TN: London offline with Manuel and Josie

Manuel, I applaud that fact that here and elsewhere you generally have assumed Auberon Waugh’s philosophy. ";Wine writing,"; he said, ";should be camped up. The writer should never like a wine, he should be in love with it; never find a wine disappointing but identify it as a mortal enemy, an attempt to poison him; sulphuric acid should be discovered where there is the faintest hint of sharpness. Bizarre and improbable side tastes should be proclaimed: mushrooms, rotting wood, black treacle, burned pencils, condensed milk, sewage, the smell of French railway stations or ladies’ underwear - anything to get away from the accepted list of fruit and flowers. As I say, I am not sure that it helps much, but it is more amusing to read."; This is not to dismiss whatever seriousness your response holds, of course. I trust there is plenty of it (but equally hope and expect that it is not completely serious).

I tend to agree with Victor that, with appropriate allowance for all the variability about which we both agree, the major wine producing regions (including North-Central Spain) are more Mediterranean than Atlantic in nature. I think that one of the great advantages of Spanish wine is that it produces big wines that are authentic, with old-world tradition that the manufacturing philosophy of OZ, for example, cannot provide. If -- if -- terroirist have a point, there is no question in my mind that its ideologically excesses have led to many an authentic Spanish wine being shunted aside.

Yes, there has been a lot of experimentation in Spain, a lot of new efforts, massive modernization of bodegas, etc. In some cases we have had to pay for it with missteps and disappointments, but hasn’t it ultimately been worth it? Pull out the ’04 La Guía Peñín. Maybe this is not the gospel of wine ratings, but it is startling to see that the highest or several of the highest ratings for many DOs are new ventures. In addition to whatever that means for wine consumers at the moment, this strikes me as a barometer of the energy in Spanish winemaking and a great sign of things to come.

As for the history or Toro wine, you can choose to believe that those in the Middle Ages who put the heady, fruit forward wines of Toro in the highest demand -- specifically the students in Palencia at Spain’s first university, and the clerics and courtiers of Castile -- cut their wine with water. I, on the other hand, don’t have to consult history books to maintain my instinct that these types of consumers just don’t change that much.