An Experiment with Rojilla

Has anyone ever heard of a grape variety called "Rojilla"? or know where I could find out? I've asked on Twitter and FB but no joy. And it's not mentioned at all in the Vitis International Variety Catalogue.


I doubt that's the 'real' name of the variety, as "Rojilla" sounds very local or dialectal. In Spanish, "rojo" = red, so "rojilla" (a diminutive of rojo) means something like reddish, or a little bit red, or something like that.

And the colour of these grapes was in fact 'a little bit red', ie not deep dark red/purple/blue like in all the usual Tempranillo/Garnacha/Sirah photos that are so common, but really just red! Can you believe that I forgot to actually take a photo of them!

When I was out in Gredos last week, the grape-grower I was buying Garnacha off of, kindly gave me a few cases of this Rojilla grape, for me to make wine from, on the condition I gave him a bottle or two when it was done!

Well, on Saturday I duly stomped them and put them in a container to ferment. Actually, Madalena stomped them for me:

Madalena stomping Rojillo grapes

Rojillo grapes being stomped

Interesting! But I don't really know if there's any more Rojilla to be found in viable quantities.



Fermentation tub


There's about 20-30 litres of must + skins + pips + stems in there.

I decided to include the stems because they were well lignified and not at all green, so I thought that they might provide something positive. As the skins are not very dark, maybe they won't provide as much colour or taste or aromas as more normal darker skins do? Who knows?

Fermentation hasn’t started yet (as at Sunday 23 Sept) but I reckon it should kick off pretty swiftly, what with all the different lots of wine in the bodega at different stages of fermentation; the air must be teeming with saccharomyces cerevisiae yeast by now.

Anyway,

I shall play it by nose
And I shall see, how it goes;

I’ll punch it down, once a day,
And hope it tastes, like Cabernet!

Then when fermentation begins
I’ll press the juice, off the skins

I’ll maybe rack it, once or twice
To make it clean and nice

Then over winter, I’ll let it be;
Peace and quiet is the key

Will it do its malolactic?
That depends, on my vinous tactic!

Will I add the acid tartaric?
No, that’s just too barbaric!

Will I add some extra sugar?
No, I’m reaching for my Luger!

Will I add powdered tannin?
No, I’m not a wine assassin!

Will I add that mega-purple colour,
No, it makes the wine, false and duller!

Will I add cultured yeast?
No, I’m a pure, uncultured beast!

Will I add germs and bacteria?
No, that goes against, my criteria!

Will I add, a flavour enhancer?
No, it may well, give you cancer!

Will I add wooden chips of oak?
No, I wouldn’t want, to make you choke!

Will I spin my wine in cones?
No, my wine’s for people, not for drones!

Will I osmote it in reverse?
No, I’d never be so perverse!

Will I do some cryo-extraction?
No, I always get, a cry-reaction!

Will I add bags of enzymes?
No, I’m running out of en-rhymes!

So how will I intervene?
Well that remains, to be seen!

I really won’t do much
Just keep a nice light touch

Enough to ensure the wine is flawless,
But not so much, as to make it aweless!

Red grapes all in, White not ready yet

Here’s another harvest post or update of the state of my harvesting this year. This is a good time for me to write this because I’m between harvests, as it were :)

I’ve brought in all the red grapes that I’ll be bringing in this year, and the white grapes are not ready to be picked yet.

So, what have I got this year?

1. The usual Tempranillo from Carabaña that I’ve been harvesting for the last 9 years! The quantity this year was ridiculously tiny – even more ridiculously tiny than usual! On the one hand, because of the drought (it hasn’t rained properly for about a year) and on the other hand because of the rabbits, who have again eaten more than their fair share of grapes this year, just like they did last year.

So, basically there’s less than 300 litres of juice + skins fermenting at this very moment as I write, which means that there will hopefully just be enough to make 1 barrel (225 l) of Tempranillo Crianza including a few litres for top-ups during the year. I harvested early this year, because I was fed up with making the usual +14% alcohol tinto Crianza! Although there’s never been anything actually wrong with my previous Crianzas, they’ve never been anything exceptional either, imho, and in that of others! Hence the risk of experimenting this year. Maybe it’ll turn out better at 13% or 13.5%. Who knows? But I’ll never know if I don’t try it at least once!

2. Some Garnacha from Gredos. I’m going to be a bit secretive here and save the details for later :) Ha ha! I’ll just say that I’ve got four (4) separate lots of old vine Garnacha that is already fermenting separately. Some in open top old wooden barrels, and some in stainless steel. Two lots are from separate plots in Sotillo de la Adrada (see this previous post) and two lots are from ... somewhere else in the Gredos region! Ha ha!

