Magaña in Barillas near Cascante in Ribera Baja. If you have not tried his wines they are quite magnificent and I hope to visit next time.

I had been looking forward to the Tempranillo based wines and various blends and I enjoyed a good number of them including the following stand out examples.

Bodegas Inurietta
Falces, Ribera Alta sub-zone

Grapes arriving at Inurietta.

This winery was the first one that I visited and they really impressed me. The winery is very modern and well equipped, even though the the land has belonged to the owning family for well over 100 years. Inurietta is the name of the parcel of land near Falces in the Ribera Alta zone. They grow their grapes at various heights in the valley from 300 to 480 m, which certainly seems to help retain good freshness in the wines. The soils vary from sand and silt to gravels, clay and limestone.
Overall I think their wines seem to be very good quality, well made with ripe fruit and an approachable, modern style.

Bodegas Inurietta wines are distributed in the UK through C & D Wines.

2010 Inurietta Quatrocientos Crianza
I greatly enjoyed this blend of Cabernet Sauvignon, Merlot, Syrah, Grenache, Graciano and Petit Verdot aged for 14 months in French and American oak. It had good rich cassis and black cherry fruit with soft, but firm fine grain tannins and a cut of fresh acidity as the vines are grown at quite high altitudes – 87/100 points.

2008 Altos de Inurietta Reserva
A 50/50 blend of Syrah and Petit Verdot aged for 14 months in new French oak barrels.
This was a hugely impressive and modern style red wine, gloriously smooth and richly fruity with soft, rounded tannins. The oak is nicely balanced with the fruit and supports rather than dominates – 88/100 points.

2010 Laderas de Inurietta
100% Graciano aged for 15 months in new French and American oak barrels.
I’m not always a fan of Graciano on its own and prefer it in blends, but this joins the ranks of the few varietal examples (especially Contino) that I have really enjoyed. The nose offered rich creamy black fruit and freshly turned earth (nicer than it sounds). The palate gives rich, sweet, ripe black fruit and plums together with soft, sweet tannins and a ripe, creamy texture to the fruit and silky tannins. A beautifully made and modern wine with a new world feel – 89/100 points.

Bodegas Señorio de Sarria
Puente de la Reina, Valdizarbe sub-zone

Puente de la Reina from Señorio de Saría.

I have always been fond of this beautiful winery ever since I used to sell the 1978 Gran Reserva in another life and their wines always please the crowds when I show them at tastings.
The estate is very peaceful as it sits in rolling tree covered hills, deep in the Sarria Estate which farms many other things other than grapes. Milk and cheese is a speciality too, in fact of 1500 hectares, only 210 are used for wine production. Most of the vines are on south facing slopes at between 400 – 500m allowing the wines to keep good balance between fruit and freshness.

Señorio de Sarria wines are distributed in the UK through Boutinot.

2010 Señorio de Sarria Viñedo Sotés
I have always been fascinated by this single vineyard multi-varietal blend of Tempranillo, Garnacha, Merlot, Cabernet Sauvignon, Graciano and Mazuelo. The vines are 53 years old and grown around the Castillo de Sotés just over the hill from Saría itself.  The wine was aged 9 months in French oak barrels.
This has lovely intensity and weight, with a creamy ripeness of fruit, the palate also has a firmness that I like, the acidity is there but masked by everything else, it just supports. Medium-bodied, dry and structured, but a lovely wine for posh everyday drinking – 87/100 points.

2004 Señorio de Sarria Gran Reserva
This wine has always delivered superb value for money and is a great bottle of wine that tastes as Spanish as they come, despite only having French grapes in it! The blend is 70% Cabernet Sauvignon to 30% Merlot aged for 36 months in oak, the Cabernet in French and the Merlot in American.
The colour was an earthy garnet, while the nose offered leather, dried fruit and fragrant smoke. The palate gave prunes, plums, mocha tinged oak and intense sweet ripe fruit together with savoury characters, lovely weight and a silky texture. 89/100 points.

Available in the UK from Caviste @ £14.95 per bottle.

