Spain Is a Viticulture Miracle Waiting to Happen, and Has Been in This Pregnant State for Longer Than Seems Decent
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SPAIN In a nutshell: Land of American oak, sherry, and loin-yielding bush vines. Grapes: Tempranillo, Garnacha (Grenache) (RED), Airen, Viura (Maccabeo), Verdejo, Albarino (XMITE) Spain is a viticulture miracle waiting to happen, and has been in this pregnant state for longer than seems decent. Proud possessor of more land devoted to vines than any other, Spain is only just beginning to capitalize on this resource in any consistent or cohesive way - which is perhaps not surprising. If it had Germany's love of efficiency, or France's respect for bureaucracy, Spain might be sending us oceans of judiciously priced wine made expressly for the international market. But Spain is an anarchic jumble of districts and regions, just as its landscape is an anarchic jumble of staggeringly raw scenery and heartbreakingly awful human constructions, and has to be treated as such by the wine enthusiast. There is real treasure to be found by those prepared to dig, however and, as a connoisseur class develops in Spain itself, all manner of ambitious investors are planning to change the image of Spanish wine. A look at the map suggests just how much climatic diversity there is likely to be between Spain's many wine regions, from the soggy vine yards of Galicia on the north Atlantic coast to the baked Mediterranean south east. Spain's saving grace, viticulturally, is the altitude of her vineyards, many over 650 m (2000 ft). A high proportion of Spanish vineyards therefore manage to produce grapes with good levels of color and acidity simply because night-time temperatures are relatively low, and grapes do not ripen until the end of a usefully prolonged growing season. And because irrigation is not officially allowed in Spain (although this rule seems to be bent by most of those who can afford to, vines are typically planted as widely spaced bushes so that yields tend to be very low, ideally resulting in grapes packed full of flavor. Lower altitude vineyards, notably those of the Levante area on the southern Mediterranean coast, tend to produce wines whose main problem is an excess of alcohol and a lack of acidity. The standard Spanish recipe for correcting this imbalance is to add white grapes or white wine. Spain's wine surplus makes an ideal complement to the vapid sort of red that makes up France's wine lake. Spain also has a handsome array of indigenous grape varieties. Tempranillo produces some of the country's most admired red wines and is planted widely under several aliases. France's Grenache was probably imported as Gamacha, one of Spain's most planted varties. The Monastrell vine so common in the Levante is none other than the fashionable Mourvedre. Two white grape varieties of indisputable class are Rueda's Verdejo and Galicia's Albarino , the former having been rescued quite recently from obscurity. There are many other possible candidates, with Rioja's Graciano and Galician Godello being obvious examples. Spain's main wine problems lie not in the vineyard but in the cellar, or rather the cellars of many of the co-operatives that vinify so much of the country's wine and the blending halls of the big bottlers which have dominated the country's vine trade. Only since the early 1980s has a significant number of quality conscious individual producers emerged, and even today it is extremely rare for wine producers to grow all their own grapes. Almost all of the top names in the top regions depend on local farmers to a greater or lesser degree. Another common national characteristic is Spain's traditional fondness for American oak. Ever since the colonization of the Americas there has been a lively import trade in American oak, which has been used extensively in Spanish wine cellars for extended maturation of both reds and whites. This often resulted in red wines that were relatively light in color and marked by a vanillin-sweet overlay, but more recently Spaniards have come to worship more deeply colored, tannic reds (which has encouraged the spread of Cabernet Sauvignon vines imported from France). THE SMARTEST REGIONS Wine names likely to be encountered on labels outside Spain are listed here in my own highly subjective and debatable descending order of current prestige. The map on page 222 shows how they relate to each other geographically. Red wines White wines Ribera del Duero Galicia Priorato Rueda Rioja Somontano Penedes Conca de Barbera Navarre Somontano Conca de Barbera Costers del Segre La Mancha Valdepenas Jumilia But in one sense Spain's great gift to the world of wine is not a table wine at all but its incomparable late-fortified wine, a sure-fire appetite whether that has been much copied else where and often downgraded even in