Wines of the World

So what does Rioja mean for you? I checked to see what it meant to Google and discovered it as a place in Spain, a restaurant in Denver, and ‘a wine with a DOC classification from a region named after the Rio Oja in Spain, a tributary of the Ebro.’ For me it has always been the latter, one of the first wine tastings I ever went to I met a chap known only as ‘Rioja Mick’. Nearly twenty more years down the road and I have discovered that his passion for Rioja is very widespread. For a couple of days this week I was lucky enough to be amongst a group of wine merchants to visit the region with Wines from Rioja.

Landing at Bilbao we were all whisked off in cars that head at breakneck speed for ‘them thar hills!’ and some very grey brooding clouds. En route for Logrono the heavens opened thus proving all manner of Wayne, Spain and rain puns! After a quick freshen up at our hotel we headed off to visit Bodega Lan. Describing them as a medium sized producer we were taken on a tour of the facilities.  It was certainly the biggest winery I have ever been in! I have always visited smaller wineries mostly in France and a few in Germany. The winery here was like a cathedral of stainless steel. They have 12 stainless steel tanks that each hold 50 000 litres of must and last year pressed 1 million kilos of grapes. Fairly impressive numbers for somewhere that produces only red wine (white is made at their winery in Rais Baixas!). We moved on through and arrived at the barrel room… staggering. Imagine an aircraft hangar full of pristine oak barrels. They have space for 56,000 barriques and everything is automated employing only 3 men. There is a crane system for moving the barrels that is not dissimilar to that used at container ports, and although there is currently only 30,000 barrels that are racked (i.e. emptied, cleaned out and then filled again) every six months its impressive using only the 3 chaps. What will we do when robots take over everything? From here we moved onto the tasting room (amid a flurry of phone calls as in Bordeaux, Leoville LasCases 2007 was released en primeur!) As you can imagine the tasting room was as impressive as the rest of the set up. After an interesting tasting we were back to the hotel to change for dinner.

The following morning we were up and out and heading for Bodegas Dinastia Vivanco. This was another impressive set up that was all newly built in 2004. After a short wait (Showing up on time is something terribly unexpected in this part of the world!) we were straight up to the tasting room. He we had a lecture from Tom Perry, MD of the Rioja Wine Exporters Association, an American who has lived in the area for 30 years. This was followed by a talk by John Radford author of ‘The New Spain’ and ‘Wines from Rioja’ who talked to us about the continuing innovation in Rioja throughout its history. This was entertaining and informative and followed by a tasting of 10 wines that showed the full diversity currently available. Anybody interested in the wines of this region really should check out John’s books. Rafa Vivanco then guided us around the very impressive new winery and then the museum of wine culture, which, quite frankly, is probably the best museum about wine anywhere. Not just a collection of old secateurs and bottles (though they are represented) but there are various presses, famous paintings, films statues, not to mention examples of almost every style of corkscrew you can imagine. Everything you can imagine involved in turning grapes to wine and a complete celebration of its history spread over five rooms. We then tasted the Viavnco wines with lunch overlooking the estate vineyards and the beautiful town of Briolles.

This was clearly no time to be taking in the scenery as we were soon heading off to the next stop. After a short drive down the road we were pulling into Finca Valpiedra. This beautiful estate is owned by Martinez Bujanda and is situated on a bend in the river Ebro. Their 80 hectares have an average age of around 40 years old and the state of the art winery was opened in 1994. Considerably smaller in scale than those we had visited till now and certainly was situated in an idyllic spot. This was no time to be getting romantic though, after a short winery tour and tasting we were whisked off to the offices of the Consejor Regulador for a showcase tasting. They had invited more than twenty Rioja producers to bring two of their wines along for us to taste. So a two minute break for team photo’s followed by a good couple of hours of sniff, slurp and spit with some of the finest wines from the region. By the time we had finished it was nearly 9pm and there was just time for a quick shower before we went for an investigation of some of Lograno’s finest tapas venues. That, in essence, was a quick tour of close to 100 wines, some beautiful landscapes and a chunk of past, present and future in this fabulous region that is Rioja.

Jason and I are off to Verona for the self proclaimed ‘Worlds Largest Wine Fair’ – Vinitaly, but right now it’s 5am, it’s Gatwick airport and the fire alarm is going off.  Good. 

Things get better, the flight is less than half full and we get to Soave at about 10.30am Italian time, only to discover that not only is our hotel 30 minutes drive from the exhibition centre, but in fact we are 2kms out of town, in an industrial zone, with a lovely view of the tractor showroom.  When the best thing a hotel can find to write about itself is the fact that it is only 500m from the autostrada, you wonder what you have let yourselves in for.

We didn’t have to wonder long, since reception kindly informed us that what we had booked in December – 2 twin rooms single occupancy – had somehow transmogrified over time in to 1 twin room, dual occupancy.  Bravo Expedia!

