In Pursuit of Terroir & el Placer with Miguel Angel De Gregorio

Here comes another installment of my adventures in Rioja. We were only there for two days and yet, I've only managed to give you a debriefing on about half of what we experienced. Well, I'm about to hit your with some more. Today, I want to write about Finca Allende and Finca Nueva. Both belong to Miguel Angel De Gregorio, a passionate, generous, pleasure-seeking believer in terroir wines.

Miguel Angel provided me with some information about the winery and I will copy here a few quotes from the first page he gave me, which introduce his philosophy- which, as it turns out, is a different approach then that taken by many other wineries in Rioja who rely on blending to make their best wines. Miguel Angel writes,

"In 1986, when I arrived in Briones and I discovered the singular Terroir I always dream of. I started buying old vineyeard plots and I tried to know and understand each Terroir. We gradually found our model. The expressiveness of the terroir, very structured wines, very market tannins with lots of mineral aromas… year after year, pruning after pruning, harvests after harvests, we try to extract the whole essence from each one of our vines, to introduce her inside every bottle."

I intern as a translator and parts of me itch to edit the writing, but if I did, certain beautiful things would be lost. Such as the ever-so poetic use of a feminine third person singular subject in the last sentence: to introduce her inside every bottle. It just sounds so much better that way. It almost gives the terroir a human presence, elevating it's importance to that of the other humans involved in the winemaking process.

At Finca Allende and Finca Nueva, that is precisely what Miguel Angel seeks to achieve. He says he modeled his winery not after the giant, successful wineries of Rioja, but instead he looks north, to Bordeaux (after a few glasses of wine, he will begin to explain to you in French, what makes Bordeaux si beau, si rempli de la passion). A large part of the inspiration he gets from Bordeaux is reflected in his acute attention to terroir. At Finca Allende, his 56 hectares of vines are divided into 92 plots based on their distinct characteristics. That means the most plots measure just over half a hectare!

At Finca Allende, Miguel Angel cultivates mostly Tempranillo, but also Garnacha (which he calls Grenache, the French equivalent), Graciano, Malvasia and Viura. At Finca Nueva, he narrows his focus to three grapes: Tempranillo, Grenache and Viura. For aging, all Finca Allende wines are aged in barrels for an average of about 3 years. Can you guess what kind of barrels they're using… mais oui, 100% French oak Allier from Bordeaux. And the bottles…Bordeaux encore!

Finca Nueva has a slightly different 'personality' than that of Finca Allende. Their tagline is: "Vinos Divertidos | Pleasure Wines", therefore, certain aspects of the vinification processes are different. For example:

"The fresh, funny, pleasure wines: Finca Nueva Tempranillo, Rosé and Viura. The winemaking is done in stainless steel tanks with the method of destalked harvest, making intensive pumping over and shaking. Then the wine is bottled."

Pues, now that I've shared a few statistics and general factoids, I'll tell you about my experience at the winery. For starters, the fact that our 2 hour tour became a 9 hour afternoon of debauchery should give you a good idea about the kind of time I had.

When we arrived at the doors of the XVII century palace that is now home to the winery, we were greeted by Veronica, the winemaker. (*Well, first my friend, Manuel, had to de-robe himself because a baby lizard crawled down his sweater while Veronica and I mused about the beauty of the palace). She explained it was her first tour and that she had been swamped with the vendimia, or the harvest. When we met Miguel Angel, the deep red stains on his hands confirmed this. He stayed with us long enough to crack a few jokes, smoke a few cigarettes and make lunch reservations for all of us.

Then Veronica continued to show us around. For the first time, I was in a winery when the skins were actually being pressed, a process performed in order to extract the last of the juice (well, technically, it's wine already). She offered me a glass of the freshly-pressed wine, which is more-or-less the final product minus aging and the flavors that are imbued therein. We continued down to where hundreds of barrels are kept and got to try a few of the wines straight from the barrel, a treat that always reminds me how darn lucky I am to have snuck my little foot in the door of an incredible industry. At this stage, none of the wines had been filtered, which is just how I like 'em. Veronica shared that, in fact, only a small handful of wines are filtered at all, while most are left with whatever sediment or cloudiness they currently posses. The whites, and some rosés are filtered, mainly because many consumers find the murkiness unappetizing (quel dommage).