its homeland Jerez: sherry. The Spaniards are also extremely enthusiastic consumers of sparkling wine, mostly their own answer to champagne, Cava, almost all of which is made in Penedes in north east Spain. UNDERSTANDING LABELS blanco, white. bode-a, wine cellar or winery.I clarete, unique light red somewhere between pink and full tinto, now outlawed by EU. Crianza, the most basic level of wine that has been deliberately aged, usually for at least a year, in small oak barrels. Intermediate quality level between Joven (Sin, or without, Crianza) and a Reserva. DO, Denomination de Origen, Spain's answer to France's AC. Most of Spain's best wines qualify for their local DO; Spain is not as anarchic as Italy. DOCa (Denomination de Origen Calificada) is a theoretically superior category, to which Rioja was elevated in 1991. espumoso, sparkling. Gran Reserva, top of the range wines, aged for longer than a Reserva. Joven, literally young, a wine that has not been aged like a Crianza or Reserva. Reserva, special bottling aged for longer than a Crian:a. rosado, pink wine - quite popular in Spain. seco, dry. tinto, deep red (cf. clarete) vendimia, vintage. viva, vineyard. wino, wine. Vino de la Tierra, Spain's answer to France's Vin de Pays. Vino de Mesa, table wine (as opposed to DO or Vino de la Tierra). Rioja Rioja, in north east Spain, was for long Spain's only high-profile wine region, but in the 1980s it lost many friends by overpricing and underperforming (a pattern which shows signs of recurring in Ribera del Duero now that it has taken over the mantle of Spain's most revered red wine region). Rioja has traditionally been American oak's most expressive ambassador. The wine is made from a blend of Tempranillo and Gamacha (Grenache) grapes aged for a considerable number of years in the sweet, vanilla-scented warmth of small American oak barrels. The result of this prolonged ageing was to allow a high proportion of phenolics (see page 73) to be left behind in the bottom of the barrel, making bottled Rioja a relatively pale, gentle, soft wine reminiscent of strawberries and stewed fruit. It was this flattering, easily appreciated character, and the fact that fully mature examples did not cost very much, that made Rioja the first non French wine to woo British wine drinkers in the late 1970s. Rioja producers have since been confused by the canny fickleness of modem wine consumers. Unimpressed by a succession of younger and younger, duller and duller, yet dearer and dearer wines, Rioja's old customers became disaffected. Seeing the recent success of Ribera del Duero's much deeper-coloured, more tannic and, often alcoholic, wines, many producers are trying to ape this style. A number of technically well-made red wines which have no American oak characteristics whatsoever are now made. Some producers are deliberately leaning more heavily on the fuller bodied wines produced in Rioja Baja, the region's lower, Mediterranean-influenced vineyards, when constructing their blends. (Very, very few Riojas are estate bottlings, although Contino and Granja Remelluri provide notable exceptions.) Rioja Alta is in the mountainous far west of the region, so high and Atlantic-dominated that grapes are regularly picked in late October. That part of the region which falls within the province of Alava to the north is known as Rioja Alavesa and can produce some very fine wines on soils that are not too fertile. Although Tempranillo and Garnacha dominate the vineyards of Rioja, Mazuelo (local name for Carignan) and the much more exciting but rare Graciano are also allowed for red Rioja. Viura, the rather tart Maccabeo of southern France, is the staple ingredient for white Rioja but white Grenache, Garnacha Blanca, sometimes adds ballast, and the small amounts of Malvasia still grown can add real character. Most white Rioja is either a squeaky-clean, cool-fermented thirst-quencher as pioneered by Marques de Caceres or a very oaky, often heavy wine such as Vina Tondonia. There has been a limited amount of Cabernet Sauvignon grown in the region for more than a century, however, and the area devoted to international imported grape varieties, both red and white, is increasing every year, whether officially sanctioned or not. Rioja's fortune was made in the late nineteenth century when Bordeaux wine producers, devastated by the twin scourges of mildew and phylloxera, brought their techniques over the Pyrenees. The oldest bodegas therefore tend to be centred on the small town of Haro in Rioja Alta which had good rail links, although Logrono in the centre of the region is its administrative capital. Firms such as La Rioja Alta, CVNE, Lope de Heredia, Muga, Marques de Murrieta and Marques de Riscal belong to what might be called the Rioja aristocracy, all with long-standing reputations - even if Marques de Riscal's dipped in the 1980s.