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Tag: garnacha

Articles and Wine bars and restaurants

More from Murcia

Back in Murcia for Christmas celebrations, I never miss an opportunity to visit La Gracia natural wine bar near the cathedral (and the bull ring). Sommelier Esperanza tells that they will organize a natural wine fair on the 21st of January, called #vinosinresaca (that means wine without hangover), where some 25 of the most prestigious microbodegas from all over the country will participate. I really appreciate and support the initiative, though I can’t participate this first time. You should if you are near.

This evening I chose a plain Italian focaccia to go with all three wines, that were excellent. I opened with an aperitif, the sparkler Malaherba 2019 from Finca Parera, Penedès. It’s a rich and tasty wine with lots of body based on the xarel.lo vermell (red) grape, with yellow fruits aroma with wax and iodine.

The invitation to the upcoming fair and the Duarte bobal

Next was Duarte 2022, a young bobal-tempranillo with fresh and dark berries and herbs, quite simple, but tasty. Good fruit throughout, and the tannins were quite firm and seemed young. Its maker Verónica Romero from Utiel-Requena, València is a comet in today’s natural wine sky. The wine is made with whole bunches in a variant of the carbonic maceration.

One of the more established natural wine producers in the Gredos mountains is Cható Gañán, where Kike Prados holds the reins. Navaciegos is a quite complex garnacha wine, purple coloured, aromas of red and dark fruits, also some dried herbs, and a layer of coffee. In the mouth it is full, quite dense and concentrated, with rounded tannins and good fruit. It’s made in Navahondilla, in a 0.35 hectares vineyard of 60 year old vines, at about 785 meters of altitude, with very degraded granite soil. A small part of the grapes are foottrodden and vatted with stems. The rest is destemmed. It was aged in French barrels of 500 liters at various ages.

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Spanish visit to Stavanger

An armada of Spanish producers visited Stavanger, Norway this last Tuesday with their importer Moestue Grape Selections. I participated at the following dinner at Matbaren Renaa.

Visiting from Spain were Telmo Rodríguez, Fernando García (Comando G) and Carlos “Curro” Bareño (Fedellos and Vinícola Mentridiana). Pedro Parra from Itata, Chile should have been there, but was left somewhere in Europe with covid.

Paired with the restaurant’s lobster, lamb and quail dishes were seven wines. The fino Caberrubia Saca VI from Luís Pérez was a welcome drink, a natural sherry from pago Balbaína outside Jerez. It’s a grapey, salty and fresh sherry with no added alcohol.

Telmo Rodríguez introduced his white Branco de Santa Cruz 2020 from Valdeorras. He tells that this is one of the places he spends most time nowadays. It’s made from that premium northern grape godello, with some treixadura, doña blanca and palomino, all found in a mixed vineyard together with red varieties, and matured in used oak vats. It’s a super elegant wine with good volume, textured, and a complex aroma of citrus, herbs, a touch of menthol and a stony minerality.

Fedellos started as Fedellos do Couto because they were based in that village. Now they have moved. They make wines from the Bibei valley. Peixe da Estrada 2019 is a village wine from Viana do Bolo outside both Valdeorras and Ribeira Sacra designated areas, a field blend of 60-80 year old vines with predominantly mencía made with whole bunches in partially used barrels, steel, concrete and/or fiberglass tanks. Long maceration time and light extractions. It’s a fresh, delicate wine with aromas of red and dark fruits along with herbs and some balsamic.

Pedro Parra couldn’t attend as he was sick with covid and stuck somewhere in Europe. But his wines made it to Norway. Pedro is a leading figure in the new terroir-focused Chilean wave, concentrating on cinsault on granite soils. He tries to make his wines in a reductive way, at present with 20 days skin-contact.

Trane was obviously (?) dedicated to John Coltrane, an innovator and creative jazz musician. It’s a single-vineyard cinsault from a plot of highly decomposed granite soils. It fermented in concrete with indigenous yeasts and some 30% full clusters and matured in big oak vats for 11 months. It’s a light wine, but also structured. The fruit is both dark and red, with hints of flowers, anise and smoke.

Fernando García represented Comando G, that has contributed to putting the Gredos mountains on the wine map. They were also on this trip promoting the book Calicata, about the wine region. The English edition was released a few months ago, and Moestue sells it on the Norwegian market. In fact I was visiting Fernando at his table when another wine was passed around. I didn’t realize this in time, but my fiancée gave me a few drops to taste. It had a strong signature of a Gredos garnacha, ruby red, ethereal, with red fruits (raspberry), flowers and smoke – in a way light, but intensely full of flavours. It turned out to be Las Iruelas 2019, a parcel wine from El Tiemblo in the Ávila province. It was earlier made by the Jiménez-Landi family winery, but is now labelled Comando G.