Their Reserva Especial was also rather good by the way.

Bodegas Nekeas
Añorbe, Valdizarbe sub-zone

Nekeas Valley.

Another beautiful spot in Valdizarbe, the sunny Nekeas Valley seems to produce some good wine and I had never stumbled across them before. They claim to have the most northerly olive groves in Spain too and make some superb olive oil.
Historically the place was an important producer, but the vineyards were unused for 100 years before being brought back to life in 1989. The vines form a single block, interspersed with olives, growing between 450 and 650m.

Concha Vecino winemaker at Nekeas.

Nekeas’s secret weapon is their wonderful winemaker Concha Vecino. She has such passion for the place and what she does and love for “my grapes” and “my wines” that she is hard to resist. Her enthusiasm is catching and what is more she really knows what she is doing. Subtlety seems to be her watchword and she makes very good wines which really try to capture the character of the place. As Concha says “Oak and tanks are for everyone, but my valley is just for me”.

2010 Nekeas Crianza Tempranillo-Cabernet Sauvignon
A 60/40 blend grown at the top of the valley slopes. The wine is aged for 14 months in French oak and is unfined and unfiltered.
This gave a lovely aroma of wild herbs, earth and flowers together with studs of deep red fruit. The palate had great concentration of rich cassis and redcurrant with high, fresh, clean, tangy acidity. Very soft, smooth texture, there is a seam of gently firm tannin leaving a slightly chalky finish. Intense, but delicious, the finish gives herbs and lavender. Over all it has lovely balance and purity – 88/100 points.

2008 Nekeas Reserva Cabernet Sauvignon-Merlot
A 50/50 blend grown in very high vineyards on poor, thin, stony soils. The wine is aged for 18 months in French oak of around a year old.
The colour is dense, blue black and opaque.
The nose offers rich notes of mocha and sweet tobacco with clean earth together with dried cassis and the beginnings of prune and fig.
The palate is rich, creamily ripe and succulent, with deep sweet black fruit and is pretty full bodied and concentrated with good acidity and running through it. This is very good and attractive wine – 89/100 points.

We will hear a little more about Nekeas very soon….

Bodegas Julian Chivite / Gran Feudo
Cintruénigo, Ribera Baja sub-zone
I am so glad to have finally visited Chivite, even if it was a rush. They are so important to Navarra, having been grape growers since 1647 (which is just before lunch in Spain) and have produced wine since at least 1860 – their superb Colección 125 range was created in 1985 to celebrate the 125th  anniversary of their first wine exports and have always been some of the very best Spanish wines. 
Now the Colección 125 are produced at the Chivite Family Estates at Aberin in the Tierra Estella sub-zone, sadly I did not get there, but did try the range and they are all magnificent wines.

We had a light lunch here and the centrepiece was a stunning Tortilla. We asked the lady who made it what the secret was of that lovely soft texture and it seems it was a litre of olive oil poured into the egg mixture! You live, you learn.

After years of family problems an 11th generation Chivite is once more in charge, Julian, no less and I was so excited to meet him that I forgot to take a photograph!

2008 Gran Feudo Crianza
50% Tempranillo, 30% Garnacha and 20% Cabernet Sauvignon aged for 18 months in French and American oak.
A wonderful wine with the punch of young Grenache dominating the pure red fruit and spice laden nose.
Rich, supple palate with the Tempranillo providing the weight and taut, smooth tannins, while the Garnacha gives the fleshy texture and brightness. Lovely supple freshness, medium bodied and elegant with a lovely savoury finish, smooth supple tannins, vanilla and mocha oak notes and fresh acidity all dominated by rich red cherry and blackberry fruit – 88/100 points.

The Gran Feudo Reserva was very good too, but the next wine was a real treat:

2008 Gran Feudo Viñas Viejas Reserva
50% Tempranillo and 50% Garnacha from  vineyards planted between 1954 and 1960. The wine was aged for 12 months in American oak.
A lovely wine, it somehow feels classy with fine grain tannins and burnished coffee character as well as bright black cherry fruit, vanilla and spice. A lovely elegant, easy wine – 89/100 points.

