With the designation Santo Spirito this wine must be said to be quite appropriate in the so-called Holy Week we are in. Now I don’t always see the importance of chosing themes and content according to the season (there is always a reason for chosing a specific wine anyway). So we hereby leave the religious aspect.
The 25-60 year old grapes are grown in volcanic soil in the eastern corner of Sicilia, north of Catania. They are mostly carricante (about 65%), but a “field blend” of several others like inzolia, catarratto and grecanico constitutes the rest. The wine is made quite naturally, with malolactic fermentation too, that contributes to its roundness.
Etna Bianco Santo Spirito 2014 (Tenuta delle Terre Nere)
Golden colour. The aroma is clearly tropical, with mango, apricot, cooked apple maybe, a bit lactic, and with a sensation of prolonged skin-contact. In the mouth it is unctuous, waxy, not very long and with moderate acidity. But nice drinking after all.
Price: Medium
Food: A full, round, and “tropical” wine, it was no big hit with yesterday’s varied cheese board. Next time I will try some Asian food, with some sweetness, maybe soy sauce. More safe suggestions would be fish and fowl, and why not a Sicilian style pasta dish with vegetables.
Rémi Jaillet, from a family of wine growers in Loire, is now one of the rising stars in Languedoc-Roussillon. The largest wine area here (almost half of the AOC production) is Corbières in the Aude département. Corbières is a varied area in terms of soil and climate, but it’s predominantly red wine land, and carignan is the most common grape variety.
Here Rémi has 7 hectars of vineyards that he tends organically. The Clos Espinous comes mostly from more than 80 year old carignan vines. This makes up for around 60% of the cuvée, while granache and syrah stand for the rest. The must underwent spontaneous fermentation, and the wine was matured for 9 months in used oak before release.
Clos Espinous 2014(Rémi Jaillet)
Dark red with blueish hue. Quite concentrated, slightly earthy aroma with hints of mature dark berries (morellos, blackberry), and some spiciness. In the mouth it’s full, but refreshing too. Maybe a bit on the rustic side, and reductive at opening, so airing is recommended.
Positive news from Rioja: Another terroir-oriented company, this time David Sampedro and DSJ Vineyards, a man and a company with projects in several Spanish DO’s such as Rioja, Navarra, Valencia and Rías Baixas. Common for these wines are indigenous varieties, organic farming, little intervention along the way and wines that express their terroir.
This one is a 100% graciano from the high Elvillar area in Rioja Alavesa. In this project he is now working to get a biodynamic certification. The company is also called Bodegas Bhilar, from the Basque word for Elvillar. The Lágrimas is the only varietal in the portfolio, made with purchased grapes.
Lágrimas de Graciano 2014(Bodegas Bhilar/ DSG Vineyards)
Dark red with a violet tinge. Fruity with aromas of red berries, some blackcurrant, aromatic herbs, a hint of lickorice too. Luscious with a slight tannin grip.
This is a wine I bought from a wine merchant in Sanlúcar (see this article), on his recommendation. I served it in a blind tasting this week, and of course nobody guessed the region.
It’s more cool in appearance than expected, and the chalky albariza soil between Jerez and Rota must have some responsibility for this. The grape is tintilla de Rota, which is a synonym for graciano (and maybe originated here in the south), and which they regard as a very promising red variety down here.
Vineyards in albariza soil between Jerez and Rota
In this area tintilla can be very delicate and mineral and is able to ripen perfectly without high levels of alcohol or overripe fruit. The less than 15 years old grapes for this wine have been organically farmed only 60 meters over sea level, and the wine has seen a mix of cement and oak vessels of various sizes.
Vara y Pulgar 2012(Cía. de Vinos del Atlántico)
Purple colour. Aroma of red and dark berries, stone minerals, dark chocolate and some balsamic notes. Full and quite dense on the palate, a sweet sensation, but with a long, dry and mineral aftertaste. Like I said in the beginning, ripe but also with a touch of coolness.
Fresh, appealing rosé wine that costs “no money”. Made from corvina (80%) and molinara, and made in the stainless steel low temperature fermentation tradition.
Bardolino Chiaretto Organic 2014 (Villabella)
Light salmon pink. Discrete notes of red fruits, apricots, and lime. Dry, yet with a smooth texture, quite full on the palate.
A few weeks ago I spent a day in central Rueda. It was in full harvest time, but I never saw a grape picker, nor a harvesting machine. Why? Rueda is white wine land, and it may be well known that the modern “revolution” started in the 1980’s, when modern technology was introduced, and grapes was picked at night before the heat of the day became too annoying for grapes and people.