After our tour of the cellar, we headed back to the palace where Miguel Angel had organized a cata of several wines from both Finca Allende and Finca Nueva. If I had to select those that I liked more, every time it would have been  the "fun" wines from Finca Nueva; they just seemed more unique and more assertive. They seemed more like Miguel Angel himself.

After drinking what counts as far more than an aperitivo, Miguel Angel invited us to lunch where he brought with us two of his own Gran Reserva Bottles. I see why these are considered his "Pleasure Wines"- because they accompany so well other hedonistic pursuits like rich food, dirty jokes and musings about sexual liberation. I could have been listening to the Macarena for as many times as I heard "Dale a tu cuerpo la alegria".

After the wine glasses contained nothing but lagrimas against their sides and the plates had been wiped clean by the last bits of bread, we returned to the winery where snake-like tubes were still transporting wine from tank to tank to barrel. Miguel Angel insisted it would be OK to sneak away for a bit in order for us to see the town of Briones, home of his bodega. He was an excellent tour guide and he lead us through small, winding streets, into a church and then into a bar where several of his fellow winemaking amigos were drinking- ironically- anything but wine. I was reminded of Barnaby Tuttle, a winemaker in Portland who once said to me while bottling wine at 1am in the morning and drinking Budlight, "It takes a lot of bad beer to make good wine."

This certainly appeared true that night in Rioja and Miguel Angel would have undoubtedly agreed. However, had I asked him earlier that afternoon, his response would have probably been more like this: "To make good wine, it requires a good terroir. She will be your guide."

*Top right image from Aseuniv

A Girl Gets A Grant

I found out at 4am this morning, that my Dinah Dodds Endowment Grant proposal had been accepted. This means that in December I will get to carry out some fascinating research in Asturias. The working title: Sidra & the Asturian Language: Lexical Nexus of Tradition and Production. So, this means that I will have to take a short hiatus from my cyber-ego of 'a girl and a vine' and trade it for 'a girl and a pumar*'

*a pumar is an apple tree in Asturian

The City of Wine: The Jewel of Rioja?

For this blog post, I will have to be a bit unfaithful to my wine ideals. I will try to not be critical, and instead be objective. It's always easy to criticize large conglomerates because, undoubtedly, you'll find one or more aspects of their operation that don't suit your ideology. I will point those out, I can't help myself, but I'll try to spotlight a few things that really did impress me about…drumroll… Marqués de Riscal: the jewel of Rioja.

A jewel for two reasons: 1) It is internationally revered by big-name wine reviews and has Parker points up the wazoo (or perhaps I should write is as wazú). 2) It is home to the Frank O. Gehry City of Wine building which itself shines like silver, violet and gold jewels. It is quite stunning and a beautiful homage to the colors we so adore in wine.

This building is extremely emblematic of the winery, of Rioja, and of the über-commercial European wine industry in general. I say that not only because the Wine Spectator named it Europe's best winery, but because it's featured in several documentaries about wine. That's where I first learned of it. Just click on the first few videos that come up when you type in 'wine' in Youtube and you'll undoubtedly see images of the City of Wine.

I disagree with the idea that a place called the City of Wine- a simplistic, trite, English name- should be that which represents Rioja or Spain or Europe! I disagree in equal measure with the initiative to commercialize the identity of a winery in order to incorporate money-making ventures such as an on-sight cosmetics line or hôtel de luxe. Marqués de Riscal has both (yes, the cosmetics are made with grapes…that's kind of cool, but I stand by my former assertion). The whole experience felt too akin to a zoo or an amusement park. A zoo because that which is natural was made to appear mechanized and artificial. An amusement park because the whole tour chugged along like the "It's a small world after all" Disneyland ride and we watched movies about the winery and the vinification processes on screens placed throughout the winery. Our guide had to hurry along our large group and make sure not to encroach upon the Russian tour ahead or the German one behind. Just as you see visitors pretending to to support the weight of the leaning tour of Piza or trying their best coy, smoldering French pout in front of the Eiffel tour, the guests here seemed most interested in getting a picture of themselves in front of The City of Wine.