Having quickly settled in, and since the fair was not starting until Thursday morning we decided to spend the afternoon in Soave.  Quite how we managed to keep ourselves occupied in what must be one of the sleepiest ‘towns with a famous name’ I cannot tell, suffice to say we ate a couple of times and ended up lapping up Italian bar culture watching the Arsenal – Liverpool Champions League match…

Thursday came, and with it our taxi to Verona.  Arriving at the venue in the outskirts of the city we quickly realised that the earlier self-proclamation possibly had some basis in truth.  Every region of Italy had its own pavilion, and each pavilion equated to roughly four or more football pitches… an awful lot of wine and not a lot of time.

As any professional does on occasions like this, one takes a deep breath and heads for the first stand serving sparkling wine… nothing like a draught of prosecco first thing to liven the taste buds and soften out the breakfast espresso! 

Thus invigorated we set about our tasks… the aim of the trip was to try and source some wines that are not yet in the UK, and to approach small growers rather than big operations.  One of the first things we learnt was that whilst it was an ‘international’ wine fair, the majority of attendees were in fact Italian, and the smaller growers often did not speak any English at all.  Fortunately one of us was able to put together some fairly coherent sentences and even understand some of the replies, which meant we were not restricted to stands with ultra-smooth international marketing directors.

In the course of day one we found a couple of prosecco (see, we were actually tasting it for a reason), some lovely wines from Alto Aldige (North East Italy), and tried some great Valpolicella and Amarone.

It’s always best to leave on a high, so we caught a bus in to Verona and went for a wander around the centro storico, before settling down for some pizza overlooking the old amphitheatre on Piazza Bra’… very civilized and relaxing after the exertions of the day!  Another long taxi ride got us back to the hotel, and after some light entertainment in the form of Fiorentina – PSV and a couple of beers, the day caught up with us and the hay was soon hit.

Friday was always going to be a long day… we were tasting all day and flying home in the evening at 10pm so fortunately we both had a good nights rest.  We threw away our rulebook from the previous day, which loosely said whites before lunch, reds after, and immediately headed for Sicily for warm climate, heart-warming reds.  This pavilion was filled with characters in black suits, white shirts and black ties, oh and dark glasses too… but they all seemed very friendly, and I don’t recollect being made any offers I couldn’t refuse… in fact I think we may have struck gold with some reds and whites, we will see.

Invigorated by juicy reds, we crossed directly back to the mainland, skirted Napoli and investigated Falanghina country.  Here the gentleman we approached spoke English, which was a nice change, but more significantly his 4 wines were excellent and he only exports into Germany, so again we have high hopes of success with him.

Closing the day off was Tuscany, a small region with little wine to speak of… ok not really.  Here we found a very pleasant Sienese gent who had stolen one of Noel Edmonds’ Multi-Coloured Swapshop sweaters, but his wines were very good and all organically produced (perhaps this explains the sweater!)  Randomly he only exports to Denmark and Mexico at the moment, but maybe we may become the third point in his bizarre trade route!

A couple of beers in the evening sun, a laborious journey through rush hour traffic to the airport, a flight with sozzled wine reps and finally home to bed at about 1am.  It was quite nice to get in to work the next day and have a bit of a rest!

Overall the trip was successful, all we need to do now is find some space for all the wine we want to order!

Ciao, Ciao…

Inspired by the positive feedback we received from our two Christmas Wine Fairs we decided to host a more ‘summer’ focussed event, which took place on Saturday 19 April.  Whilst the sun wasn’t exactly shining at least the thought was there!

Once again Clapham Manor Primary School kindly let us use their School hall, which we think is a really great venue.  It is a light airy room with high ceilings, lots of windows so plenty of natural light, and obviously plenty of space.  We had over a hundred people in at one point, but it never felt overcrowded – comfort being crucial for a happy tasting.

As I said the loose remit was ‘Summer’ wines, but it was also a great opportunity to show a whole load of new wines that have trickled in over the last month or so… some wines only arrived in store the day before the tasting, so new to everyone.  

Since Wayne and Tony have just recently been in France on a wine finding exercise, there was a certain bias towards our Gallic friends… but we also had an Organic table, sparkling wines and Champagne too, Italy had a dedicated space, as did Australia and South Africa, and then Wayne ran a table of eclectic wines from Portugal, Germany and Lebanon to name a few.  Finally Tony rounded off with some killer blows… cider, ale, gin, brandy and apple juice for those still brave enough!

Winners of the day seemed to be the Metz VV Gewurztraminer 2006 (£10.99) from Alsace, Ataraxia Sauvignon Blanc 2007 (£13.99) from South Africa, and the Yume Montepulciano d’Abruzzo (£10.99) from Italy.  This is not to say that there weren’t other wines showing beautifully, but from the 70 odd bottles open these three definitely shone.

These wine fairs are always a great opportunity for us to actually spend time with our customers and chat more about the wines whilst tasting them.  It was great that so many people managed to make it, and especially the folk from Earlsfield who braved the weather and the three-mile slog up to the Old Town.  So a big thank you to everyone for taking the time out of his or her Saturday to come and have a taste.

Obviously whilst thanking the guests, I must also take time to thank the guys who made it work.  Richard and Clapham Manor Primary School, James for looking after South Africa, Richard and Paul for doing Australia for us, and Mark for his expertise in Italy.  Not forgetting the ladies, Pip, Jen, Hannah and Mrs B, and of course everyone who stayed on after to help us ‘clear up’ the half finished bottles.

