By: Pamela Heiligenthal
Enobytes
Spain.. a place so diverse yet the first thing that comes to mind for most is the grand region of Rioja, followed by wines like Tempranillo, Cava or Albariño. Dig in a little deeper and you’ll discover Spain has so much more to offer. So I’m going to let you in on ten little secrets — well, to be more precise it’s more like a few inside scoops, a few predictions and a challenge or two.
By the end of this post, you’ll be a savvy Spanish wine guru doing the funky Hondarribi Zuri dance.
1. The next big white: I know many of you have a long time love affair with Albariño, and who can blame you? She’s rich and tart, with unrivaled character and finesse. But if you’re looking to cheat on Albariño, try Godello. It’s a superbly perfumed, aromatic white with arrays of mineral, peach and melon with zesty lemon-lime undertones. I wasn’t expecting to cheat on Albariño, but when mistress Godello does a little table dance, she’s hard to ignore. Native to Galicia, Godello’s home is tucked away in a remote and rustic region known as Valdeorras although smaller plantings are found in the Bierzo Denominación de Origen (DO). So now that you are in the know, keep your eyes peeled for Godello’s rising stardom.
2. The next big red: Everyone’s familiar with Spanish Tempranillo, Garnacha Tinta and Monastrell, but I’m going to let you in on a little secret. Think Mencía. It’s not a well-known grape here in the U.S. but I predict it’s popularity will increase in the coming years.
It’s similar to a Cabernet franc producing a high quality wine with high acidity and a super-fragrant bouquet that will knock your socks off. Think fruity yet complex; sexy and structured; elegant and silky with aromas and flavors of black pepper, violets, mineral and earth enveloped with red and black fruits. If you want to splurge, go for the ’05 Castro Ventosa “Valtuille Cepas Centenarias” Mencia from Bierzo, which is spicy with mineral and black cherry notes. This is a wine that really showcases the Mencía profile with layered complexity and a sexy appeal.
I had an opportunity to try other great examples at a Spanish Wine Educators course, which were equally impressive. The ’06 Bodegas Casar de Burbia is one that fits the Mencía profile with youthful yet complex qualities with flavors of red fruit and dusty tannins. The ’07 Tercer Motivo was earthy and well structured with dark fruits and mineral.
Calimocho. Chronicle / Craig Lee
3. Wine-based drinks: Many of you might be surprised that young adults in Spain don’t drink wine straight out of the bottle. Now I don’t mean that literally, I mean they usually mix it with coke, lemonade, Sprite or 7-UP. Tinto de Verano is one part red wine and one part gaseosa, which is low sugar lemonade. It’s sort of like Sangria but not, and you can substitute Gaseosa for Sprite or 7-Up. If you’re in the Costa del Sol region, it’s common for locals to drink this concoction as tourists drink Sangria. So the next time you’re visiting Spain and you want to be a cool cat, forgo the Sangria and ask for a Tinto de Verano. You’ll avoid looking like a tourist and you’ll get a little respect from the locals.
Another drink, Rebujito, is Fino mixed with Sprite or lemonade. Another ever-popular drink, calimocho or kalimotxo (in the Basque Country and Navarre) is a mixture of wine with coke.
4. Garnacha Tintorera: Wine Geek Alert! This red grape, also known as Alicante, is the only variety, along with Alicante Bouché, which produces colored juice. Press a grape by any other name and you’ll get clear colored juice. Garnacha Tintorera is widely planted in Albacete, Alicante, Orense and Pontevedra, and it’s considered a main variety in Almansa DO.
5. The Ribeiro drinking vessel: Ribeiro is a Spanish DO for wines located in the northeast of the province of Ourense (Galicia, Spain). White wine represents about 80% of the wine produced, and most of it is made out of the Treixadura variety, which is native to the area. Tradition is to drink this light, fresh, fruity and floral wine out of a white cup called a ‘taza‘ or ‘cunca‘.
6. Navarra doesn’t know what it wants to be when it grows up: Big brother Rioja in the Ebro River Valley overshadows smaller DOs like Navarra, which is experimenting with a number of grape varieties and styles. In terms of red wine production, Garnacha and Tempranillo roughly account for 61% of the total grape production. Coming in at a distant third and fourth, Cabernet production is approximately 15% and Merlot accounts for roughly 12%. Lost for identity, I’d like to put Navarra out of it’s misery and pronounce Bordeaux blends for its future. Call me crazy, but some of the best wines I’ve tasted from this region are just that.
Take for example, the 2006 Bodegas Vina Magana Calchetas Navarra, which is a Merlot, Cabernet, Malbec blend. Its complex, concentrated and round filled with lots of blackberry, cassis and cherry notes. The balance was superb, ending with dry, ripe tannins. This was one of my favorite wines tasted during the Spanish Wine Educators class.