2009 Chivite Collecion 125 Reserva
This vintage was pure Tempranillo aged 14 months in French oak barrels 40% were new and 60% second use.
I had not tried this for a while and it was as good as I remember, rich and concentrated but still elegant, classy and complex with lovely fruit concentration giving a creamy quality, deep black fruit, subtle use of oak giving nice spice nuances and some mineral, earthy characters. A beautiful wine of great finesse – 93/100 points.

Ochoa Vinedos y Bodegas
Olite, Ribera Alta sub-zone
Now all the wineries that I have written about here make lovely wine that I rate highly, but Ochoa was such a wonderful visit. The Ochoa family seem to have been involved in Navarra wine for centuries, but the winery only goes back to 1908, but like so many other producers around the world, the focus on quality wines only began in recent times when the delightful Javier Ochoa took over. In recent years Javier has been joined by his daughter Adriana as enologist and her passion for the vines and the wines she makes from them really shows. What also helps is that Adriana has made wine all around the world and especially has experience of making wine at Yalumba in Australia and her go getting attitude really shows. I thought that all her wines were very good quality indeed.

Javier & Adriana Ochoa.

The Ochoas farm 143 hectares just south of Olite on clay and limestone soils that face south giving excellent sun exposure.
I loved their enthusiasm and exuberance, touring their vineyards was a delight, whilst riding a grape harvester was just a wild experience – oh and the lunch was superb too.

The view from the top of a harvester at Ochoa – I’d never been on a harvester before…
The Ochoas, like most Navarra producers I met – and Miguel Torres – are certain that machine harvesting is just as good as picking by hand.

Views from Ochoa’s Traibuenas vineyard near Olite.

The same view with the harvester.

2007 Ochoa Reserva
55% Tempranillo, 30% Cabernet Sauvignon and 15% Merlot aged for 15 months in French and American oak.
Gosh I really liked this wine. We might technically have had finer wines on the trip, but this was so good and so joyful to drink that I rank it pretty high. It still has lovely fruit, giving a soft and succulent character, but there is just the beginning of dried fruit, leather, coffee and mocha too. The tannins are smooth and silky while the flavour lasts and lasts – 90/100 points.

Conclusions so far
So, from everything I had experienced so far, Navarra’s ability to produce good rosé from a range of grapes, but especially Grenache / Garnacha is well deserved and my view of them as good quality rosés is increased.

My opinion of the white wines from Navarra has certainly grown, I tasted many good Chardonnays made in many different styles – and some non-Chardonnays too – most of them I would happily order and drink with pleasure. My only quibble is that here in the UK anyway the word Chardonnay is not considered a good thing to have on a wine label. To me it feels limiting to major on a foreign white grape that cannot ever really be your own, especially when Spain and the Basque lands are full of wonderful white grapes, but that might just be me. All I know is that most UK consumers would not want to buy a Chardonnay and I am unlikely to ever order a Spanish Chardonnay, even if it’s good, because I want more traditional Spanish styles.

As far as the red wines were concerned, I liked what I saw from all the producers that I have written about here and more. I had always seen Navarra as a producer of Tempranillo, Cabernet and Merlot blends and I found many of them to be very good quality indeed and well deserving of being more popular and sought after.

The surprises
However the red wines that I found the most startling and exciting were not made from Tempranillo, Cabernet Sauvignon or Merlot at all. They were actually made from a grape variety that I am not particularly keen on either. I knew Navarra grew it because they make rosés out of it, Grenache / Garnacha is a classic Spanish grape, but I hardly ever seek it out. It of course produces great results in blends in Rioja and Priorat, but as a varietal it hardly ever moves me. In Spain it is grown in the hot regions of southern Aragón – Calatayud, Cariñena and Campo de Borja – where it makes nice affordable wines that can be fun and great value, but hardly ever amazing.

So you could have knocked me down with a feather when I tasted a Garnacha from Navarra – pretty much against my will – and I loved it, I became hooked and wanted more, so tasted all the Garnacha I could find. I was wondering why I liked them so much when Concha Vecino put her finger on it. She described them as the “Pinot Noir of Garnachas” and the only Atlantic Grenaches in the world.