I was in search for good organic verdejos with a sense of place. And there was a wide variety of producers, big ones and small ones, privately owned and cooperatives. I appreciate the cooler style of the higher vineyards in the northern part of Segovia (villages like Nieva and Santiuste). This time I concentrated on the province of Valladolid, where the majority of bodegas are concentrated in and around the villages of La Seca, and Rueda itself.
I started on the other side of the bigger town of Medina de Campo though, in Rubí de Bracamonte, that is situated a bit higher (some places above 800 meters) and has a climate somewhere between the Rueda and the Segovia part. Bodegas Verderrubí was a nice surprise. They dispose of 27 hectars verdejo (4 different clones), all of it run organically and will be certified from the 2015 vintage on. The ground here has sand and stones with some clay (here more grey coloured compared to the more orange in Rueda/La Seca), which together with the high location gives the wines a good acidity.
Emilio Pita Gil, winemaker and owner
Each tank contains wine from one parcel
Emilio makes three distinctly different whites. First we tasted The basic Dominio de Verderrubí 2014, made solely in stainless steel with 4 months on fine lees. Really fresh and aromatic, with hints of apple and gooseberry, and a nice and supple acidity. The Atipyque 2013 had fermented and stayed on the total lees in fudres of 5.000 liters. This was clearly darker, and had a more marked lees character, more fruity than flowery, but with some hints of camomile, and some anis that in a way resembles a moscatel. Lastly the Pita 2013 was still darker, aged in wood. Vanilla and butter, a bit raisiny maybe, but the acidity of the high altitude does it good.
A glimpse of amphoras before we leave. Interesting…
On to La Seca, the municipality with the largest area under vine in the whole of Spain, so you understand this is wine country. Bodegas Menade claims to be the first one to be organic both in vineyards and winery. And it’s a prime example, very pedagogic, as they use blackboards and other means. Patricia tells me about how they create their ecosystem, a story that includes serum of milk to deal with oïdium, cinnamon extract to strengthen the roots, lady bugs to eat spider eggs, and vinegar and garlic to get the same ladybugs out of the vineyards once the job is done. Next time around we will also find beehives here.
Menade has 180 hectars of vineyards, 50 of them around the winery, where they cultivate sauvignon in addition to verdejo. According to Patricia they appreciate freshness before (over-) maturity, so in a hot year like 2015 they picked everything before 3rd September.
They use dry ice in-stead of sulphur, and to filter they use paper of cellulosis (with different levels of filtering), and everything can be re-cycled.
After a nice salty-mineral sauvignon intro we tasted several verdejos. Their Menade 2014 was an exemplary, round wine with good acidity. The Nosso (meaning “our”, but also denotes “no sulphur”) is a white that has undergone malolactic fermentation. And as such it is rounder, quite full, and darker, with some honey, butter, nuts… The older people of the wine growers say that the smell of this one reminds them of the old days, when Rueda was famous for sherry style wines.
Then there is the V3 (verdejo viñas viejas) in 2012 vintage. This is a wine that is made from “pie franco”, ungrafted vines. Needless to say: Rich, extremely concentrated, and after a year in 20-30% new oak it shows notes of mature apple, nuts/almonds and some vanilla.
We also tasted their organic top-fermented beer from wheat and barley. I mentioned teaching… Menade also makes de-alcoholized must, for children and young people to learn to taste before they reach legal age.
Vidal Soblechero is located between 600-760 meters, also in the outskirts of La Seca. Alicia Vidal Soblechero and her family and other helpers determined from the first day to make not less than five verdejos from five plots, five distinctly different interpretations of the same grape. Three of them are treated with some kind of oak, which helps to accentuate the differences. So a visit here is strongly recommended to learn about the many possibilities.
Alicia Vidal Soblechero
They have also done a great job to make their own ecosystem. Interestingly a hawk is on top of that pyramid, at least in terms of meters over grass level. I had heard about the hawk, but I had not imagined that I would get the chance to see it. I not only saw it, I got the chance to hold a hawk for the first time in my life. Alicia’s brother Vidal Vidal Soblechero (no misspelling here) takes care of it.
Vidal and the hawk
I will not go into great detail here. In general the wines have a warmer and fuller style than those of Verderrubí. And they dispose of a variety of vineyards, some more than 100 years old. Alicia tells that the wine-making has always been organic here, never have they turned to what we tend to call “conventional”. So far no wine has been certified though, but she says she wants to do it, to give the customer some kind of warranty.
