SPAIN:  Table Wines

The Lay of the Land...Backgrounder on Spanish Wine Regions.

BODEGAS ZUGOBER

We know this brand by the name "Belezos" as that's the main wine from the Bodegas Zugober that we've had in the shop for several vintages.

A fellow from Jerez, the Sherry-producing region owns this place with his wife who's from Rioja.

Her business card must be bigger than her husband's.  His name is Eduardo Gómez Palma.  That can fit on a normal-sized card.
Her name is María Isabel Bernardo Córdoba de Samaniego.

The winery is about 11 kilometers west of the one of the main Rioja cities, Logroño.  They're right on the border of Basque country, too...on the Basque side.

Don't plan on finding "Crianza," "Reserva" or "Gran Reserva" wines here. 
They feel those designations are a bit old fashioned and so you'll find simply the Belezos wines to have merely a "Cosecha" (Vintage) sticker on the back of the bottles.



We've mainly featured their "Belezos" Rioja and currently have the 2015 in the shop.  It's made entirely of Tempranillo and matured for close to a year in small American oak barrels.  There's a beautiful red berry fragrance with a nice touch of wood framing the aromatics and flavors.  
The wine is medium-bodied...not as robust as a Cabernet, for example, but fuller than a Pinot Noir.
It's drinkable right away and can probably be kept for a few years.

The other wine we've brought in is a real mouthful, in more ways than one.

It's called Finca Zarzamochuelo.

It comes from older vines, for one thing.  They view it as a "Special Selection."

It's 90% Tempranillo with 10% Graciano.  It's matured in French oak, a modern twist on Rioja winemaking.  Sixteen months in wood give a mildly cedary tone to the wine which sports ripe fruit and a mildly spicy character.  It's a medium to medium-full bodied red.  The tannin level is modest, so the wine pairs well with lamb, beef, braised meats, etc.  

They suggest decanting it and giving it an hour or two of aeration.  We've not experimented with this but have thrown caution to the wind and served it shortly after popping the cork.  Everyone liked the wine and the bottle was empty halfway through dinner.
That's living life on the edge, no?

We had the 2013 in stock...very nice!  

Currently in stock:  2015 BELEZOS Rioja Sold Out
2013 FINCA ZARZAMOCHUELO Rioja Sold Out

BODEGAS ONTAÑON

The Pérez Cuevas family owns the Ontañon vineyards & wineries...they vineyards are in the Rioja Baja region, a fairly warm zone.

They have 250 hectares of vines and used to sell fruit and wine to other producers in Rioja.  In the 1980s they had the idea to bottle some of their production and today the brand is somewhat well known, though certainly in the shadows of other estates in Rioja.  That may change, we suspect, as the wines from this estate continue to improve.

They have an aging cellar filled with barrels just a few miles east of Logroño, but the vineyards and winemaking cellar 26 miles southeast of Logroño.

We've had several vintages of their Crianza wine in the shop and currently the 2016 is in stock.

This is based on Tempranillo, of course, with 10% Garnacha in the blend.  They use something like 60% American oak and 40% French and the wine spends about a year in wood.  There's a modest percentage of new barrels, so the wine displays a nicely woodsy, classic Rioja perfume.  It's medium-bodied and drinkable immediately.  

 

Currently in stock:  2016 ONTAÑON Rioja "Crianza"  Sold Out

BODEGAS ARZUAGA

The Arzuaga Navarro family launched its winemaking adventure in the early 1990s, producing some good Ribera del Duero wines.

Florentino Arzuaga bought the Finca La Planta which is located in Quintanilla di Onésimo, something like 144 kilometers north of Madrid.

In addition to making some showy wines, Arzuaga has a nice little hotel and restaurant, too.

They own about 150 hectares of vineyards around the winery and on the nearby La Planta property.  But they also own a really good vineyard south of Madrid (maybe 280 kilometers south of the winery) called Pago Florentino.

Tinto Fino (or Tempranillo as it's called in most places) is the main grape.  But they also have Cabernet Sauvignon and Merlot.    They are growing Chardonnay and Pinot Noir, too, but we can't recall tasting those.

We've been fans of their Pago Florentino wine for many vintages.  
Some might see this is made of the grape called Cencibel and think it's quite different from those made of Tinto Fino.  But, in fact, Cencibel is another name for Tempranillo.