However, if one could resist the urge to snap 'selfies' among the vines, the tour guide was happy to answer specific questions about the winery and it's practices. My friend, Manuel, who knows of my affinity for vino ecológico asked about the growing practices and was told that the vines at Marqués de Riscal are not treated with synthetic pesticides or herbicides, only sulfur. This would make them organic (points!), however, they don't market themselves as such. There is clearly something wonderful about such a large producer adapting more sustainable practices. However, I need to confirm this for myself.

The history of the bodega is extremely interesting and in a certain plaza on the premises, one can be surrounded by buildings from four different centuries. Here, there is clearly a certain reverence for antiquity and tradition, but the informative videos make it clear that innovation and adaptation to modernity is paramount. It is certainly a different tune from the one whistled by the folks at RLH.

When it comes to ambiance, Marqués de Riscal is breath-taking. The hotel, a modern, but almost organic looking building, is juxtaposed with the cathedral behind it, just as the vibrancy of the vines stand out against the bright canvas of the snow-tipped Pyrenees. And the wines? Yes, they are good. One doesn't get named Europe's best winery if you have lousy wine, but nice cosmetics. To be honest, I didn't get to try more than the one wine that we had with lunch, which was not aged and came from a different domain that is under the reign of Marqués de Riscal (fancy language for a fancy place). But, it was quite good.

I sound critical. It's coming from the ideological/intellectual part of me. Marqués de Riscal doesn't fit the profile of the wines that I pursue, but I have to say that they're doing some good things and they are certainly a success from a market perspective. I also must admit a small soft-spot that I have generates some predisposed fondness for Marqués de Riscal: I once celebrated something special with the man that I love over a bottle of Marqués de Riscal. We decorated a pineapple with the gold mesh wire that adorns special bottles and it stayed on our kitchen counter for over a week. Who wouldn't sigh a nostalgic sigh- even if it escaped you while you were being solicited for grape-scented wrinkle cream.

Goose Bumps Indeed: R. López de Heredia

When I was invited on this lavish trip to La Rioja, first I pinched myself to affirm that it was real and then second, I consulted a friend in Portland, OR to find out whether there were any bodegas in La Rioja that I should pay particular attention to. His response: "It would be criminal if you were not able to visit one of the greatest producers in the WORLD.  Bodegas R. López de Heredia…These are amazing traditional wines from Rioja…Please visit this estate for me, as this winery is on my bucket list.  These are goose bump wines."

What more convincing could I need? I dialed up a different friend, the one planning the trip, to see if there was anyway we could visit the folks at RLH. A few hours later, we had ourselves a reservation for a guided tour the following Saturday.

Now, writing this retrospectively, I can say that the imploring I received encouraging me to visit RLH is undoubtedly merited. This is the most interesting winery that I've visited to date. I was moved by my visit, in the same way that I can be moved by Neruda or Satie. When I created this blog, I wanted to feature a certain kind of wine- I landed on the word 'authentic' wine (more accurately I borrowed it from Goode and Harrop). This winery embodies all that I find enchanting about wine: the tradition, the appreciation, the precision, the patience, and, as I will describe later: the harmony. I could erase the "Philosophy" tab on my blog and just provide a link to their website instead. 

In the simplest of terms, R. López de Heredia has not changed its winemaking practices since they first began in 1877. The winery is till owned and managed by the López de Heredia family and the wine is made by the granddaughter of the original Rafael. It is the third oldest winery in La Rioja, yet, ascribes to an entirely different philosophy from its more commercial counterparts in the region. It is undoubtedly revered, however. I learned this both from reading about the winery on various online forums as well as from judging from the "oohs and ahhs" I received when I told other people in the region and the greater Kingdom of Spain. 

As I said before, one of the most remarkable things about R. López de Heredia is the harmony that they achieve between vines, cellars and market. There is almost a poetry to every wine making decision that they make and, I kid you not, there were times during the tour where I clutched my heart and swayed a bit because I was so impressed/delighted/touched by the balance they achieve. 