7. Cencibel: If you see this word on a bottle of Spanish wine, don’t fret. It’s another word for Tempranillo, often used in central and southern Spain, especially in the La Mancha region. Drink it, you’ll love it!
8. I predict Sherry will be your new addiction: I know what you’re thinking. I’m not drinking granny’s stale bottle of cream sherry. This might come as a surprise to you, but Sherry has so many different styles, its hard not to find one that fits your personality. Once you try them, I’ll guarantee you’ll find one you like — and who knows, you might even find a mistress to keep Godello company.
So here’s the challenge — invite a group of friends over for a Sherry tasting. Have them bring different styles of Sherries and taste though a flight. Have plenty of food on hand like green olives, artichokes, nuts, asparagus, cured meats, shrimp and sushi. The beauty about sherry is that it pairs well with foods that are difficult to pair with wines. To get you started, I’ve listed sherry styles and food recommendations:
Dry Styles:
Fino: This style has a light, salty, nutty flavor with hints of yeast and dried fruits with bright acidity. Serve it well chilled. Pair with sushi, green olives, artichokes, pickled items, asparagus, shrimp, and pistachio nuts.
Manzanilla: This style is light, crisp, and dry with a pungent, yeasty nose and delicate flavors of almonds and chamomile. Serve chilled. Pair with sushi, green olives, artichokes, pickled items, asparagus, shrimp, and pistachio nuts.
Amontillado: Slightly pungent with a deep, complex nutty nose; light and smooth. Pair with gorgonzola, roquefort or stilton cheeses and toasted almonds.
Oloroso: Deep mahogany color with warm, round and complex flavors. Pair with cured meats, brie, toasted nuts and bitter chocolates.
Natural Sweet Wines:
Moscatel: Intense mahogany color; very sweet, nutty, fresh & velvety. Pair with blue cheese, toasted almonds, dried fruits, sweet desserts or drizzle over vanilla gelato.
Pedro Ximenez: Dark mahogany color; deep aromas and flavors of dried fruits, toffee and liquorice. Pair with blue cheese, toasted almonds, dried fruits, sweet desserts or drizzle over vanilla gelato.
Blended:
Pale Cream: Slightly pungent, sweet, light and fresh with notes of almonds. Pair with fresh fruit, blue cheese, prunes, or spicy sausage.
Cream: Full-bodied, sweet and velvety with intense oloroso aromas. Pair with fresh fruit, blue cheese, prunes, or spicy sausage.
…and if you are interested in learning a little bit more about Sherry before your party, check out Catavino’s post, Sherry 101.
9. Canary Island vineyards: If you had no idea that the Canary Islands produced wines, you are not alone as few wines make it to the U.S. market. If you have a chance to visit the region, head to D.O. Lanzarote, were you will see some of the most spectacular Viticultural landscape on the planet. The center of Lanzarote is a vast landscape of black solidified lava, and the outer edges of the lava field are terroir rich with volcanic ash called lapilli. Vines are planted in hoyos or trenches, (also called zanjas), and cairns protect each hollow to shelter the vines from the Sahara winds. I can guarantee you won’t see anything quite like the Viticultural landscape of the Canary Islands.
10. Hondarribi Zuri & Hondarribi Beltza: White (zuri, in Basque) and red (beltza) are varieties used in the traditional Basque chacolí (a.k.a. Txakoli, pronounced chaw-KO-lee). The white version is common in Chacolí de Guetaria DO, and the red is ample in Chacolí de Vizcaya DO. This variety is as hard to pronounce, as it is to find it at your local wine store. Hondarribi-Zuri is pronounced “on-dar-ee-bee zoo-ree” — store this away for the next time you play a wine trivia game (ah hem, #VinQ!).
…and until next time, try a few Spanish wines and enjoy the diversity that Spain has to offer.
Oh, and if you’re looking to learn more about wines, follow me on twitter. You never know what I might leak out for the next big prediction or wine find.
Richard Auffrey
The Passionate Foodie
Many of you may have visited a winery cellar, underground rooms with low ceilings, packed with stacks of barrels amidst the cool air. You might even have visited a wine cave, as I did when I was in Spain a few years ago. But on my recent visit to Spain, I beheld a radically different type of wine storage area, the sherry bodegas.
Richard Ford, the author of A Handbook for Travellers in Spain (published in 1845), thought that the bodegas resembled cathedrals. Many later writers would, understandedly, adopt that same simile as they do bear some resemblance to cathedrals. I visited nine bodegas and it was obvious to me why so many have made this comparison. But another writer, Rupert Croft-Cooke, had a different view, stating “But it might also be thought of as a great hive with thousands of cylindrical cells in which the living wine matures.” (Sherry, p.115) That view also has some validity, and is in line with the feeling I received in some of the bodegas.