The wine is grown on their Finca La Solana near the town of Malagón.  
It's a fairly full bodied wine with beautifully cedary notes from the French and American oak barrels in which it's matured.
The grapes, despite being picked early on the calendar (late August), were quite sweet in terms of sugar and low in acidity, so this is not a wine intended for aging.  It's showy upon release and ready to drink.
It tastes expensive thanks to the ripe fruit and expensive oak barrels.

Currently in stock:  
2016 PAGO FLORENTINO "Vino de Pago"  $24.99

ALEJANDRO FERNANDEZ~PESQUERA

 

Pesquera is the name of the town where you'll find this fabulous, famous winery. 

We met Alejandro Fernandez back in the late 1970s, tasting an extraordinary Spanish wine of his "Pesquera" label.  Prior to this, the most extraordinary Spanish wines were produced by the storied Vega Sicilia winery as well as the Torres family in the Penedès region on Spain's east coast.  I'd tasted Vega Sicilia and wondered why people got so excited over nail-polish remover costing more than a hundred dollars a bottle.  Torres made a superb wine called "Gran Coronas Black Label" for which they seem to have lost the recipe (imagine: their 1970 aced out Chateau Latour 1970 in a prestigious tasting in France which they still talk about today and yet they've drastically changed the style of the wine).  

Along came Fernandez and his unheralded wine called Pesquera.  Here was a guy who was not a "spring chicken" who was starting to make wine of an extraordinary character.  I read that Alejandro was a carpenter and a bit of a tinkerer, designing and manufacturing some sort of beet-harvesting machine.  

This fellow seemed surprised at being received by the people he was visiting with such warmth and admiration.  I'd be surprised if the beet farmers around Spain were quite as adoring as wine drinkers who had discovered his amazing nectar!

Early vintages of Pesquera were phenomenal.  Quite different from the wine made by their competitors at Vega Sicilia, Pesquera was dark in color, rich in ripe fruit and lavishly-oaked.  Despite the obvious use of significant percentages of new barrels, the wines were not "woody" tasting.  Here was "modern" wine.  Modern by the standards set by the Vega Sicilia neighbors who left wine for a decade in a barrel.  Pesquera was left for 18-24 months in barrel, much like Bordeaux or top Napa Cabernets.

Recent vintages have been good, but either our taste buds have changed or competing wineries are making wines in a similar quality neighborhood so that Pesquera doesn't run away from the field in blind-tasting comparisons. I suspect the fabulous increase in the quality level of so many wines from around Spain has something to do with this impression. 

Special bottlings are offered from time to time, Reserva, Grande Reserva and Janus.  These seem to be much in demand around the world, as collectors have read enough favorable reviews from just about every eno-scribe on the planet.  Combine that demand with the requests from top restaurants within Spain and you can understand why Pesquera is now a rare bottle of wine.

Fernandez also owns another property which is called Condado de Haza.  This comes from a stretch of land along the Duero river which is south-facing.  This wine is usually a shade lighter than Pesquera, but often equally interesting.  The top wine of the estate is called Alenza, a combination of ALEjandro and EsperaNZA, his wife.  

The first Condado de Haza wines were made at Pesquera, but now there is a separate winemaking facility to process the fruit from the hundreds of acres of Tempranillo at this estate.

Currently in stock: 
Nothing...Waiting to taste something worthy of
our recommendation.
Stay tuned.

AALTO

If you want to buy a bottle of a big Spanish red that will impress the most hard-core Napa Cabernet fancier or someone who thinks Bordeaux is the center of the Universe, then perhaps a bottle of Aalto is in order.

Aalto, at least alphabetically, is perhaps the first wine in the Spanish wine world.  It's the property of two famous Spanish wine personalities.  One is Mariano Garcia who was the winemaker for many years at Vega Sicilia.  The other fellow is Javier Zaccagnini who was the head of the Ribera del Duero wine growers association. 

They "control" (either own or rent) 130 hectares of vineyards in several sites in Ribera del Duero and most of the vines are in the "old vine" category.  In fact, the vines range from 40 years old on the youthful end of the spectrum and 100 years on the other.

Vineyards are scattered around the provinces of Burgos and Valladolid.

A tasting group I'm in had the wine in a blind tasting and while many of the eight wines we tasted were of good to very good quality, they all paled in comparison to the 2010 Aalto!  The 2015 is much in the same style...

We understand this comes from 7 different vineyard sites and the vines are considered to be farmed "sustainably."  It's made entirely of Tempranillo and the wine spends close to two years in both French and American oak cooperage.  