I like their basic, unoaked verdejo Viña El Clavidor (the one with 50% viura in it too, fairly much in the same style), that has no “inox-feeling” as can be found in strictly tank-made young whites (and that I imagine can happen due to some kind of reduction). This one hasn’t been fermented at those low temperatures either. Some of the finca wines come under the name Pagos de Villavendimia. Among these the Finca El Alto is, as the name suggests, the highest vineyard at 760 meters. There is limestone, and the pebbles retain energy from the sun, which is useful as there can be frost in august and september. The 2011 was concentrated and long due to a high level of acidity. Finca La Matea has 40 years old vines, and gives more mouthfeel, but the 2011 was rather oaky. Escribiente 2013, from arcilian soil, I really liked. This one has never seen oak, and is a concentrated, full, appley wine with some anis notes and integrated acidity. Nearby Finca Varastrojuelos is planted with viura. Only 700 bottles are made, the rest go into other wines, such as the verdejo-viura blend. They make red wines from tempranillo too. Of the more eccentric project is a verdejo eiswein that grows close to the bodega.
Finca El Alto
I also popped into the cooperative Agrícola Castellana (nowadays better known as Cuatro Rayas) just down the road. Everything was correct, the wines too, but not much more than correct: I would say simple and rather dull. Bodegas Antaño (nowadays better known as Mocén) is oppsosite: They have an interesting collection of old wine artefacts, long labyrinthic underground paths, and the bodega is quite untidy. But their basic organic verdejo was surprisingly good.
One of two good and cheap wines I have tasted from the organic wine gut Wolf lately. It is Markus and Ulrike Boor who runs the estate (together with another named Louis Klein). Founded by monks who moved into the monastery in Wolf in 1478, the production contunued after reformation (of the church, that is), and today’s church was in fact built upon the old cellar in 1685.
From 4 hectars where the “Guldgrube” is one of the vineyards in Wolf (there is also one in Traben), good organic, crisp, light, elegant and sometimes mineral wines are made. The most significant ground is schist and the most prominent grape is, not surprisingly, riesling – but several other whites, and reds as well.
Some times you doesn’t want your wine to bother you with big questions, nuclear weapon threats and difficult international issues. Some times it’s ok that it comes to you, tickles your taste buds, and slides down – like a polite question, or maybe just to confirm that all is still well.
Karl May has a lot to offer, from single vineyard rieslings to easy drinking reds and whites.
He manages 20 hectars of organic vineyards in Wonnegau, Southern Rheinhessen. The grapes are handpicked. In the cellar he lets time do the rest. Thus fermentation occurs by its own and when the time is right.
Spätburgunder 2012(Karl May)
Bright red. Aroma of raspberries and cherries, a touch of spice. Luscious, cool, with a fine rounded acidity, quite slender if you think of it. Not very complex, fruity, easy-to-drink, and just lovely!
Price: Low
Food: Light meat, hard cheeses, salads… and try to bacalao
So you don’t think a Spanish cabernet can be much fun? This one is, at least for me. Lately I have tasted through most of Dominio Buenavista’s portfolio again, most of it under the Veleta label, from the (in Spain at least once) ever-present cabernet, via the obscure local variety vijiriega, a tinto jóven made of tempranillo, to the most fascinating not-very-sweet red dessert wine Don Miguel.
Juan, Nola and Nolita (front) Palomar (credit: Dom. Buenavista)
Dominio Buenavista is located 650 meters above sea level, in the Alpujarras, a mountaneous area in the province of Granada. This is one of the Spanish centers of natural wine, with Barranco Oscuro as one of the leading producers. Their good friends at Dominio Buenavista is another. We are in the village of Ugíjar, in the southeastern Contraviesa subzone, with a view to the Mediterranean and at the same time to Veleta, one of the highest peaks on the Spanish mainland. Planted here are cabernet sauvignon, cabernet franc, merlot, tempranillo, chardonnay, viognier a.o., not to forget the exiting white variety vijiriega. The work in the vineyard is biodynamic, only natural yeast is used and the quantities of sulphur are very restricted. Red wines normally undergo a ten days maceration, where the must is pumped-over one or two times each day before pressing. They are then typically aged for a certain time in French and American oak up to five years old.
The grapes for the Cabernet Sauvignon Roble 2013 were picked mid-September, and the wine aged for three months in oak.
Dark, bright colour. Aroma with elements of ripe fruit, plums, some pepper, quite balsamic (menthol). Rich with a smooth texture, but not without tannic structure either. The balance between fruit, oak, tannins and the other elements is already intact, but the wine will develop positively for 4-5 years too.
