This is a subject that I can’t avoid….Rioja and its various styles…I love it! I’ve had a few comments saying that I’ve been unfair to classic Rioja and perhaps I have. Some have said that long barrel aging does not kill fruit flavors, but enhances them…this I have to disagree with. Classic Riojas are not fruit-driven wines…they have many characteristics that make them attractive but the fruit is often oxidized and faded. The bottom line for me is that I appreciate all the various styles that Rioja has to offer today, but I think it is a disservice to the consumer that you have no idea of what style you might get…especially at the reserva level….maybe style should be indicated on the label. I think having so many styles that are not indicated on the label is also a disservice to Rioja as well…it’s hard to project a coherent wine image.

As mentioned in my article below on Navarra Wine Country, we recently had the chance to visit an impressive new winery project near Estella in Navarra: Pago de Larrainzar.

The project is the vision of Miguel Canalejo Larrainzar, the former president of Alcatel in Spain. It is a real family project: a couple of his children are involved full-time in the winery.

Though we often go to Basque country, I had never been to nearby Navarra, and I really wanted to visit wine country there. At an enotourism conference in Madrid, Miguel and I met the dynamic Director of Enotourism for the new winery project, Pago de Larrainzar. Marian San Martin not only encouraged us to visit the winery, located near Estella in Navarra, but also agreed to set up a visit to other wineries in the area. Just a week later, we were heading over the vertiginous mountain roads that separate Basque country from Navarra.Navarra is making some really high quality, exciting, and experimental wines, but has been unable, so far, to project a cohesive image…both in terms of wine styles and a wine region to visit. It also labours under the burden of being right next door to big brother, Rioja, which still dominates the Spanish wine scene. Rioja is the prime destination for wine visitors to the area, and not enough make the extra effort to visit the remarkable wine region just up the road. Though once seen as producing wines similar to Rioja, Navarra is, little by little creating its own wine identity!

At the winery, we got to taste the whole range of wines, all from 2003. These are some of Spain top-rated wines…for more information on the winery, see the article below.

These are really impressive wines! With careful and high tech viticulture this winery is able to produce balanced wines in an extremely hot area of Spain. The problem in hot weather is that by the time the tannins are ripe the fruit is over-ripe and the acid levels are quite low. These wine all retained a freshness, despite being big intense wines. An outstanding series of wines!

We just visited The Dominio de Valdepusa Winery in Toledo Province and were really impressed! The vineyards is where the focus is…these are some of the most high tech vineyards I ever seen! They have sensors that detect every miniscule movement and change in the vine….years of analysing this data allows them to know with precision the exact water needs of their vines. They believed that it is very difficult to get good phenolic ripeness without over-ripe fruit and too low acid levels in hot viticultural areas. Their careful use of technology actually allows them to get a perfectly ripe grapes with good acid levels…this gives top quality, intense, yet fresh wines that age well.