That’s all there is tinto-wise. This is what there will be, blanco-wise:

1- The usual Airén from Carabaña that I’ve been harvesting for the last 10 years. The grapes are not ripe yet – they were at 11% a few days ago, and there are still quite a lot of green bunches visible. I’d like to harvest this at between 12% and 13%, and make the usual young white that I usually make every year. I’m really happy with the way it’s been turning out, and I think my clients are too. I’m on a little, personal Airén crusade here, I think, because I believe that really good wines can be made with Airén, especially if a better winemaker than me were to put his/her mind and hand to it!

Airén has such a negative cultural and vinous baggage to carry! Sigh! Oh woe, is life not hard enough already without having to shoulder all this negative baggage? :) Ha ha, only jesting! Deep down, I’m really a masochistic cynical bastard who thrives on hardship and albatrosses! Ha ha, jesting again! But seriously, I really do like Airén and really do believe that great wines can be made from it. So I shall make more of the same this year, plus of course I shall do a few experiments. Firstly, as I have all these old barrels available, I’ll do a bit of fermenting in them, in addition to the usual stainless steel. Secondly, I hope to come up with some other experiment to do when the time comes! Suggestions welcome! Here’s an interesting article about Airén by FringeWines: 

2. Malvar from Villarejo. Again I’m going to do the same as last year with these grapes. “If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it.” I was really pleased with last years’ wines and experiments. There were three lots of wines last year: Carbonic Maceration, Skin Contact (15 days) (‘orange’), and a straight 5-month skin contact ‘orange’ from an old amphora (tinaja in Spanish), all from the same Malvar from Villarejo. And I think my clients were happy with them too. So this year, I bought another amphora (see photo) so as to make another 300 bottles, in addition to the original 300!

And that’s it, I’m afraid (apart from the older wines from previous years that are still aging). Only about 4,000 bottles in total, I think. I had originally intended to make quite a lot more wine this year, but my best laid plans were rudely scattered to the winds by the great plough of life and circumstances, and will have to be rebuilt next year. C’est la vie!

So now, it’s the calm before the storm, ie just checking the white grapes in the vineyards, and checking on the red fermentations in the bodega.

Lastly, quite a few people have contacted me over the last few months with a view to visiting the vineyards and winery, but I haven’t been able to arrange these visits properly – due to my own inability to deal with emails and to arranging visits, etc. But I really do like receiving visits, so if you’re reading this, please just contact me again and insist harder! I’m not being exclusive or playing hard to get here, it’s just that I can’t cope with everything that I have to do all at once! So the ‘de facto’ or ‘fait accompli’ solution or whatever it’s called, is to tell me that you ‘have to’ visit on such-and-such a day, and then I’ll work all my other tasks and activities and urgent urgencies around the visit! Et violà! Problem solved!

And really lastly, I read somewhere that all posts should have at least one photo, so here it is:
 

Ambite vineyard under snow in January 2009!

A Little Post on Enzymes

I‘ve just read a really interesting guest post on Fiona Beckett’s blog on enzymes, and it made me think a bit about ‘natural wines’. Yet again!

But before I set off on why I don’t add enzymes to my wines, I’d just like to say what a great initiative the people at Birds & Bats Wine Productions are undertaking. This is just the sort of thing, imho, that the wine-world needs. Some new life, a breath of fresh air, and more good and interesting wines!

I’m actually quite depressed at the moment, after my recent experience of the state of rural viticulture and winemaking in the Sierra de Gredos. I don’t actually have the time to wallow in my depression at the moment because I’m right in the middle of harvesting and fermenting, but it’s there under the surface as it were. I happen to have the time to write about this at the moment, because I’m between harvests – ie, the reds (Tempranillo and Garnacha) are all in and fermenting, but the whites (Airén and Malvar) are not quite ripe yet.

Anyway, you can read my previous post (here) about the tragic and sad state of the local viticulture and winemaking that made me depressed! But not to exaggerate! I have of course been enjoying tremendously, living life to the full and keeping myself off the streets :)

So...back to enzymes...

I had no idea what enzymes were or did, but now I’m a little wiser, after reading the article and comments! Thanks again Fiona and Birds & Bats. Well, no disrespect intended to anyone in the enzyme-adding business, but it seems like a total irrelevance to me if the winemaker’s intention is to make a low intervention wine, ‘natural’ wine. If enzymes are already present in the grapes, as the article says, then there is no valid reason (from a natural winemaker’s point of view) for adding any during the winemaking. If your vineyard soil is living and healthy, and if your vines are vigorous and healthy, then your grapes will be balanced and healthy and will contain all the enzymes required, thank you very much!

