Wine of the Week 11 – a great barbecue wine

Nekeas Valley.

It’s turning out to be quite a good summer here in the UK, so I thought it would be nice to have a Wine of the Week that would be delicious with a barbecue in the garden.

Yet again it is a wine from the Spanish region of Navarra, which is a place that I love as it produces a dazzling array of very different, but good quality wines. Sadly this diversity means that UK retailers have not really taken Navarra wines to their hearts, so although there are some wines available they can sometimes take a little seeking out.

This week’s wine though is not only easy to buy, but it is really delicious, great value for money and massively over performs for its price.

It is produced by Bodegas Nekeas who claim to farm the most northerly olive groves in Spain, from which they make some superb olive oil by the way. Once upon a time it was a cooperative for the Nekeas Valley, but is now a privately owned winery. The area had a tough few decades in the twentieth century and with no market for their wines most of the vines were grubbed up, but some of the Garnache / Grenache vines were very  hard to reach, so they just left them alone. Which is a really lucky break for us and Nekeas, because these 100 year old vines have now been brought back to life and produce this superb wine.

The vines form a single block, interspersed with olives, growing at between 450 and 650m above sea level. No only does this height make the area pretty cool for Garnacha, but the place is influenced by the Atlantic. Concha Vecino is the winemaker at Nekeas and she is one of the most engaging and charming winemakers that I have ever met. Her passion for this land clearly shows when she speaks and she described these Garnachas as the ‘Pinot Noir of Garnachas’ and explained that Navarra produces the only Atlantic Grenache in the world.

Concha Vecino winemaker at Bodegas Nekeas.

These local conditions make the wines feel fresher and more elegant than I normally expect Grenache to be and I was totally won over by the style of the Nekeas Garnacha as well as some of the other examples that I found in Navarra. By the way Concha also makes some lovely Chardonnays and Tempranillo blends as well, so if you are in Spain and see anything made by Nekeas I would highly recommend giving them a try.

Old Garnacha vines at Nekeas.

2012 El Chaparral de Vega Sindoa Old Vine Garnacha
Bodegas Nekeas
Añorbe, D.O. Navarra, Valdizarbe sub-zone

The vineyard 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 vibrant red fruit with caramel, vanilla together with black fruit and spice. The palate is rich, smooth, supple, savoury and a little liquorice-like. The tannins are gentle, but firm while the palate delivers a lively mix of lovely intense rich sweet red and black fruit, while there is lovely freshness, balance, purity and cut of clean acidity that makes the wine dance across your palate.

Do try it, it would be perfect with a barbecue – perhaps lightly chilled even – and in winter it will go just as brilliantly with richer stews and hearty meat dishes – 90/100 points.

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

This is a lovely and great value wine and I urge you to rush to Majestic to try a bottle as soon as you can.

 

Wine of the Week 2 – Domaine Lupier El Terroir

2009 Domaine Lupier El Terroir Garnacha
Bodegas Domaine Lupier, San Martín de Unx
Navarra, Spain
At first glance this wine might appear to be French – Domine Lupier might imply that – but actually it’s Spanish, from the under appreciated region of Navarra. What’s more, although it doesn’t say so on the label it is from the cool and mountainous Baja Montaña sub-zone.

The highpoint of Domaine Lupier, vines at 700 metres.

This producer only makes two wines, but they are both great. Both are red and both are Garnachas, but Garnachas with a difference. These are mountain Garnacha / Grenache, cool climate, Atlantic influenced Garnacha / Grenache and the difference shows. I have written about their top wine before, their Domaine Lupier La Dama – read about it towards the end of this long piece about Navarra – and it is a magnificent wine. Their ‘second wine’ El Terroir is also superb though and is more affordable too.

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

Since I first wrote about their wines I have met the owners – Enrique Basarte and Elisa Úcar – and they are as delightful as their wines. You can see their passion for their vineyards and their wines when they speak and that passion clearly ends up in the bottle. It is an amazing story too,  Enrique and Elisa wanted to create a winery project of their own. Both have a deep appreciation of Garnacha and dreamed of finding a plot of old vine Garancha that they could nurture back to productive life. Spain has more old vine Garnacha / Grenache than anywhere else, but they are sadly declining. Eventually the search brought them to San Martín de Unx where the altitude and conditions really excited them and they managed to buy 27 tiny parcels of all but abandoned vines, some of which were planted in 1903 – the average age of the domaine is 76 years old. These were free standing bush vines growing at different altitudes between 400 and 750 metres above sea level, on different soils and with different orientations.

Elisa and Enrique in their vineyards.

Enrique and Elisa really wanted to ensure the vines were returned to perfect health and a balance with nature, so decided to farm using the  biodynamic approach. This is sustainable and ensures that the vines get the attention and care that they need and personally I think that is the secret with biodynamics. I really do not know whether farming by the biodynamic calendar, or using various biodynamic preparations really works, but am willing to bet that the fact that it is so labour intensive that Enrique, for he is the viticulturist,  is working in their vineyards everyday, inspecting and nurturing every vine, makes a massive difference to the finished wine. I have certainly never tasted Grenache like these and 2009 is only their second vintage released.

El Terroir comes from the lower slopes, between 400 and 600 metres above sea level, everything is hand picked and the wine was aged for 14 months in mixture of 500 litre, 300 litre and more normal 225 litre French oak barrels.

The wine
The colour is deep purple, but bright and vivid, not dense and not totally opaque.
The nose is fragrantly rich with sugar plums, fresh plums, sweet spice, earth and chocolate, while the palate is a joyful mix of rich plums and cherries, cherry stones, clove, anis and spicy oak. The fruit is succulent and juicy, but not even slightly jammy, in fact it is like succulent fresh fruit, red and black cherries with some raspberries thrown in that mingles perfectly with the earthy mineral characters. Also there is a lovely freshness and balance about the whole thing that makes it feel bright and elegant.
I have a sneaking suspicion I drank this a few years too early, as for a Garnacha it is very tight and firm in the tannin department, but hey it’s already delicious. If you want it softer give it 2 to 3 years more.

We are always told that old vines produce more intense flavours. Well this kind of proves the point, but it also proves another point, which is that old vines also have better inbuilt balance as they ripen with less sugar than younger vines – don’t ask me how, I’m not a scientist, but it is the balance that makes this wine so exciting and so delicious. A triumph – 91/100 points.

Available in the UK for around £15 per bottle – stockist information is here or from Fields, Morris & Verdin, their UK distributor.