While wandering the aisles of the bodega above, I felt as if I were in an alien landscape, the humid air adding a haze to my view. The dark colors, thick cobwebs, and thick dust brought to mind great age and mystery. I could easily see this as some strange hive, where the bizarre creatures were but sleeping, waiting for something to awaken them. Shades of Ridley Scott’s classic Alien film.
The term “bodegas” literally translates as “cellar” but is also used to refer to the “wine producer” and “winery.” The bodegas, many constructed in the 19th century, are buildings of purpose, each element designed to benefit the ageing of the sherry, to assist the flourishing of the flor. There are very good reasons why such bodegas are almost never underground wine cellars.
Most bodegas are lofty, with their ceilings as high as forty feet or so, to help keep the bodegas cool. This adds to the feeling that you are in a cathedral. The ceilings are so high as it is believed that the volume of air in the bodegas should be about eighteen times as that of the volume of wine. Good air circulation is necessary for the flor and most underground wine cellar lack the proper circulation.
The outside walls of the bodegas are commonly whitewashed, to help reduce temperatures. For that same reason, bodegas may be built close to each other, to limit the amount of sun hitting the walls or vegetation may be grown between buildings, providing more shade. The walls of the buildings are at least about two feet thick, to support the high walls as well as to provide adequate insulation. The bricks in the walls, made from materials that help the cellar maintain high humidity, may be hollow too. In addition, the roofs are often insulated.
The floors of bodegas are commonly a mix of sand, lime and iron oxide. During very hot and dry weather, the floors may be sprayed with water two to three times a week. This water will soak into the floor and evaporate slowly, helping to keep the temperatures low and increase the humidity. As it was hot and dry when I visited Jerez, I saw some of the water spraying, and the bodegas were very humid. The humidity helps to reduces the rate of evaporation of the sherry in the barrels and promotes the growth of the flor.
Bodegas are commonly located either close to the sea or at high elevation, seeking to benefit from morning sea breezes and the poniente, the westerly, winds. Plus, they are constructed along a northeast-southwest axis, which help to give a minimum amount of direct sunlight. Windows are located high on the walls, and are usually rectangular to prevent sunlight from falling upon the botas. Plus, the windows commonly have blinds made of esparto grass, which keep out the sun but allow in the wind. The poniente is the most desirable, being cool and humid. But the levante, the easterly wind, is warm and dry, and much less desired.
Sherry botas are usually stacked no more than three or four high, as the added weight of a higher stack would damage the botas below. Once in place, barrels are rarely moved, and may remain in the same place for decades, and you can see the dust and spiderwebs verifying their age. The barrels are commonly painted matte black, allowing leaks to be more readily discerned. As these barrels are usually older, any repairs need to be conducted with old barrels, which are more expensive in the Jerez region than new barrels. This is the opposite of much of the rest of the wine industry.
The caps on the bungholes sit loosely, allowing some air into the bota, which is also very different from much of the rest of the wine industry which abhors allowing air to affect their wines in the barrel. Some of the bodegas have signed barrels, sometimes by visiting celebrities, from Winston Churchill to John Lennon, and other times by regular visitors, who thus gain a measure of immortality.
To educate visitors, most bodegas also have a display bota, with glass ends, to show the flor within the barrel.
My tour of the various bodegas was a fascinating and informative journey, showcasing an intriguing alternative to the usual wine cellars. If you get the chance, you should visit the sherry bodegas too.
The President of the Secret Sherry Society is pleased to present this week’s author on “Sherry Blogger of the Week,” Ana Kinkaid of YOUR CULINARY WORLD . Each week we will feature a new wine blogger committed to sharing with readers their passion and knowledge of wine. If you are a wine blogger and are interested in being featured on our website please email us at secretsherrysociety@gmail.com.
By Ana Kinkaid
www.yourculinaryworld.com
Sherry was not always the fortified wine that it is today. Indeed, its milder ancestral origins reach back to the ancient Greeks and Romans and then winds its way forward through the turbulent political history of Europe to the shores of America.
For example, few people know that the predecessor of today’s sherry sailed from the Spanish port of Cadiz in the holes of Christopher Columbus’ ships as Spain searched for India and found, instead, the New World.
Sherry was considered absolutely necessary for these ships as any water on board would quickly become unfit to drink due to long length of the journeys. Yet it was these very voyages that would bring England and Spain into conflict over gold, sherry and power.
As Spain began to profit from the new found wealth of Mexico and Peru, England noticed and was very, very envious. And though the new English queen named Elizabeth was delighted with her expanding colonies in North America, they could not begin to produce the immediate wealth arriving by the galleon load from Spain’s richer New World territories.
Knowing that an island kingdom (or ‘queen-dom’ in this case) must be strong to survive, Elizabeth turned a blind eye as Sir Francis Drake and other English sea captains raided and seized the treasures from Spain’s heavily laden and slower gold ships.