The list of practical advantages in the guest post have not convinced me:

“Makes life easier for the producer”: also called taking short-cuts?

“Reduces cost to the consumer”: and reduces the quality of the wine too? Why not use ‘cost plus’ pricing?

“Speed up the winemaking process”: Why do that? You in hurry to go somewhere else? Let the wine take the time it needs without rushing it!

“Protect customer’s health”: Yes, we’ve all heard that one before! Everyone and their auntie says that about their products, even the likes of Monsanto, McDonalds and ACME Toxins!!!

“Release more potential from the grapes”: the grapes will release all the potential they need to release all by themselves, if they’re healthy and balanced and harvested at the right time

“Ensure wine does not spoil”: the wine will not spoil if the grapes are healthy and balanced and harvested at the right time and if the winemaker doesn’t do anything silly during winemaking!

“Protect customers and deliver a quality wine”: Nice truism! Show me a winemaker that does not want to protect his customers and doesn’t want to deliver a quality wine!!!

“We cannot afford to spoil thousands of good grapes”: Relax! Don’t be so fearful! If your grapes are healthy and balanced and harvested at the right time and if you don’t do anything silly during winemaking, your grapes won’t spoil

“...sinister chemical additions such as the dreaded sulphites”: there are a lot worse things than dreaded sulphites!

But, I'm sorry for harping on so much about this! This enzyme business really is quite trivial, and there are many things that are a lot, lot worse that one can do to one’s wine. The important thing here is that someone is doing something interesting in the wine world!

I hope I haven’t come across a some sort of extremist natural wine Taliban here! I like to think of myself as quite flexible and middle-of-the-road and sensible, as far as natural winemaking goes! For example, I’m quite happy to use a bit of sulphites if necessary. But only if necessary. By default I don’t use it. My main goal is to produce lovely, delicious, drinkable, terroir-expressing wines – but not at any price! I don’t use pesticides, herbicides, insecticides, or chemical fertilizers in the vineyard or any chemicals in the winery, for reasons of pollution, health and quality of the wine! It’s easy to make a delicious wine if you use chemicals and aggressive processing. But delicious at any price is not for me! There are more important things in life that being gratified by a delicious wine – like the state of the environment that we’re going to hand on to our children and future generations!

I wonder if this whole post is counter-productive? I mean, I’d hardly even heard of enzymes before reading Fiona’s post, let alone considered adding them to my wines! And I’ve actually had to think up all those reasons above, for not adding them, when before it didn’t even cross my mind to add them!!! I think that just goes to prove that there’s no real reason to manipulate the wine unnecessarily. By adding enzymes in this case, or by adding or doing anything else either, in general.

So enzymes have been added to wine since the 1970’s, as the guest post says. So for about 8,000 years, no enzymes were added! Was the quality of the wines produced over 8,000 years so bad, that people have been waiting for 8,000 years for enzymes to be discovered? And reverse osmosis? And spinning cones? And MegaPurple? And oak chips? And commercial yeasts? And tannin powder? etc, etc, and all the other technological products and processes that have been invented over the last 50 years?

I think this goes beyond a mere question of quality, or definition of quality! Basically, what is happening is that wine has been ‘commoditized’ just like any other product in today’s industrialized, profit-driven marketplace. Certain wine brands move millions of bottles every year, so they are obliged to churn out the same standardized product/brand every year, no matter what the climate or state of the grapes. It’s a brand. It’s an industrial product. It’s made in a liquid engineering processing factory, not in a winery. So anything goes, any technology, any product, any addition, as long as it’s legal (and sometimes not even that) in order to make that product according to the specifications.

The whole concept and meaning of the word of ‘quality’ I believe has been co-opted by industry and their marketeers. For them it means mere compliance with commercial and legal and organoleptic specifications, and has absolutely nothing to do with the real, basic, intrinsic, clean, ecological quality of the soil, grapes or wine.

Enough! This is turning into a terrible rant!

Thanks again Fiona for a great thought-provoking post, and all the best to Birds & Bats.

Another day in the life…

The other day (Wed 12 Sept 2012) I went out to Gredos to check out an old-vine Garnacha vineyard in a little village called Sotillo de la Adrada. A few months ago I reached an agreement with the owner of the vineyard to buy the grapes, and I’ve been going out there once a week or so over the last month to check the grapes as to ripeness and to set the date for harvesting. Quite banal and boring really, but it set me off thinking of ‘greater things’ or the ‘wider context’ as it were.