We are so used to Grenache being seen as hot climate grape that hearing how well it does in a cool area is quite astonishing and changes all the rule. However it must be said that another favourite Grenache of mine this year was the magnificent 2007 Villa Maria Reserve Grenache from Hawkes Bay in New Zealand, another place that is pretty cool and with a sort of Atalantic climate. Sadly this wine is so far produced in such small amounts that it is not available in Europe. The good news is though that these cool climate Garnachas from Navarra are available and often deliver great value for money.

Old vines at Nekeas.

2011 El Chaparral de Vega Sindoa Old Vine Garnacha

Bodegas Nekeas, Añorbe, Valdizarbe sub-zone

These vineyards this wine comes from are at the highest point of the valley – the high plain or chaparral – and the vines are between 70 and 100 years old. The wine has a short time in French oak to give it a dusting of spice and touch of complexity. It gives rich aromas of red fruit with caramel, vanilla, red fruit and spice.

The palate is rich, smooth, supple, savoury and nicely tarry, with gently firm tannins and lovely intense rich sweet fruit, while throughout the wine is this lovely freshness, purity and cut of clean acidity. Do try it – 90/100 points.

Available in the UK from Majestic Wine Warehouses @ £9.99 per bottle.

Old vines with Bodegas Palacio de Sada behind.

2012 Palacio de Sada Garnacha

Bodegas Palacio de Sada, Sada, Baja Montaña sub-zone 

Palacio de Sada are very near Sangüesa in cool high land with stony soils. It has been left behind by time a little, so they still have 200 hectares of old vine Garnache, much of it over 100 years old. Even with the newer 400 hectares the average age of their vines is still over 30 years old!

This was my first Garnacha from cool climate Navarra and I was very taken by it. It is simple, unoaked and juicy, but wow it’s delicious. If I had a wine bar or wine company I would order it straight away. It smells of freshly crushed raspberries and tastes of a whole melange of fresh red fruit and spice – my note says “Sangria for grown ups”! The cool, high altitude conditions give this wine a lovely seam of freshness which I think makes it such a joy – 90/100 points, mainly for the pleasure it delivers.

Palacio de Sada wines are distributed in the UK by Amathus.

2009 Domaines Lupier La Dama Garnacha
Bodegas Domaines Lupier, San Martín de Unx, Baja Montaña sub-zone

75 year old Garnacha bush vines organically grown on dispersed plots on cool rocky soils at 600 – 750m. It the brainchild of  mavericks, or fanatics (in the best sense) Enrique Basarte and Elisa Úcar who say of their wines that “Atlantic Grenache, mountain viticulture, spectacular soils make it possible to obtain this ‘savage’ expression of the Grenache Grape”. The finished wine was aged 14 months in French oak.

I saw the road signs to the wonderfully named San Martín de Unx and it stuck in my mind. I wish we had gone, because this was the most exciting wine of the trip, only just and even then because it was so unexpected as much as anything else, but it really is a great wine.

The nose is fragrant and elegant with a purity about it. The palate is balanced and fine with poise and elegance and it carries the 14.5% alcohol perfectly. It is quite rich and concentrated, but also fresh and lively and feels much more Burgundian than Rhône-like. A great, great Grenache that I would love to try in a couple of years – 93/100 points.

Domaines Lupier wines are distributed in the UK by Fields, Morris & Verdin.

2010 Santa Cruz de Artazu Garnacha
Bodegas y Vinédos Artazu, Puente de la Reina, Valdizarbe sub-zone 
Juan Carlos Lopez of Bodegas Artadi fame has spread his wings since 1996, making superb wines in Alicante and also Navarra as well. Their Navarra estate is situated in Artazu just over the river Arga from Señorio de Saría and not far from the Camino de Santiago. Their vineyards grow at 500m and the primary focus is red Garnacha, especially in the flagship wine Santa Cruz de Artazu. Which in itself is interesting as at nearby Saría they were adamant that the best use of their old Garnacha vines was in their  Viñedo N° 5 Rosado, rather than in a red wine.