The last wine was a lovely rioja from the new wave, that I advocate, Telmo’s Tabuérniga 2019. It comes from a cool vineyard in the village of Labastida, planted with old tempranillo vines, some graciano, mazuelo, garnacha and garnacha blanca. The soil is shallow and calcareous. It’s a serious wine; somewhat austere and maybe a little closed, but underneath are red and wild berries waiting to burst; it’s full of fruit and the tannins are elegant. It’s a wine that invites you to meet again, so let’s remember it and follow. A wonderful evidence that a wine does not need to be oaky to be complex nor ageworthy.

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Wine of the Week

Arizcuren’s Garnacha

Garnacha was once the main variety in the historic vineyards of the lower Rioja. This wine is a nod to this tradition. We are in the northern slopes of the Sierra de Yerga. Javier Arizcuren here works with some of the few old vineyards, in the Gobelet conduction system.

The wine seeks to be an expression of the both the variety and of the place where it grows, therefore no foreign products are used in the process (except a small amount of sulfur). The wood is used exclusively for thewine stabilization process, without being excessively marked.

The grapes were manually harvested, with grape selection in the field. De-stemming. Alcoholic fermentation with wild yeasts at around 25ºC. Daily stirring and pumping over, then only stirring. Malolactic fermentation in steel. 8 months in 225-litre American oak barrels (6th year) and an additional 2 months in new French oak barrels.Total SO2 is 50 mg/litre.

Solo Garnacha 2016 (Javier Arizcuren)

Dark cherry red. Youthful aroma of blackberry and cherry, a touch of coffee and sweet spice. Full in the mouth, rich with good weight and concentration, fine tannins, balanced acidity. Still young, and will improve.

Price: Medium

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Wine of the Week

Great Garnacha from Rioja

Carlos Sánchez has a background from Sierra de Gredos (4 Monos). But he had early on fallen in love with the Sonsierra area of Rioja. And here he is. Since 2019 he has used the facilities of the former cooperative in Labastida.  

This is a wine from a single plot (0,3 ha.) in San Vicente de la Sonsierra, on 100% garnacha. It’s spontaneously fermented with a high percentage of whole bunches, and kept in large oak barrels. Not clarified nor filtered. A modest production of 1.700 bottles.

Buradón Las Plegarias 2020 (Carlos Sánchez)

Cherry red. Good ripe fruit, red plums, cherry, some strawberry, and a layer of dried herbs and lavender. Good volume, soft and fleshy, fine tannins, integrated acidity. It’s rooted in its landscape, yet has a noble air to it. Really good.

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Wine bars and restaurants and Wine of the Week

Asturianos revisited

Last evening in Madrid: I haven’t been to the Asturianos restaurant since many years, when I had a tasting of Gredos wines with Belarmino Fernández. Belarmino’s family runs this restaurant in the Chamberí neighbourhood, and he is also in charge of Bodegas Canopy in Méntrida (Toledo province, at the foot of the Gredos mountains) together with his friend Alfonso Chacón.

I had celebrated and good wines like Esporão Reserva Branco 2021 (Alentejo) and Predicador 2020 (B. Romeo, Rioja), of which the restaurant is a distributor, and also Canopy’s varietal syrah Malpaso 2021. Still, when sommelier José Antonio offered me a tasting of their garnachas, this was unquestionably the highlight of the evening. 

Belarfonso is put together from the names of the two owners of the bodega. The wine’s origin is in El Real de San Vicente where old garnacha grows in granite soil. It underwent a pre-fermentative cold fermentation, before a malalactic in oak, and spent a short time in French barrels of 500 and 700 liters.

Castillo de Belarfonso 2019 (Bodegas Canopy)

Garnet red. Cherry, herbs, scrubland and a typical ethereal note. Fresh in the mouth, well-integrated tannins, some earth and a hint of coffee and black pepper.

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Wine of the Week

Águila of La Aguilera

Dominio del Águila, in the village La Aguilera, was founded in 2010 by Jorge Monzón and Isabel Rodero. Here, in the Burgos part of Ribera del Duero, they cultivate 30 hectares of vineyards, all organically.

Pícaro del Águila is made with vines between 35-60 years old, on sandy-clay soil, 900 metres above sea level in a north-facing vineyard. The main variety here is tempranillo with some albillo, bobal and garnacha. These varieties are co-fermented whole bunches in concrete lagares and aged in French oak. This is a nod to the past; a wine made with a blend, with a good balance between the fruit and wood and a vibrant acidity.

Pícaro del Águila 2020 (Dominio del Águila)

Ruby red. Expressive aroma of dark and red berries (blackberry, cherry), autumn leaves and spices. It’s in a way powerful, but the tannins are soft and rounded,, there are ripe fruits, and a fresh lingering acidity.