 It's one of the more showy bottles of wine you can offer your guests.  In fact, a regular customer was buying his usual case of "good value" wines and asked if I could pick something for him to bring to a fancy, high-end restaurant.  They were guests of a big-spender.
I looked at the wine list of the restaurant to be sure the wine was not on the list...told him to set it up with a bubbly or non-oaked white and serve it before the host's red selection.  A few days later I received a wonderful e-mail thanking me for the suggestion and that everyone was "wowed" by the wine.  

We suggest pairing this with grilled steak or lamb...it's almost too big for Paella, but we did enjoy a bottle of the 2011 with a Paella at San Francisco's Contigo restaurant.  Our only issue was we should have chilled the wine a bit more, as it was a warm evening and this high-octane bottling showed its muscle.  We enjoyed it, in any case!

A bottle of the 2015 was paired with Duck Confit at the Basque Cultural Center, not too far from the shop, and this was a winner.  

The 2018 arrived recently and we had a taste.  Mighty deep and dark.  Another impressive bottle.

The fruit comes from numerous parcels and the vines produce a modest-sized crop.  They pick by hand into small boxes and then they have a sorting table to cull out bunches or berries that are not going to produce good wine.  In fact, we understand they even chill the picking boxes that are full of grapes so the juice starts out cool.

Each vineyard site is fermented in special vessels, either in stainless steel, cement or wood and these have been designed by winemaker Mariano Garcia Fernández.  

We've noticed the use of oak has lightened up the past five or six vintages.  They rack the new wine into French and American oak.  The importer uses the figures of 30% to 70% new wood...we will bet the 2018 is likely closer to 30% than 70%.  There's more dark fruit in the spotlight this vintage with the oak more in the background.  
We'll confess to enjoying those lavishly-wooded vintages, but this is still pretty nice.  And you can enjoy it now, especially with grilled or roasted meats.

The 2019 continued their change in styling this wine...modest fruit and the wood is not seasoning the wine to add complexity.
Combined with a price increase, we decided to pass on this vintage.

Currently in stock:    2018 AALTO Ribera del Duero SALE Sold Out

ARTADI

The Artadi winery began in the 1980s when a fellow got some neighbors together to launch their own winery which was called Cosecheros Alaveses at the outset...

Juan Carlos López de Lacalle studied enology and after getting a degree in winemaking he got one in agricultural engineering.

Initially the winery produced merely "wine," with no aspiration to make something especially important.  This was the sort of beverage saleable to the locals who wanted good, inexpensive, simply drinkable wine.  

But Juan Carlos realized why their wine was superior to those being produced by the neighbors:  their vineyards were superior.  Okay, these days it's not a surprise to learn better vineyards produce better wines, but for many folks in the 1970s and 1980s, the focus was often on the cellar and technology.

Lopez de Lacalle then hired a talented enologist and the tag team of a fussy and demanding vineyard manager with an energetic and perfectionist winemaker started to bring critical acclaim to the winery.  

A couple of interesting tidbits about Artadi wines...
1.  They're from the Rioja Alavesa region, a higher elevation area where the wines tend to be a shade lighter in body than other regions in Rioja.
2.  You won't find the normal sort of 'classification' of wines here, so there is not a "Reserva" or "Gran Reserva" wine...they prefer to focus on the vineyard sites as providing the various 'levels' of quality.

The fermentation room at Artadi is simple, clean and functional.

Of course, they have quite a few small barricas.

We have the 2009 vintage of their Vinas de Gain wine...it's made entirely of Tempranillo grown around the town of Laguardia at a fairly high elevation, nearly 1900 feet.  The vineyards are at least 25 years of age and the grapes are hand harvested and then inspected at a sorting table.  They do a cold-soak maceration before initiating the fermentation.  Once the wine is dry, it goes into smallish French oak.  The barrels are of light-medium toast level, though none of the wood is new.  

Still, I find a nice fruit character and a touch of toasty, cedary oak.  It's certainly not as oaky as most of the Reserva Riojas in the shop...We don't view this as a wine for long-term cellaring.  It's showing well now and ought to hold up nicely for another five to ten years.

Good wine!

Currently in stock:  2009 ARTADI Vinas de Gain  Sold Out

They have a nice, modern, airy tasting room.

ALGUERIA

This winery is a relatively new project and it's operated by Fernando González and his wife, Ana Perez.  They're about 5 hours west of Rioja, for example and 40 minutes southeast of Santiago de Campostela.  

This is in the Ribeira Sacra region where Mencia and Godello are prominent grape varieties.