Certainly it is warmer and more humid here than in Baja Montaña and it shows with a heavier, richer and more brooding and spicy style that has intense smoky sweet black fruit and smoky fine tannins. This is a very different take, but still very fine. It needs a lot of time and a lot of food – 92/100 points.

Artadi and Artazu wines are distributed in the UK by Fields, Morris & Verdin.

However much I liked many of the other reds – and I did – it seemed to me that with red Grenache Navarra has found its star grape. I have never tasted Garnacha as fine, complex or interesting as these – do try some if you can.

At risk of out staying my welcome though I have one more surprise:

Something sweet to finish

I have tasted many Muscats – Moscatel in Spanish – from Navarra and have enjoyed them all in their different ways. Some were light, fresh and clean, while most were lightly fortified like a Vin Doux Naturel. I would highly recommend the following Navarra Moscatels:

2011 Ochoa Moscatel Vendimia Tardía
The freshest example I have tried, it is not fortified and the grapes are only a little bit over-ripe. It’s so light and clean and pure that it seems to sing. It feels very simple in many ways, but is so, so deliciously full of fresh, lively peaches, honey, flowers and almonds that it is almost impossible to resist – 90/100 points.

Available in the UK from Winedrop.co.uk @ £11.75 per half litre / 500cl.

Señorío de Sarría Moscatel
This is a richer , but still fresh, and honeyed, sweet and a delicious take on the style. The aromas are quite lifted and vibrant with honey, blossom and aniseed as well as lemon shortbread notes. Interestingly the partially fermented grape juice is fortified with local Orujo – a Spanish grappa.

Quite a classic style in Spain – 87/100 points.

2008 Chivite Collecion 125 Vendimia Tardía
A more complex style, this is late harvested and partly botrytised Moscatel / Muscat with he grapes being picked in 12 successive tris through the vineyard to get the ripest grapes. The wine is fermented and aged for 5 months in French oak and it really is stunning, honeyed, concentrated and rich as the Sultan of Brunei – 91/100 points.

Available in the UK from Waitrose @ £19.99 per half bottle.

So, just when I thought I knew what Navarra Moscatel was all about, I was given this:

Moscatel Capricho de Goya
Bodegas Camilo Castilla, Corella, Ribera Baja sub-zone
This wine is bonkers! It is amazingly concentrated and ripe with deep prune, fig and raisin characters, rum, caramel and nutty toffee too. It is made a bit like a Madeira with ageing in a mixture of wooden barrels and glass demijohns on the roof for 7 years. It is so, so lovely, like sticky toffee pudding in a glass – who needs the dessert? In style it is like a joyous cross between PX and Rutherglen Muscat with more freshness and salinity. It is intensely sweet, but also has an intense savoury richness, truly great wine – 93/100 points.

Available in the UK from Templar Wines @ £19.25 per half litre / 500cl.

So, the whole trip was quite an experience and Navarra delivered up more variety and more unexpected gems than I could imagine. I loved the wines and the place and if you drink a few of these wines that I have mentioned, then so will you.

A dramatic Navarra sunset.

50 Shades of Gris

Domaine Jones

Wine isn’t all noir and blanc

I know what you’re thinking. I bet you think this piece is about Pinot Gris, dont’y ya, don’t ya?

Well you are wrong, I might mention Pinot Gris in passing – see I just did – but actually this piece is going to be about a couple of others grapes with Gris in their name.

Pinot Gris is not a grape that I gravitate towards, I think it is usually just too low in acidity for me, but there are some honourable exceptions – what’s more, I am so broadminded I have even been known to enjoy the odd Pinot Grigio.

Until 10 years or so ago I was under the impression that Pinot Gris was the only grape called Gris. I knew there were others that are ‘gris’ or pink skinned, just as grapes called ‘noir’ are red or purple skinned and those called ‘blanc’ have green skins – I think they named them from engravings before colour photography was invented. Gewürztraminer of course has pink skins when fully ripe, so does Koshu and Moschofilero which makes Mantinia in the Peloponnese region of Greece, but none of those have ‘gris’ in their name.