It takes me about 90 minutes to get there from Madrid, and I don’t like listening to the radio or even music in the car, so I prefer to use the time to just think and fantasize!!!

Well, first the actual visit, and then I’ll move on to what I think is going on.

Beautiful vineyard! I’ve seen quite a few around Sotillo recently and this one is fairly typical: sandy soil, at an altitude of between 600 m and 700 m, on the fairly flat foothills of the Gredos mountain range; not actually ‘mountainous’ like the vineyards in the more famous Cebreros just down the road, but more ‘valley-like’ I’d say.

All the vineyards I’ve seen there are quite small (max 1 or 2 ha) and a lot are interspersed with olive trees, and fig-trees.


Prickly pears in the vineyard



Fig tree in the vineyard



Olive tree in the vineyard


So I took samples of grapes, picking berries at random from every 3rd or 4th vine more or less during a random walk from one end of the vineyard to the other. And I tasted some berries, chewed the skins, and the pips, and looking though the spectrometer I got a probable alcohol level of 13.6%. So I decided to harvest this weekend! And the owner thought I was absolutely crazy! Because no-one else has harvested in the village, and they won’t be harvesting till October!

But hey, what can I say? I’m doing some experimenting here! I don’t think the wine world needs any more 15% or 16% or 17% alcohol Garnachas, does it? There’s some good ones out there already, and some not so good ones too! So, I’m going to try something a bit different, ie attempt to make a ‘lighter’ Garnacha alcohol-wise, while at the same time not losing any of the Garnachosity :)  We shall just have to wait and see! Anyway, I have a wine-making plan, but no doubt it will change every other day and the ultimate results are of course unpredictable!!!



There are also some vines in the vineyard


And now for the profound and sad thoughts!

Tragic and sad. Those are the main feelings I’ve been getting. Sotillo de la Adrada, like many, many other small towns in Spain (and no doubt in other countries in Europe too) with some agricultural heritage in general, and with a history of grape-growing and wine-making in particular, is dying!

Well, let’s not get too dramatic here! Let me rephrase: let’s just say that Sotillo is dying in terms of its agricultural and viticultural and vinous heritage. I’m sure it will live on for many years somehow or other!

Firstly, all the vineyard owners I’ve met were old men, well past retirement age!

Secondly, I saw many vineyards around Sotillo that have been abandoned, and many that look like they’re going to be abandoned any year now.

The reasons for this state of affairs are no doubt complex (and worthy of a socio-economic analysis!) but here are a few basic reasons which I believe may be relevant:

1. The sons and daughters of these vineyard owners have absolutely no interest in running them. They’ve probably gone to school and university and have a job in an office in the nearest city. Which is fair enough, as their parents made a huge effort to give them an education so that they wouldn’t have to slave in the fields from dawn to dark, from the age of 7 to 70, like they themselves have done!

2.The only outlet for the grapes produced by these grape-growers is the local co-op, which for decades has been faithfully buying up all the local grapes and faithfully making local table wine. And this is now a big problem for everybody concerned! Maybe a few decades ago, when Spain was a quasi-third-world country, there was a big demand for local table wine, and it all got sold, and everyone was happy. Back then, local table wine was a basic commodity like eggs, bread, fruit and veg, etc. But it’s not like that anymore. Spain, even in small rural villages, has supermarkets, and people just don’t buy as much table wine as they used to. And if they do, then it won’t necessarily be local, but it could be from anywhere, and based on price and transport logistics, etc. There must be thousands of wine-making co-ops in Spain, all making cheap table wine and all desperately competing on price points. It’s a no-no! It’s certain death, eventually, for both the co-op itself and for the many local grape-growers. Just a question of time.

The vineyard owner that I’ve reached an agreement with was complaining: last year he sold his grapes to the co-op. Firstly, they paid him a totally ridiculous price (per kilo and per degree of probable alcohol), and secondly, they haven’t paid him yet for last year’s harvest. That’s 12 months!

This is basically why so many vineyard owners are abandoning their vineyards. The running costs during the year (ploughing, pruning, composting, harvesting, etc) are not even covered by the price of grapes that the co-op is paying. And they don’t even pay that in a reasonable time frame.

It’s a vicious circle too. The co-op pays by kilo of grapes AND by degree of possible alcohol. So of course, the grapegrowers harvest as late as possible, because that way they earn more money. And the co-op proceeds to make wine that has 15%, 16%, 17% and more alcohol, and no doubt mixes and homogenizes and manipulates in all sorts of ways to produce millions of litres of cheap table wine. Competing with thousands of other co-ops who are doing exactly the same thing, all chasing a shrinking market for that type of product.