Price: Medium

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Wine of the Week

Monkeys in the mountains

4 Monos are four friends who all had fallen in love with the garnachas and the freshness of the Sierra de Gredos mountain range. Javier García and Laura Robles are a married couple, and their friends David Velasco and David Moreno are the two other monkeys.

We are in the town and the Madrid subzone of San Martín de Valdeiglesias. Here is a high proportion of clay in the soils. The wine is made with garnacha from three different plots at 750 to 840 meters of altitude. In short, it’s made with whole bunches, fermentation with native yeasts and maturation in barrels for 15 months.

Tierra de Luna 2017 (4 Monos)

Ruby red. Aroma of mature red fruits (raspberry), herbs (rosemary), earthy notes and a tiny sweet sensation (caramel). Medium-bodied with fine tannins, a taste of ripe cherries, good acidity.

Price: Medium

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Wine of the Week

La Bruja de Rozas 2020

La Bruja de Rozas is Comando G’s entry level wine. It’s a village wine from several plots around Rozas de Puerto Real, in the western part of Madrid province. The vineyards are located around 850-900 meters above sea level, and the vines are 50-80 years old. Cultivation is organical and according to biodynamic principles. The grapes are spontaneously fermented with a large proportion of whole clusters in open vessels. Long and gentle maceration for 30-40 days. Maturation partly in large foudres of 3-6,000 litres, used 500-litre barrels and a small proportion in concrete. Unfined and unfiltered.

La Bruja de Rozas 2020 (Comando G)

Ruby red. Aromatic with mature red fruits (raspberry), flowers, spices (cinnamon), smoke and a mineral layer behind. Energetic, with young tannins, fresh acidity. It’s in a way juicy and concentrated at the same time.

Price: Medium

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Wine of the Week

Landi’s Uvas de la Ira

At home after two lovely days in Sierra de Gredos I was inspired to extend the trip a little. So I fetched a wine from the cellar. I had a couple of other quite recent vintages. But I chose the current, 2020, to be able to refill.

Daniel Jiménez-Landi is part of the dynamic duo Comando G. But his family has deep roots in the Toledo province, and this wine is from there, within the Méntrida denomination to be more exact.

Las Uvas de la Ira, meaning The Grapes of Wrath, is a village wine made from old-vine garnacha in four different vineyards high up in El Real de San Vicente, Gredos.

Uvas de la Ira 2020 (D. Jiménez-Landi)

Ruby red, blueish hint. Red fruits (raspberry, strawberry), flowers, a layer of smoke and stone minerality. It’s youthful and a bit fleshy in the mouth, with young tannins and a fresh acidity. It’s quite concentrated, at the same time it has an ethereal quality typical of Gredos garnachas.

Price: Medium

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Ponce for Christmas

I am in Murcia for the holiday season. I have bought a wine cupboard and filled it with a collection of wines delivered from the national chain Vinissimus. This year I bought only one local wine (and it was the same as last year, see here). But from over in La Mancha, not far away in Manchuela, I have three wines from the same producer.

Juan Antonio Ponce works biodynamically in the vineyard, and in the winery he takes a natural approach, using low levels of sulfur dioxide. The bunches are chilled and fermented without de-stemming. Freshness is another priority when working with bobal, with harvests before most of the neighbours to avoid ripe or stewed sensations.

Clos Lojen is 100% bobal from vineyards on limestone-clay soil at 800 meters. It had a short maceration and aging for 3-4 months in used French oak barrels. Buena Pinta is not a bobal. Moravia agria, a native grape from Castilla-La Mancha, accounts for 90%, and the rest is garnacha. Moravia is noted for its acidity and blends well with garnacha. It’s aged for 7 months in used 600-liter French oak barrels and bottled without filtering or clarifying. Pie Franco was maybe the first wine I tried from Juan Antonio, and immediately put him on the throne as the King of Bobal. One can wonder how wines tasted before phylloxera. Without going into further discussion I can only say that there is a timeless air over this wine, fruit of old vines bobal planted in sandy soils where phylloxera did not enter. For me a doubtless classic.

Clos Lojén 2021: Cherry red. Fresh and fruit-driven aroma of cherry and blackberry, herbs and a peppery note. Juicy in the mouth with fine tannins wrapped in fruit, and with fresh acidity. Youthful and serious.

Buena Pinta 2021: Bright ruby red. Perfumed and complex aroma with cherries, plums, flowers, herbs, and balsamic hints. On the palate it is very fresh and vivid, with evident tannins, and a slightly bitter aftertaste. Fascinating, between fragility and strength.

Pie Franco 2021: This is a more powerful wine. Dark cherry red. Aromatic, with black fruits, scrubland and also balsamic notes (eucalyptus) Structured, with mature tannins and mineral notes. A timeless classic.

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