Rioja
Arnegui Joven 2007
Vintage generalisations are usually misleading. But 2007 is turning out to be one of those vintages where hard work in the vineyard and careful wine making will really show results. Yes, it was a wet vintage, but this wine looks positively sunny. So how does that happen? Well the weather isn’t everything in producing wine (it is a lot, granted) and the effects of poor weather can be very localised or broadly distributed over a whole region. Also, a ‘wet vintage’ is arelative term. In Ribera del Duero, the average rainfall is 650mm a year, they got 800mm in 2007. Compare that to the Yarra Valley with an average of 1200mm… As an aside, this is the 500th post on Tinto y Blanco…
Remelluri Reserva 2004
vOne of the most memorable wine experiences I’ve had over the years was a bottle of Remelluri Reserva 1991 with a slowly roasted leg of kid (yes, baby milk fed goat, cabrito asado in Spanish) at Asador Alameda. Now these two are a match made in heaven, I’ve been chasing a similar experience here in Australia but I’m yet to have the same ah-ha moment. The plans for the wood fired oven are well underway, now I just need a good goat supplier. This discovery was back on my first trip toRioja in 2005, its one of the many reasons I keep going back whenever I get a chance…
Senorio de San Vicente 2004
Out of the whole raft of wine that the Eguren guys make, I think this is my favourite. What gets me with this wine is the aromatic nose that only seems to get better as the wine ages. If you are drinking these wines young, make sure you decant, or at the very least open the bottle a couple of hours before drinking. I tried a couple of wines made from Tempranillo Pluedo (hairy Tempranillo) while in Rioja, and they all had this very aromatic quality. There are only 4 wines that I know of made with this clone, so who knows if this is typical or not…
Vinedos de Paganos ‘El Puntido’ 2004
I got straight to ordering some of this wine when I got back from Spain. I’d seen the 2005 a couple of times in Spain and had read great things at about the 2004 on El Mundo Vino, so I just had to have a look this vintage. Now there is lots of talk about which vintage is better, 2004 or 2005 (even 2006 is entering this argument now) and after talking to many of the wine makers and tasting the wines, I would advise that you need to look at each wine on it’s own merrits. They are both excellent vintages and it’s down your own judgement on which you prefer. In this case, it’s the 2004 for me.
Tasting with Eguren wines
It’s hard to know what to call these guys, they have a number of different brand, 3.5 bodegas (one is being built) and they are a huge family (there are Egurens making wine all over Rioja). But whatever they are called they make a diverse range of wines ine Rioja Alta and Alvesa. We kicked off our visits in Rioja with a look around Vinedos de Paganos where the vineyards and bodega for El Puntido and La Nieta are located, then a quick drive over San Vincente to have a look at the bodega for San Vicente followed by a tasting. One habit I could used to is tucking into some fine jamon y queso after a tasting…
Beronia Mazuelo Reserva 2004
I’ve had a bit of holiday from wine over the past coule of week since Easter, interrupted a quick trip up to Rutherglen to look at some of Australia’s best fortified wines. Stanton & Killeen have done some amazing stuff with their vintage port (or whatever it’s called these days), they must have the oldest [...]
Tasting at Artadi
It looks just like most other vineyards around Laguardia in Rioja Alvesa, the only give away that this is the famed El Pison vineyard is the gate. If you’ve been lucky enough to have a bottle (or even see a bottle in a shop) you would have noticed that it has a little drawing of this gate on the front label. But as Artadi’s Rioja wines are only just now coming on to the Australian market, how would most of us know?
White Rioja
Just before I left for Spain, I had this crazy idea of searching out the best white Rioja I could find. To be honest, I found loads of white wine but its very difficult to choose a single wine as the best, so I’ve gone with three. These are three very different wines, and everything about them is different: the way they are made, the grape varieties used, how they are aged, and when they are drunk. I knew that two of these would be high on my list, but the third was a real surprise.
Tasting at Roda
Not much has really changed in the bodega at Roda, so we did a quick tour around the bodega and followed by a longer tasting. Strangely we could not walk across the main walk way as the Consejo Regulador had decided that the flooring material was not up to code and it had it be replaced. The guy doing the work had an impossibly small sander to do the 60 square meter walk way. Very odd, but it wasn’t the only weird activity we heard about from the guys who regulate the wine trade in Rioja.
Remelluri Reserva 2003
Remelluri is quite the name in Rioja. These guy lean towards the traditional side of things, but are a bit different as they are one of the few producing single estate wines (the term finca is usually used to describe this), although this is more common these days. It’s located up quite high in Rioja Alvesa, the vineyard is terraced into three areas and is one of coolest vineyards around. It used to be a neglected old monastery until it was bought and rejuvenated by one Jamie Rodriguez Salis in the 60s. That’s right, Telmo’s dad.
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