Small wonder that it’s so easy to find vineyards, either to rent directly or to buy the grapes from!!!

And here’s an anecdote, which illustrates how desperate the situation is. Like I said above, I’ve been visiting Sotillo quite regularly this summer, and word must have got around that I was buying grapes (and at a better price than the co-op and with immediate payment at harvest!), because I was invited to a local wine tasting event, organized by the Town Council. And not just invited to attend, but I was actually invited to give a talk and to sit on a tasting panel to judge the local wines that would be participating! This is totally ridiculous! Firstly, I’m not an experience or qualified taster, and in fact, I probably couldn’t even taste my way out of a paper bag! The only experience I have of tasting is of my own wines, and the occasional tastings I participate in informally! Secondly, it’s not like I’m Mr Delmonte about to decide whether to buy up the whole village’s grape production!!! I’m only buying a couple of thousand kilos from one grower, FCS!!!

So I gave a short little talk to an audience of about 40 old grapegrowers! I told them briefly about what I do with Vinos Ambiz, ie that I grow my own grapes organically with no chemicals, that I buy grapes that have been grown organically from third parties, that I make wine without chemicals, and that I sell it all, either locally in Madrid or abroad. Well, I must have said something right, because after the talk and the tastings, when we were all mingling and chatting and having aperitivos and canapés, two of the grapesgrowers come up to me to ask if I’d be interested in seeing their vineyards and buying their grapes next year!!!

That tasting itself was quite traumatic for me, as I’d never done an ‘official’ tasting before, with scores and notes, etc! I think that I was so nervous that I couldn’t really taste anything properly, and all 14 wines tasted exactly the same to me. They were all local Garnachas, they all had at least 17% or 18% alcohol, and they all had loads of residual sugar, as the fermentations had all stuck!!! They were more like ports or fortified wine rather than ‘regular’ wine. Actually, chatting later with the other tasters on the panel, I discovered that they also thought that all 14 wines were pretty similar!!!

I suspect that what was happening here was that these grapegrowers were selling their grapes to the co-op (harvesting as late as possible, so as to get paid more) but keeping a few hundred kilos back to make wine for themselves and their family and friends!

So there you have it. Sad and tragic. A potential treasure - hundreds of hectares of old-vine Garnacha, and other interesting unknown varieties - all being abandoned and lost.

First Mini-Harvest Report from Spain

Well, I’ve actually done two harvests already and now I’ll all stressed out because I’ve got nothing to worry about until the white Airén and Malvar are ready in about 1 week or 10 days!

The first harvest was a small lot of old vine Garnacha from Méntrida, and it was really easy because I didn’t actually have to go and harvest it myself!

Garnacha Grapes

I reached an agreement with the grape-grower that he would harvest it (on the date I specified) and he would bring it to the bodega in small boxes. No payment! ie, €0/kg! I will make the wine and give him half of it when it’s ready! Win-win, everybody happy!

So here it is, in two old oak barrels:


Crushed Garnacha in opened barred


It hasn’t started fermenting yet, but it should kick off any day now.

The second harvest was also quite easy going. This was our usual Tempranillo from the Carabaña vineyard. This year has been really really dry and it has hardly rained at all (insert some meteo data) so the quantity was about 25% less tan usual. This year I only just got barely enough to make one barrel of Crianza, about 250 kg.

So, last Sunday, three adults and three children (3½, 7 and 9) managed to harvest the lot in the course of the morning between 9:00 and 13:00. We then went back to the bodega and lit a barbeque for lunch.

Even though the quantity was small, the quality was 100%; not a single bunch was affected by any sort of humidity or fungus-related disease, eg mildew or oidium.

This year, in an attempt to improve on the Tempranillo Crianza that we’ve been making for the last 7 years or so, we harvested a little earlier than usual; we should get an alcohol level of 13%, as opposed to the usual +14%. It’s a bit of a risk, because I’ve never done that before, but hey, there’s only one way to find out!! Is there not?

On the following Monday, 2 adults and 2 children (6 and 7½) crushed and stomped the grapes underfoot. The Tempranillo is in stainless steel, and it hasn’t started fermenting either to date.

Stomping the Tempranillo

So now, I’m just hanging around, getting nervous, waiting for the Airén and Malvar to ripen in Carabaña and in Villarejo, waiting for some more lots of Garnacha from Gredos to come in. What’s that expression again? “Idle hands make light work” or something like that!!!

Slew of Back-Posts (4 of 5): Some thoughts on “Authentic Wine” by J.Goode and S.Hassop

I’ve just started reading ‘Authentic Wine’ – only the Preface and Introduction so far, plus some sneaky peeks at the later chapters – and I’ve decided that I’m going to write down my thoughts and impressions on the book as I go.

