Print  

On the table in front of me were six wines. Three were Sherries and another a López de Heredia Gran Reserva Blanco. There could hardly have been a more “traditional” line-up of wines but then the seminar was “What place for tradition in the modern Spanish wine world”. It’s fair to say that while these wines were ‘traditional’ they are hardly representative of what Spaniards drink or what they export. As bodega after bodega discovers the new oak barrique and maximum fruit extraction ‘tradition’ it would seem has been exiled to a corner of Andalucia. Or has it ?

With a family business dating back to 1792 you would expect Javier Hidalgo to know a thing or two about tradition. His sparring partner at this Wines from Spain event was Telmo Rodriquez who freely admitted he was, in comparison, a new kid on the block “Javier Hidalgo’s family have been making wine for seven generations, I just started yesterday”. Rodriquez accepted that Sherry was indeed made in the cellar but insisted his wines were made in the vineyard. Javier Hidalgo pushed this point home

“The most important part of the process is the ageing and maturation, I know Telmo doesn’t like it but we don’t rely that much on the vineyards or the terroir.

We don’t rely that much on the vinification, it’s a routine that we make every September, and nothing happens, its all very boring actually. I go away in the middle of the harvest...the important thing is the time the wines spend in the bodega, in the cask ageing and maturing in our cellars ”

But for Rodriguez the fruit and the vines are fundamental. He is well known as Spain’s ‘driving winemaker’ and he says one of the most depressing sights he sees as he drives the length and breath of Spain is the relentless march of the trellised vine. He knows he is seen as a moderniser but believes his respect for traditional bush vines has done more to preserve Spain’s wine tradition than some so called ‘traditional’ wineries whose “talk of tradition makes me sick”. He questioned their right to claim the mantle of ‘tradition’, “What’s a traditional winery?, is a traditional winery a winery with a very old logo ? a very beautiful 100 year old logo ? but then the vineyards, they are trellised, irrigated, fertilised, they have lost completely the touch with the soil !..and this is traditional ??”

After the seminar in an interview with me for Verema he elaborated on this theme.
“Today this is my big thing. I think it’s a disaster, it’s completely unconscionable, and for me completely stupid to see, in a country like Spain where we have completely different landscapes, that everywhere they are all planted the same way. You go to Galicia, it’s 1.5metres trellis you go to La Mancha it’s the same, you go to Alicante it’s the same, there’s a lack of variation in our vineyards.
...We have to be very careful to maintain a landscape in an aestethic way, it’s horrible to see all those trellises and to loose the movement of a beautiful landscape of bush vines”
He admitted that he had used the system himself in early experiments in Ribera del Duero but had abandoned it now. He told me that even on windy hillsides he preferred to use bush vines and prop them.
But in the past the problem was even worse with some of these old bush vines being ripped up to make way for international varieties. He recalled arriving back to Rioja in the mid 80’s and being appalled by what he saw “ It was a disaster a complete unconscionable approach to wine. I was really disappointed when I arrived to Rioja in those times. I was amazed that the big discussion there was that we have to plant cabernet to give colour to the wines, when the viticulture was a disaster.We were producing Tempranillo but in a wrong way. For me it was amazing to see that in a country with very original and good vineyards we were planting everywhere Cabernet and Merlot. It was a way of removing the personality of a place. I work today only with the original grapes. For me real Spain is a Spain with Garnacha, Tempranillo, Mencia, Moscatel. To tell you the truth I planted some Syrah from Chave in a place that I liked because I love Syrah but I’m not doing a wine with Syrah because I’d love to make a Syrah in Hermitage (laughs). For me, my approach is you haven’t got much time in wine so I don’t think I’ll have time to do a very good Syrah in Spain and if I want a good Merlot I’ll have a good Pomerol.” And goodness knows how he’d find the time anyway with projects in nine different Spanish wine regions.

I asked him if he thought the money being pumped into Spanish wine was beneficial and in particular the trend to produce expensive ‘trophy’ wines designed to garner high points from the critics.
“This is wrong approach, this is a recipe approach that I think doesn’t work. The approach is that you have a good architect, you create a beautiful building, you do a spa ! I don’t understand wine that way. Wine is never a recipe, you can have very good designers, very good archeitcts...some people are more worried about the shape of their building than their vineyards and grapes.
And even myself I’m not a consultant but some people think I am and they say to me ‘look I have a beautiful building and I’ve planted an amazing vineyard with Cabernet, Merlot and I want to do a 30€ wine’. I know people and they know the price and the points they want to get before they plant the vineyard”

Freely admitting he is still learning how to treat his wines he says he doesn’t want to be a flash in the pan.
“I’m a long distance runner, I hate the idea to do a super wine in two years because you have a nice label, old vines , new oak and that’s it ‘lets go for a lot of points’ I’m not interested in this, I think I’m deep, I love what I do. I’m sure that in ten or fifteen years I’ll make amazing wines, but today I’m very happy to produce Basa, I’m working slowly, Altos de Lanzaga is, I think, one of the best wines you can find in Rioja. But y’know I’m not doing a lot of noise, I’m going slowly, I’m still learning....it’s true that some places that I’ve been , I’ve been because it was important to give energy to those places. For example since I went to Malaga there are other people now making Malaga.. and I think this is part of my challenge to try preserve wines that were about to disappear. I’ve been a loudspeaker for places”

Earlier at the seminar Telmo, having questioned who in reality was saving Spain’s ‘tradition’ listened to Javier Hidalgo lay claim to a degree of modernity. He insisted Jerez too had to acknowledge, if not quite embrace, change and cited his La Gitana fino as a modern construct for a market demanding a lighter fresher style. It was a wine previous generations would not appreciate he said, claiming “If my grandfather was here today he would think that we are drinking is cat’s pee.”
But ultimately Jerez and Hidalgo were about centuries of unchanged winemaking and while the bottle shapes may have changed little else had “we don’t use those awful labels Telmo uses we still use Napoleon, Wellington and the gypsy” he said to much laughter from the audience.

The Wines from Spain trade fair is an annual event in London. This year there were over 1,000 wines on show. The variery of Spanish wines available here continues to grow, indeed the UK market is now Spain’s biggest export market by value. Among the most impressive wines for me were :

Jean León Pago Cabernet Sauvignon Reserva 2001 (probably the best value wine tasted)
Torres Mas La Plana 2004 (seemed more forward and ready to drink than previous years)
CVNE Imperial GR 1998 (Very good wine from not a great vintage, drinking beautifully now, lovely balance between the oak and fruit)
Orben 2005 Rioja (smooth and moreish, great fruit, some oak but not overdone)
Another Lalo Anton wine Villacreces Reserva 2005 was also showing nicely.
Solanes 2003 (showed lovely minerality on the nose, sweet entry and smooth tannins. It gave the 2004 Cims de Porrera a run for its money. Cims for the longer haul though)
The Roda wines were showing very well. The Roda I 2004 and the Roda I 2002 were both showing well with the 04 shading it. Cirsion 2005 was simply stunning. I could drink this all day long (though only if I embark on a bank robbing spree !) The Bodega’s representative gave a spirited and knowledgeable analysis of the wines and the lengths the bodega goes to in order to ensure the quality of Cirsion. I looked at his name badge only to discover it was none other than Gonzalo Lainez ! no stranger to Verema.
He confirmed to me the grapes for Cirsion grew on bush vines. I thought that Telmo Rodriquez had a point after all.