Grape clusters are still collected in poplar back-packs which allow a certain weight, from there the winery to count and pay accordingly. However, our guide shared that most of the harvesting was still done by friends of the family, as per tradition in Haro, the home of R. López de Heredia. Grapes are loaded into large vessels, where hand woven mats help to filter. What else do they use to filter? Egg whites, fish scales, mesh wires? None of the above, instead they use tight bundles of dried grape vines which trap stems and seeds. These seeds and stems (and eventually skins) are used to then fertilize the vines. This is what I mean about harmony: using the vines that produced the grapes in order to filter the wine.

Another fine example of this aforementioned harmony happens in the workshop where the barrels are made. Every R. López de Heredia barrel is made on sight and their two coopers (cooper: n. someone who makes wooden staved vessels, bound together with hoops and possessing flat ends or heads) have been working on the premises for over 50 years. It takes them a full day to make one barrel, whereas, in a mechanized system, a barrel could be made in about an hour. In order to impart desired flavors in the wine, barrels are toasted over a fire. Here, this happens on sight and is one of the final steps of the process. A barrel can be used for about 7-8 years and then needs to be replaced. What happens with the old barrel? Here, it is dismantled and used to light a fire that will toast the next barrel. Ahh, it's just so damn beautiful. 

As we toured the facilities we learned to keep a safe distance from the walls. They were covered in a thick, thick layer of mold, which we were assured was outrageously healthy. It meant that the wines were in a good environment and also that the people working at R. López de Heredia were in tip-top shape. Our guide shared that the mold had the same strain (strain? is that the right word?) as Penicillin and for that, she hasn't had a flu in years (although, she's admittedly had a lot of colds from having to change temperatures between rooms of the bodega). 

In the small room where the oldest wines are kept, one can hardly see that they're there. Instead, it's a wall of circular, fuzzy mold patterns. Yet, behind the fungus are some of Spain most prized wines. A guest asked if they were for sale and for how much. We never got an answer to the latter question (our guide was probably trying to be discreet) however, she did share that they weren't for sale. In fact, even wealthy collectors who would arrive with a 'name your price' attitude (an infamous 'point-giver' included) were refused sale. Those who receive wines, or who can purchase them, are those customers who have been with R. López de Heredia the longest.  One must wonder who then, who are these lucky individuals who sip Viña Tondonia wines in secret? Do they possibly want a young, American friend with whom they can muse about wine? 

We finished our tour with a little cata. We got to try 2004 Viña Gravonia, 2003 Viña Bosconia and a 2002 Viña Tondonia Reserva (which anywhere else would easily be considered a Gran Reserva, but, R. López de Heredia ascribes to their own, stricter standards of Crianza, Reserva and Gran Reserva). The wines were accompanied with jamón serrano, bread, salchicones and excellent company. While I might have been the guest who was farthest from home, there were many other giddy enthusiasts from as far as Scotland and Ireland or as near as Basque Country or Madrid. We talked about all sorts of things: terroir, Asturian bagpipes, puns about coopers and which wine we liked best. For me, it was easily the 2004 Viña Gravonia: quite possibly the best wine I've had- ever. Naturally, this is all influenced by my mood, environment and intellectual appreciation for the winemaking process at R. López de Heredia. One thing is for certain, my PDX friend was right: these are goose-bump wines. 

"The quality of our wine is the fruit of an artisanal harvest acquired through effort and honesty in the course of over 100 years."

La Vie en Rioja

So, for those of you who eagerly follow my blog posts (I guess that means Mom and Aunt Jann, I'm talking to you) you know that I had plans to visit La Rioja. I did indeed go and the details of my experience are long overdue. All in all, it was fantastico! I felt like such a privileged 22 year old foreigner while I waltzed around a Spanish castle where wine is made on sight, or while I was wined, dined and toured by one of Rioja's most devout followers of the philosophy of terroir wines. Or while I visited the most interesting winery I've been to yet. "All this and more to come on A Girl and a Vine. Stay tuned."

I will post actual blogs about each experience, but, in the meantime, check out some shots I snapped between catas.

"Peace to those who are arriving, Health to those who live here, Happiness to those who are leaving"