I’m not really sure exactly why I want to do this, but it seems like an interesting thing to do, if only so I can come back later and read these thoughts at some point in the future. Thoughts and impressions are so fleeting and ephemeral and they disappear almost as soon as you’ve had them, and sometimes you forget you even had them in the first place; and then your opinions evolve without you even realizing it, so it’s nice to be able to go back and find them again. Well, I like to do it anyway! I’ve already noticed this sort of thing happening to me from re-reading some of my old posts from only a year or two ago.

Anyway, let me start (boringly) by saying that I like and agree with almost everything I’ve read in the Preface and Introduction. I like the idea if inserting ‘naturalness’ into a higher scheme of things, along with Terroir, Sustainable Vineyard Management, Correct Harvesting, Faults and Environmental Considerations, to create the concept of ‘Authentic Wine’. The diagram on Page 7 expresses this rather well, though of course you could tweak and rearrange, add/remove, give more/less emphasis to the items according to your own taste. I also agree that natural wines are more interesting, taste better and are more respectful of the environment. No debate there, surely? And I also agree with the vision that the wine world is becoming ever more dominated by homogenous, boring, commodity-type wines.

That’s the boring part over with! Why is it always boring if you agree with someone? Well, here’s the part I disagree with (even if only slightly):

The authors suggest that we’re at a crossroads or fork, and that there is a real choice possible of which road to take, ie on the one hand there’s the road to even more domination by homogenized, industrial, boring branded wines, and on the other hand, there’s the road to a return to an abundance of accessible interesting terroir-driven wines. Well, I agree with the ever-increasing domination of brands part of the vision, but I don’t see a crossroads or a fork; I see a six-lane super-highway with a tiny dirt-track exit ramp that the machines forgot to close off!

Call me cynical, but I don’t see why the ‘suits’ should change tack just so that there can be more interesting terroir-driven wines available. Why do I believe this?

1. Because wine industry corporations (like all other corporations) are first and foremost profit-driven. The present system works very well for them in that they make lots of profits and distribute lots of dividends to their shareholders; and this is the ‘número uno’ criterion for decision taking for corporations. Even bigger, more serious issues (like workers’ rights, environmental degradation, social upheaval caused by supermarkets, etc) don’t bother them in the least in their drive for profits, so I don’t see why a nicety, like having more terroir-driven wines, should deviate them from their present course. In fact, I don’t see why the wine industry should not keep going in the direction it’s going in, in the footsteps of the beer industry. A grim scenario, I know. But like they say in Spanish “Piensa mal y acertarás” = “Think bad thoughts, and you’ll be right” !!!

2. Because the present model works for the consumers too, for a variety of reasons: convenience shopping at the supermarket, pricing, influence of marketing/branding/labels, just not caring that much about wine, etc. It doesn’t look like that’s showing any signs of changing.

Lastly, I believe that the ‘greening’ of consumers (ie increasing awareness and concern about environmental and health issues) is a real phenomenon and a long-term zeitgeist thing that’s been happening for decades and that this is a real pressure on the wine industry, just like it is on any other industry; but I think that it’s a pressure that’s easily dealt with – wine corporations have the budget to ‘greenwash’ themselves and also to actually really reduce their environmental impact. But, IMO, that’s not going to result in more interesting terroir-driven wines being produced – just more of the same boring homogenized ones but with a smaller carbon footprint.

I hope I’m wrong about this. And I hope there’s a place for authentic, natural, terroir-driven, environmentally sustainable wines. Maybe all will be revealed in the following chapters?

Jamie Goode's blog is here

and Sam Harrop's is here

Slew of Back-Posts (3 of 5): RAW and REAL Experiences

Well, a long time has gone by since the Natural Wine fairs in London back in May, and they’re well off the blogosphere horizon now, but I shall post this post nevertheless, even if just to fill in the large gap in this vineyard-winery-event diary-type blog that I’ve been keeping for 3 years now!

Back in May this year, I went to both RAW Fair and REAL Wine Fair.

The first reason I went to the fairs was to meet all the wine people I interact with on FB, Twitter and blogs and forums, etc! In some cases meeting up again after some time, and in other cases, devirtualizing for the first time.

The second reason was to taste and talk about as many natural wines as possible. As I may have mentioned before, here in Madrid, there’s not a single natural winebar to be found so it’s extremely difficult to taste any natural wine.

The third reason was to meet UK importers for my wines with a view to working together for the 2012 harvest.

And the fourth reason was just to get out of Madrid and Spain for a few days!