Finally Philip II, the King of Spain, had had enough of England’s daring Queen and her “sea wolves” (even though he had once asked her to marry him – she said “No!”).
Beginning in the 1580s, he ordered that a great fleet or Armada be built. His plan was to invade England, remove Elizabeth from the throne, crown himself king in Westminster Cathedral and claim Elizabeth’s oversea territories as his own. But England took preemptive action led by the skilled seaman Sir Francis Drake.
Drake boldly sailed into the Spanish naval shipyard at Cadiz and set fire to the ships waiting there to invade his beloved England. He also seized 2,900 casks of sherry from the Spanish naval stores!
As you might guess, it became all the rage in England to drink the captured sherry. Spanish sherry was suddenly the most popular drink in England, though legend tells us, the English loved to call it “sack” because, well, Drake had sacked the Spanish supply port.
Shakespeare even praised sherry or “sack” when he had Sir John Falstaff proudly declare in Henry IV, Part 2 that ”If I had a thousand sons, the first humane principle I would teach them should be, to forswear thin potations and to addict themselves to sack”.
What better accolades could there be for sherry than Shakespeare’s own immortal words?
Today those words are echoed in America at the great Elizabethan Christmas celebrations at Yosemite Park’s famed Ahwahnee Hotel.
Each December since 1927, the amazing Bracebridge Dinners transform the Ahwahnee Hotel’s great hall into a 17th century English manor honoring a feast of food, song, laughter and, of course, sherry.
A little known fact is that the original event was designed by the famed American photographer Ansel Adams, who loved the Yosemite area and captured its stunning beauty forever in unforgettable images. Hurray for sherry!
So enjoy sherry this holiday season – you will hold history in your hand from the docks of colonial Spain to Shakespeare’s famed Globe Theater in London to the majesty of Yosemite’s soaring El Capitan peak.
Enjoy the Winter Season and this truly legendary wine. Viva sherry all year long – no matter where you are! Happy Holidays!
The President of the Secret Sherry Society is pleased to present this week’s author on “Sherry Blogger of the Week,” David McDuff of McDuff’s Food & Wine Trail. Each week we will feature a new wine blogger committed to sharing with readers their passion and knowledge of wine. If you are a wine blogger and are interested in being featured on our website please email us at secretsherrysociety@gmail.com.
By David McDuff
Contrary to what the title of today’s post might lead one to construe, I was not recently cooking with, nor have I ever actually cooked with, my pal Brooklynguy. Rather, today’s missive is named for an occasional series, thus named, that the BG runs on his own site. There’s a fairly ambitious edition running there as we speak — something to do with swirling and tongues.
I did at least have the pleasure of seeing the Guy from Brooklyn not long ago though, when he, I and a half-dozen or so other amicable souls got together to drink an absurd number of bottles of flor-affected Sherry at a fantastic little spot called Prune in New York’s lower East Village.
Our dinner came along fairly hot on the heels of an earlier post from Brooklynguy, one from another of his ongoing series that he calls “You be the Sommelier.” The challenge: heirloom tomatoes. The recipe was challenging, at that. Slicing, plating and sprinkling of salt were all involved. I’m no stranger to techniques such as these — my local farmers market is a veritable heirloom mother lode during the growing season — though my rendition often features the added twist of pepper, maybe even a drizzle of olive oil if I’m feeling crazy.
I’ve found over the years that there are a lot of wines that can pair quite nicely with such a dish. Loire Sauvignon works surprisingly well, as do many crisp, mineral and moderately fruit driven whites. My first thought, though, almost always goes to rosés from Provence. Bandol rosé from producers such as Tempier or Terrebrune work splendidly, as do less highfalutin Provençal pinkies like the Coteaux d’Aix en Provence rosé from Château Calissanne, a wine with which I go way back. That was more or less my answer when he threw down the pairing gauntlet last month; however, I was pretty damn sure what he was actually thinking, and it proved correct. Sherry. So, when I was lucky enough to walk out of Prune that night with the generous remains of a rather well respected bottle of Sherry tucked away safely in my bag, I figured I’d put his spin on the challenge to the test.
The results, I must say, were transcendent. The wine I “rescued,” La Bota de Fino No. 15 “Macharnudo Alto” from Equipo Navazos, was not my favorite of the night at the Prune marathon. A few days later, though, after it had time to rest, resolve and take in a little air, the Fino was simply singing. Uncommonly rich and lengthy, beautifully aromatic, all at once tangy, briny and delicately, freshly nutty. Paired with those tomatoes you can see in the picture above (no, the green one is not a kiwi) — with their natural acidity, firm, cool flesh, sweet fruitiness, a generous sprinkling of decent salt and just a touch of black pepper, no olive oil on this night — the wine took on another dimension. The tomatoes, too. Sparks flew. I could have been happy with that and nothing else for dinner that night. And come to think of it, that may be exactly what I did.