We had a brilliant time, and since we were busy from 12 through until just after 4, we can only assume that everyone else did to… put it this way, there were only smiling, shiny faces leaving the building in the afternoon.  If in some small way we helped ease the pain of a busy week with wine therapy then that does for me…

Vinisud is a wine show in Montpellier. It has around 1,000 exhibitors made up of mainly wine producers. Its tough work but somebody’s gotta do it and thats Where Wayne and I come in.

Wayne had picked me up at at 2.30am and we had to negotiate some pretty thick fog on the M11 to make the airport in plenty of time. Stansted Airport is a pretty surreal place at 4 am on a Tuesday Morning. When we got there I was caught in 2 minds A) have a beer B) have a coffee. Ever the professional I opted for a starbucks Latte.

We arrived in Montpellier at 8.50am French time and caught a cab straight to Vinisud. Wayne insisted on having breakfast before any tasting. Breakfast was a Jambon Baguette (ham sandwich) at a stand up cafe within the exhibition halls, I love the Cured Ham in this part of the world. Its basically raw pig and can be a bit chewy but its so tasty you just have to keep on eating it. Wayne suggested we wash it down with a couple of thimbles of espresso, a good idea and we were pretty wired for at least an hour. During our breakfast we were approached by a French winemaker from the Minervois region whose English was about a proficient as our French. After 10 Min’s of gesticulating and lots of false laughter we promised to meet him later…..we never did get to his stand.

We started off trying the wares of a selection of producers from Bandol. We eventually found an excellent Bandol Rose and a stonking Bandol Red. We are still in negotiations but they should be on the shelves sometime soon. Next we tasted wines from a number of Cote du Provence growers, I really love this style of Rose in the summer its so refreshing and crisp. We’ve found a couple of stars, a Vin de pay Maures Rose which will be £6.99 and a Cote du Provence Rose at £8.99. They should be in-store next week so all we need now is a bit of ‘al fresco’ allowing weather. As with most of our wines we are importing these directly from the best small producers. This means you get the quality and charachter that small production brings at a fair price.

Time was ticking by so we met up with Hamish, who owns Bella wines. He led us through a tasting of wines from the Minervois region. We then had the usual wine trade lunch of steak (pretty raw) and potatoes and a token side salad (half a tomato if memory serves me right), washed down with a glass or 2 of the local vin rouge. After lunch Hamish introduced us to a couple more interesting growers and we finished with some delicious Aged Maury (a dessert wine from Southern France). It was 4.30pm and our palets were shot from too much tasting. We had also been up since 2.30pm and had tasted about 80 wines but were both feeling in fairly good nick. At these tastings we always spit but you do still absorb a small amount of alcohol so we had the sort of feeling that 2-3 pint of beer gives you. We grabbed a Taxi back to our hotel and had the usual check in mix up that normally seems to ensue after an internet booking.

A couple of beers in one of the cafe’s on the ‘Place deComedie’ in central Montpellier and our thoughts turned to dinner. We wandered up and down a few streets in the Old Town and then decided on a small bistro. Wayne had locally caught/harvested Oysters to start while I opted for a goats cheese salad. We washed these down with a half carafe of Picpoul de Pinet. A good choice, but hey we don’t get it wrong very often! For main course I had a local speciality Beef Daube. Its a sort of provencale beef stew - Its delicious, I’ve actually made it myself since returning, there’s lots of recipe’s if you google it. Wayne enjoyed his main course of cassuolet (local meat and bean stew) . We had a bottle of Costiere de Nimes Red which seemed to compliment both dishes well.

The next day we got to Vinisud at 9am and enjoyed another ham baguette and two more punchy coffees. We concentrated on Rhone Wines on the second day finding the excellent ‘ferme du Mont’ a small producer in the shadow of Chateau de Beaucastel who make Cote du rhone, Gigongdas and Chateauneuf…these should be on our shelves in 2 weeks. We also met with a group of 3 wine Rhone winemakers who call themselves the Rhone Gang - They are pretty nuts check out the website for more background www.rhonegang.com . The Rhone gangs wines are in store now and I cant recommend the Terrases Cote du ventoux £9.99 and the James Basket Press £8.99 enough. If you want a treat try the Baron Louis 2005 £12.99 from Ch Montfaucon.

We had another raw steak and a few glasses of red for lunch. After lunch our palate’s were feeling pretty tired so we just took it easy and wandered around trying what we fancied. During this period we found a great group of producers from South West France and hope to get some of their wines into stock soon.

That night we had an early dinner and turned in quite early as the flight was at 8am the next day. It was our first trip to Vinisud and it proved a good hunting ground for high quality small production wines.

Anthony hosted a wine tasting for us yesterday evening at the Gardens Lawn Tennis Club (check us out at http://www.gardenstennis.co.uk). A fantastic evening was had by all - superb wines brilliantly presented. Looking forward to the next one!

AileenmWilson - Social Secretary

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