So, where to start? With the wine shipment disaster anecdote!


Photo: wine boxes ready for shipment


Yes, I screwed up big time! This was the first time I’d been to a proper wine fair, ie big event, abroad, over 3 days and for which I had to organize a shipment of a significant amount of wine. Basically, I left it too late and didn’t use a company specialized or experienced in shipping wine! To cut a long story short, my wines didn’t get to London in time for the fairs! My emergency solution was to take some bottles with me on the plane; so I packed my suitcase with 12 bottles and had to pay for the excess weight to EasyJet. So what I had to work with was: 2 bottles of each type of wine over three days!!!

In the end, it all worked out fine, because I put a sign up on my table, saying “I’ll be back”. Then I would hang out at neighbouring tables and chat with the winemakers and taste their wines, while keeping an eye on my own table. If anyone stopped there for more than 20 seconds and/or cast their gaze around the room obviously looking for me, then I would go over and attend to them. Otherwise, I kept hiding! It was hard going – at 2/3 bottle wine a day over 8 hours, but I managed!

Panoramic view of the RAW space

On the Sunday and Monday I was at RAW Fair which was held at the Old Truman Brewery. It was a great venue. I loved the ‘ ye olde worlde’ look and feel of the place, ie a nineteenth century brick building with steel beams visible! Natural light coming in from the skylights in the roof. Nice high ceilings. All these elements combined to produce a great atmosphere of space and tranquillity for me! The technical aspects were all organized perfectly and invisibly by Isabelle Legeron and her team, and I still can’t think of anything to complain about!!! I really enjoyed the talks and presentations, and I sneaked away from my table on many occasions to listen to the speakers. The food stalls provided were awesome and (I must confess) totally unexpected as I’d resigned myself to putting up with ‘English’ food for a few days, never having had any happy memories of it in the past!!! And lastly, I really liked the smoker’s corner (a little courtyard in the open air) and I hung out there quite a lot, chatting, drinking a wine that I’d picked up on my way there, and generally having a great time. I even managed to get a RAW T-shirt after pestering one of Isabelle’s helpers for two days!

Smokers corner at RAW

In the vineyard in June wearing my RAW T-shirt :)

I also went to the Georgian dinner on the Monday night. All the producers had to bring two bottles of wine, which we put in a big heap on the floor, and then as the diners entered the hall, we all chose a bottle or two to take to our table:

Wine for the Georgian dinner

On the Tuesday I was at REAL WINE fair, organized by Doug Wregg of Cave de Pyrène, and was held at Victoria House in Holborn. The venue wasn’t so grand, as it was in the basement and the ceilings were quite low. But I wasn’t bothered in the least, and the atmosphere was buzzing allday. Tuesday was a trade day so I was more focused on working and networking, as opposed to chatting and networking as I was at RAW! At the end of the day I managed to meet the UK importers that I wanted to meet, and even some other ones from Norway and Canada as an additional bonus! The food stall at REAL were also awesome, which couldn’t have been a coincidence. I wonder if this says something about the tastes and preferences of the people who drink (and make and distribute) natural wines? I got to taste many wines that I’d only read about and which I’d been looking forward to for ages. Especially Arianna Occhipinti and Thierry Puzelat, but many others too.


Photo: real wine


Photo: outside smokers


Anyway, this was all only two months ago, but it seems like a whole world away. I’m looking forward to going again next year (to both fairs, if possible, if there actually are two again, that is). And I’d like to go to some other fairs too, maybe in France or Italy. I don’t think there’s much chance of a similar natural wine fair being organized in Spain, unfortunately. I think that there are too few producers and we’re too dispersed all over the country, and (I imagine) not capable of organizing an event on such a scale. Well, I hope I’m proved wrong.

Apart from the two fairs, there were also a few sneaky wine events that I thoroughly enjoyed too. (Well, they weren’t actually technically ‘sneaky’ in the legal sense of the word, more like additional extras outwith the official schedule!)

First was a Jura tasting, organized by Wink Lorch. I’d heard about Jura wines (especially from the enthusiastic Arnold Waldstein) who is a huge fan of Jura, but I’d never actually tasted one (such is life in the wine desert known as Madrid!) and so I finally got to taste about 17 of them all at one sitting, and meet a few producers, and chat with knowledgeable winelovers! Here’s a link to a post written by Wink Lorch herself, which has lots of info on the producers.