Sauvignon Gris
Well, one day in 2003 I was with a group of fellow wine educators in Chile and we were served a bottle of white wine with our fish that I – and most of our party – assumed was Sauvignon Blanc. Only it didn’t taste quite like Sauvignon Blanc, we even wondered if it was a dodgy bottle for a while until one bright eyed individual noticed that the label didn’t claim it to be a Sauvignon Blanc at all, but a Sauvignon Gris. It was made by a famous old producer from the Maipo Valley called Cousiño-Macul and it was pretty good, but most of all it was interesting. I have tried more recent vintages of this wine and it seems to me that like almost everything else they have improved greatly over that time.

I later learnt that the vine was imported into Chile in the nineteenth century in mistake for Sauvignon Blanc – mind you they did the same thing with Sauvignon Vert too, which is also known as Sauvignonasse and (Tocai) Friulano.

A few days later I was able to try another example of Sauvignon Gris, this time it was made from very old vines in Colchagua Valley by a winery called Casa Silva and I loved it.

Sauvignon Gris is thought be either an ancestor of or a mutant clone of Sauvignon Blanc – for some reason it is not clear which came first, which reminds me of a joke – and is fatter and less aromatic than its sibling. In France they are historically blended together to give more texture and richness than Sauvignon Blanc would have on its own. Personally I think Sauvignon Gris is potentially a very interesting grape, indeed so excited was I by the Casa Silva wine that I actually became the first person ever to ship a few cases to the UK.

A few others followed my lead and now you can find some Sauvignon Gris wines if you shop around. Mark and Spencer lead the pack as they offers two, one from Argentina that I have not tasted and another from Chile that I like very much indeed. I have mentioned Viña Leyda before, they are a great producer in Chile’s Leyda Valley and they also make the excellent Secano Estate wines whose Sauvignon Gris is a delight.

It can be found in France too, where there appears to be renewed interest with this ancient grape in Graves and parts of the Loire, where Sauvignon Gris can sometimes be found blended into the finer examples of Sauvignon de Touraine and is something of a speciality grape of the tiny Touraine-Mesland sub-region. The grape has a long history in Touraine and it is often referred to there by its ancient local names of Fié or Fié Gris or even Sauvignon Rose.

Recently I was able to taste this terrific example from the flamboyantly named Xavier Frissant of Touraine-Amboise at the Absolutely Cracking Wines From France event:

2010 Les Roses du Clos
Cépage Fié Gris
Xavier Frissant, A.C. Touraine
Touraine is usually associated with Sauvignon Blanc, so this is an interesting variation on the theme. The grapes are harvested by hand and the wine is fermented and aged on the lees in 400 litre oak barrels, but the oak does not show at all – unless it adds to the texture.
The nose was bright, vibrant and fresh with an underlying stoney / mineral quality and a deeper, denser apricot-like note too.
The palate offers high, but rich, not citric, apricot acidity and textured apricot fruit, while some grapefruit characters freshen it up and keep it balanced by giving it some real tang, in fact it is more tangy than zingy. It is clean and fresh, but has a lovely juicy weight to to as well which balances the high acidity and makes the wine very attractive and pleasurable to drink. It is dry with a long finish and I can imagine it goes with a wide array of foods – 89/100 points.

£14.75 a bottle in the UK from H2Vin.

Grenache Gris
The other gris that has been exciting me recently is Grenache Gris. Grenache is originally a Spanish grape, so perfectly suits the Mediterranean climate and should really be called Garnacha. It spread throughout the Mediterranean world during the time of Aragon and Catalan strength in the middle ages and because Roussillon was a part of Catalonia until 1659 – and who knows it might be again soon – Grenache remains a dominant grape in the region.

Grenache comes in all colours and I understand that Grenache Gris is a natural mutation of Grenche Noir, the one that makes the red wines. Like all the other gris grapes, you can make a pale rosé from them – like Pinot Grigio Ramato (coppered) – but it seems more normal to use them to make rich-ish white wines that often have a deep colour.