The vineyard sites are on fairly steep hills and they've been painstakingly terraced to accommodate grape cultivation.


We've tasted a wine called Carravel...it's the 2015 vintage and what a remarkable bottle this is!  If you're a fan of Moric Blaufrankisch from Austria, good Barolo from Piemonte or Pinot Noirs from France's Burgundy region, you ought to put a bottle of this on the dinner table!

It's made entirely of the Mencía grape and the wine is fermented in tank before spending a year in French oak cooperage.  It's bigger than a Barolo and Pinot Noir...the color is more intense and yet there's something soulful about this wine which reminds us of those favorite Piemontese and Burgundian red wines.  There's some dark fruit note, mild tannins and a hint of cedary/woodsy tones.  We like it now, but expect it can be cellared for a few more years with expectations of it developing a bit more depth (and it's not lacking presently!).

This is one of the finest versions of the Mencía grape we've tasted.


Currently in stock:  2015 ALGUEIRA Ribeira Sacra "CARRAVEL" $34.99

 

BODEGAS ARAGONESAS "COTO DE HAYAS"

If you're in the wonderful city of Logroño in Rioja, you'd find this winery a bit more than an hour's drive southeast.  From Madrid, you'll need a bit more than 3 hours in the car, driving northeast.

It's a large winery, situated in the middle of Garnacha Country.  You'd be in Aragon, Spain in the province of Zaragoza.  And there's a lot of Garnacha planted there.  More recently, though, growers have been planting Syrah, Cabernet, Chardonnay and Merlot.  

But we identify the region as a good source of Garnacha.   

We have, por ejemplo, the Borsao Garnacha in the shop...a great Beaujolais-styled red.  The same winery makes a delightful blended red with Garnacha as the base and then having some Syrah and Cabernet so it resembles more costly California wines.

Well, this wine is very different from the Borsao bottlings.

They call this "Centenaria" because the vines are said to be around a hundred years old.   The wine, following its primary fermentation, is put in small, new French oak barrels where it spends about 4 months.  The wood is pretty well integrated with the wine...and well like the faintly earthy tones here.  Medium-full bodied, it's a really good bottle of wine.

Our colleague John was a bit shocked to learn this wine costs all of sixteen bucks.
"That's all?  Are you sure?" he asked.  And so he bought one to put on his own dinner table the first day this was in the shop!

Currently in stock: COTO DE HAYAS 2015 "GARNACHA CENTENARIA"  $15.99

 

 

IZADI

This enterprise has but a few decades of history, but the story is still interesting.  It's centers on Gonzalo Antón. who had connections in the world of Spanish gastronomy and he and some friends has great designs on making wine for friends and family.

They chose the name "Izadi" for the winery, a Basque term for "nature."

His family already had vineyards, so it wasn't a huge leap to get into making their own wines.  They built a nice little cellar in the town of Villabuena de Alava in 1987 and soon things took off.  Gonzalo knew a lot of folks in the hotel and restaurant business around Spain, so they were curious to see if the old fellow knew how to make wine or if he was out of his mind.

Well, the early vintages were pretty good and soon the Izadi label was hip and fashionable.  The winery grew and soon they even expanded to making wines in other regions of Spain!

If you visit the Izadi digs in Rioja, you'll find it to be as comfortable as a friend's living room!  It's clear the place was built with the idea of hospitality and having friends, family and maybe customers come to eat and drink.

They show off their varying soil types with this display...

They have a sorting table in the winery, so when the grapes arrive, they pick through them, discarding anything that's not in perfect condition.

The fermentation tanks are rather standard and they have a nice cellar with small barrels.

Almudena Imhoff shows off the Izadi wines as well as their other related bottlings from Rueda, Ribera del Duero and Toro.

Currently Available:  By Special Order Presently...

 

 

FEDERICO PATERNINA

This old firm has what may be the largest single barrel-storage facility in Europe, housing some 35,000 barricas!  And this is only a part of their production.  Paternina's wine was a favorite of Ernest Hemingway.  The wines may have been more special in Hemingway's day, for we have tasted many bottles over the past few years and have found little to be of interest.  I read that there have been some changes in the firm recently, the company having sold stock and raising a pile of cash in the process.  They own a property in Ribera del Duero, along with a firm in Jerez. 

We recently tasted their entry level wines and found them to be standard quality.... I'll special order them for you if you like.

Currently in stock:  SPECIAL ORDER ITEMS

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