In good company at the Jura tasting, between Jean-Etienne Pignier and Wink

Second was a Garnacha tasting, organized by Ryan and Gabriela Opaz. Or ‘Grenache’ I should say, as the wines were from France. It was held at New Cross House (in the New Cross area south of the river) which is a pub-restaurant but which also had an open-air patio through the back which we had the use of. On this occasion, though I myself was sneaky, as I sneaked in an unofficial bottle of my own Garnacha in my rucksack, and subtly and discretely (I hope) poured a few sneaky glasses. And I managed to get another T-shirt from my friend Luis Alberto J.

#winelover T-shirts

Below are all the Garnachas that were poured that night. Marlene Angelloz just sent me the list, because I couldn’t remember and I didn’t take any photos either. I have to say that I’m totally amazed that there were so many! I was convinced that there were only two!!! I spent some time chatting to one of the producers, who was English. And I had no idea that Escocés Volante’s wines were there, as I’ve been trying to taste them for years! Still without success! Maybe I’ll manage to do so this upcoming Garnacha Day in September. Here's a link to a short video from the Garnacha Day tasting last year; the sound is not good, but you can see my loud shirt!

G-Day Producers:
Chêne Bleu (Le Crestet - Ventoux FR),
Domaine de Mourchon (Côtes du Rhônes Villages Séguret FR),
Clos de Trias (Le Barroux - Ventoux FR),
La Célestière (Châteauneuf-du-Pape FR),
Les Clos Perdus (Peyriac de Mer - Côtes Catalanes Roussillon FR),
La Gramière (Saint-Quentin-La–Poterie Costières de Nimes FR),
Le Clos du Caveau (Vacqueyras FR),
Vinyes Domenech (Capçanes – Catalunya - Spain),
El Escoces Volante (Calatayud Aragon Spain),
Pares Balta (Barcelona – Catalunya Spain)

Slew of Back-Posts (2 of 5): Hanging out with my Importer

So, next morning I duly arrived late for my meeting (1 hour late) as tradition demands (!) but they (José Pastor, Chris Barnes and Mark Middlebrook) out-Spanished me by arriving 1½ hours late. Not to worry though, because I took the time to have an extra coffee and to fiddle with my new SmartPhone, which I still don’t know how to work properly.

Anyway, first stop: the new vineyard in Villarejo, which is easy to get to from Madrid as it’s very close to the A-3 Madrid-Valencia highway, at Exit 48 km.

Here we are, in the vineyard, taking photos and taking in the terroir.

The vines are all Malvar – a white variety that would seem to be native to the Madrid region. It’s completely unheard of anywhere else, and it’s very difficult to fine any kind of wine made with this variety.

  

The vines are quite old – but not as old as they look. I’ll have to check with the owner but I think they’re only about 40 years old. It’s just that they are very vigorous vines. The soil is surprisingly fertile (not at all like the soil in the Carabaña vineyard, only 11 km down the road) and I suspect that there’s water not too far down below the surface.

Last year (2011) we made three different types of wine with these Malvar grapes:

-          Malvar, by carbonic maceration

-          Malvar, by carbonic maceration and 15 days skin contact in stainless steel

-          Malvar, by regular fermentation and 5 month skin contact in a clay amphora (‘tinaja’)

Our next stop was the winery )’bodega’ in Morata de Tajuña, about 15 km down the road, where we proceeded to taste everything I had!

No photos!

The next stop was for lunch in LA Tinaja restaurant in the centre of Morata de Tajuña. This is a great restaurant and I go there quite often. The daily set menu is €8 and the food and cooking are excellent. They also have an à-la-carte menu and the wine-list is good too.

The waiters remembered JP, CB and MM from the last time we were all there last year! I didn’t think that we had behaved that badly!

It was a very productive lunch as we worked out exactly which wines JPS wanted to take and how many bottles of each, and which I duly jotted down on the tablecloth.

Next stop: Madrid, and after saying our goodbyes, I went to meet my architect and … went back to Villarejo!!! We went to meet the owner of a building where I hope to install the winery before the harvest this year. It’s not a pretty building, but it’s functional! It’s in the middle of an industrial estate surrounded by industrial workshops and warehouses. 

I need an architect because the bureaucracy is so complex and ridiculously opaque and time-consuming that it’s easier (and probably cheaper, in the long-run) to pay an expert to deal with it! The most important issues seem to be the electricity and the water supplies. If these two areas don’t have the relevant paperwork in order then you can safely forget about the building itself – it would take months, if not years, and thousand, if not tens of thousands of Euros, to get it sorted. Apart from that, the application forms for a license and the supporting documentation to be handed in, are absolutely extra-ordinary and only a qualified specialist would be able to do it! Such is life in the inheritor states of the Western Roman Empire! I hear that it’s even worse in the East though!

After that, I went home and went to bed!