I have tasted a couple of examples recently that stand out and show that Grenache Gris really should be a more widely appreciated grape:

2011 Domaine Jones Blanc
Grenache Gris
Katie Jones, I.G.P. (Vin de Pays) Côtes Catalanes
Katie is from Ashby-de-la Zouch in Leicestershire and perhaps the French name got to her because she finally ended up in Paziols near Tautavel in Roussillon. Joining the local cooperative and eventually becoming their Export Sales and Marketing Director Katie worked with the local wine and loved it so much that eventually she bought her own parcel of vines near Maury and settled down to craft some stunning wines in this beautiful, rugged landscape.
This wine betrays a slightly coppery hue, just the merest tinge mind, while the nose is gloriously scented and lifted with grapefruit, softer mandarin notes and exotic wild herbs and even a touch of honey. The palate has richness with a slightly creamy and oily texture making it fat and mouth filling. The citrus fruit and richer stone fruit – nectarine – balance this beautifully and there is an enticing gently smoky character that together with touches of herb makes the wine nice and savoury. It finishes long and is balanced, fresh, flavoursome, mouth-filling and juicy – 91/100 points.

£14.95 a bottle in the UK from The Wine Society and direct from Domaine Jones.

Katie Jones (second from left)

Reading about Katie Jones I kept getting this feeling that I had met her or heard of her before. Then I realised, her story has much in common with Charlotte Allen‘s. They are equally determined, dedicated and passionate about their wines, they ended up in different parts of Europe – but similarly rugged and beautiful ones and they use many similar grapes. It is so wonderful that there are people like Katie out there as the wine world needs them and their wines.

This example was one of the first Grenache Gris wines that captured my imagination and it is made quite close to Domaine Jones:

2009 Domaine Préceptorie de Centernach Coume Marie
Domaine La Préceptorie
A.C. Cotes du Roussillon Blanc
Mainly Grenache Gris, this also has some Grenache Blanc, Macabeu (Viura) and Carignan Banc and is fermented in 400 litre oak vats and aged in them for some 8 months.

This exciting wine is elegant, richly textured and quite delicious, but sadly the Wine Society no longer stock it, so I do not know how to get hold of any right now.

Grenache Gris is so versatile and gets so ripe that it can, like Grenache Noir, be used to make some stunning fortified wines and one of the great bargains of the moment is this amazing Vin Doux Naturel from Rivesaltes in Roussillon, which makes it just the thing for Christmas:

1985 Rivesaltes Ambré Hors d’Age Arnaud de Villeneuve
A.C. Rivesaltes Ambré
Grenache Gris with some Macabeu and Grenache Blanc – whatever Waitrose say on their website!
An Ambré must be aged for 30 months before release, which changes the colour to that oxidised caramel hue and  Hors d’Age Rivesaltes wines have to be aged for a minimum of 6 years in barrel.
The nose was slightly caramelised with coffee notes and hints of orange.
The palate offered figs and prunes and honeysuckle and more coffee and the sort of caramel on the top of a creme brulée – but it was not overtly sweet at all. The richness was balanced by a seam of clean acidity too.
A stunning wine full of complexity, richness and finesse, the grapes are different, but it is not so very far removed from a great Oloroso sherry – 93/100 points.

£13.99 per 50cl bottle in the UK from Waitrose – and it is not made from Muscat, whatever they say!

Thoughts on varietal labels
Thinking about how lovely these wines are convinces me all the more that selling wines by grape variety, choosing wines by grape variety and labelling wines by grape variety is all very well, but it actually restricts consumer choice and makes everyone drink the same small number of wine types. We have been told to think grape variety for 20-30 years and country’s like France are criticised by many drinkers nowadays for not putting the grape variety on the label, but surely that only helps if the wine is made from the six or so grapes people seem to know about and are prepared to buy. It seems to me that if anything other than one of those is on a label, people resist buying it because they haven’t heard of it. I increasingly believe that although varietal labelling has simplified wine enough to get people to drink it, having the grape variety on the label has then stopped them becoming truly adventurous and curious about the subject. I wrote a piece about it here.

When is a lot of sugar no sugar?

Or: When is a wine sweet or dry?

Sweetness is an absolute, right? After all a wine is either dry or it is not and the EU regulates that kind of thing – my friend Warren Edwardes outlines the rules here.

However it is true that most new world wines contain more sugar than their European counterparts. This does not make them sweet, just less dry – many a non-European Shiraz will contain anything from around 3-5 grams of residual sugar per litre, while the French equivalent will have less than 1 gram, which makes quite a difference in mouthfeel, richness and fruit character.

Again, this does not make these wines sweet, but it does make them softer and fuller in the mouth. It makes the tannins much less of an issue and ensures that the wine does not interact with your food quite as much as less rich wines, so a good food pairing becomes less important, it can even make the wine soft enough to enjoy without food – so you see a little sugar can be a useful thing.

However, it does seem to cloud the issue for many consumers who are new to wine – they do seem to think that all wine should be like Australian Shiraz.

We are used to non-European producers being very open about their wines, but I have discovered that it is actually often quite hard to get hold of residual sugar levels for new world red wines. Most technical sheets just say that they are ‘dry’, some have ‘Residual Sugar: Nil’, while more than a few just ignore the issue completely.

I had been pondering all this for some time, as the sugar level is important and I have seen for myself the effect that having ‘dry’ wines that contain a fair amount of sugar has. It changes the parameters of wine and makes traditional European styles seem austere and mean to young drinkers and casual drinkers who want a wine without food.

However, I was really surprised by something in America recently, which possibly helps to explain some of this.

In a winery I had just tasted a Viognier, which did not seem to me  to be completely dry. So, I asked the winemaker what the residual sugar was and his reply really startled me, he said ‘effectively zero’.

Now this wine did not taste as though it had virtually no sugar, so I pressed the point and asked what ‘effectively zero’ meant. His reply, after looking it up was that it was ‘0.7’.

I pressed further, as this wine could not possibly have such a minimal residual sugar content. Strangely though it did – if you measure sugar in the American way, it had 0.7% residual sugar – which to the winemaker was as good as zero and therefore close to his idea of a totally dry wine.

Actually though it is nothing like zero, when I tell you that on the European measure 0.7% residual sugar is a whopping 7 grams per litre – which in a low acid wine like Viognier is not dry, let alone anything like zero.

So, perhaps they just speak an entirely different sugar language over there and their Zero, or Nil is our 10? It would explain a lot about the differences in sweetness and why a wine with quite a whack of sugar can be described as having nil residual sugar on a technical sheet..

Sud de France – synchronised wine tasting

Well, this is a first for me. I usually avoid instant blogging or live blogging – indeed I do not really regard my blog as a blog, it is after all not a diary or log. I normally write, what I hope are considered articles. Unusually, today everything on this page is being done in situ at the time.

I thought it would be interesting to take part in the Sud de France Live Wine Tasting. It was arranged to celebrate the fourth anniversary of the establishment of the Sud de France promotional umbrella. This body promotes the region of Languedoc-Roussillon and the food and wine products from those regions.

Roussillon Riches

I tutored a tasting of Roussillon wines last night and it was very well received. The line up was good and really showed what an exciting and extraordinary wine region the Roussillon is and how it really deserves to emerge from under the commercial shadow of its Languedoc neighbour and to be much better known to UK consumers.

A Taste of the Languedoc-Roussillon

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Eric Aracil popped over the other day, for a bit of relief from a snow-bound Perpignan and to tutor a tasting about the wines of his native Languedoc-Roussillon.

Eric is Catalan and normally concerns himself solely with promoting wines from the Roussillon region, but he was branching out. The new umbrella identity for the whole Languedoc-Roussillon is now the Sud de France and it includes the Gard and Côtes du Rhône areas as well as the Languedoc-Roussillon itself – although confusingly not Provence, which is what leaps to my mind when I hear the phrase ‘the south of France’.