Another edition of the Salon Gourmets has past in the Feria de Madrid…Gourmets is a four day professional food and wine show that launches the fair season.   In the past wine has been a much bigger part of the show and this year I noticed that even less wineries participated.  Food dominates this show and sadly I’ve seen the wine component diminish every year.  Wine shows in Spain have yet to find the international audience that justifies many wineries participation.  It’s a fun show to walk around, with delectable offerings at stands such as jamon, olive oils, cheese, paella and even grilled steaks and roasted suckling pigs.  It’s a bit of a struggle to get samples at the most interesting stands as there are often long lines, but very fun.  Another interesting element are all the national and international gourmet stands looking for distribution in Spain.  I’ve notice a huge increase in those over six years…a great sign of the times…Spain is going gourmet big time!  As to the wine scene…there were a few interesting regional offerings, especially from Castilla Leon, and Galicia.  I tasted a fascinating 150€ wine from the Denominacion Vinos de Madrid!  I’ll be doing a separate post on the Ricardo Benito Winery.  The best wine section of Gourmets is the Wine Tunnel.  In the wine tunnel, wine is served at stands organized into grape varieties.  The first edition was last year and I went thinking there would be few wines of great interest, that they would mostly be inexpensive wines.  It turns out the wines offered at the stands are some of the top wines in Spain, some very expensive and the wine tunnel is a great opportunity to taste different styles of the same varietal from around Spain.  Read on for information on some fo the stand out wines in the wine tunnel this year. 

A couple of really interesting articles at Market Watch and at Decanter in the last week really gave some insights into how Spanish wine is performing in the current crisis market.  According to Market Watch, Spanish imports are performing better than average in the US wine market, and particularly when you compare their numbers to other major European wine exporters such as French, Italy and Germany.   The value of Spanish table wines increased 5% in 2008 while cava imports performed even better at 9%….obviously cava is good recession alternative to Champagne!  The Decanter article addresses the situation in the UK market, Spanish wines declined in volume by 3% but remained stable in value.  Hopefully this shows that UK and US consumers that Spanish wines offer great value at very inexpensive price points, but also at higher price points.   It’s great to see Spanish wines performing so well in this difficult market…certainly the quality and value of the product on offer merits the recognition of the consumer.  The Decanter article’s main theme was that Rioja imports had declined as compared to their rival regions.  Just as interesting is the comment posted by the UK office of Wines from Rioja, denying any slump in Rioja sales in the UK!  Decanter doesn’t provide any assessment of Rioja’s decline, but I have been thinking of a few.  Read on for some more thoughts….

Chacolí or Txakolí is the wine produced in three wine appellations in Spanish Basque Country.  It is a slightly sparkling light wine made in all three colors that is commonly served in Basque bars with tapas and pintxos.  It is very similar in style to Portugal’s Vinho Verde.  White Chacolí is the norm and it is generally served with a special spout attached to the bottle high above the glasses…splashing it vigourously encourages the fizzy carbonic to come out.   It is meant to be a light, fresh and fruity wine that refreshes the palate between all the varied pintxos you might eat….the best wines fit that bill perfectly…the worst are bland and bitingly acidic.   I recently saw in a Spanish TV report that over 80% of the Chacolí served in Basque bars is fake…in other words, not from the wine appellation, but rather a table wine made in the style of Chacolí with inferior grape varieties.   I decided to investigate the last time we were in Basque country and sure enough most of the time I was served a vino de mesa most of the time when I ordered Chacolí.  Generally you don’t get your hands on the bottles as it usually served behind the bar by the glass, but in the picture you can see a bottle of a fake one we were served.  The real rip off is that these wines are served at Chacolí prices, 8-10€ a bottle versus their real price value, which would be well below 5€.   So be wary of what you’re being served while enjoying the tapas in San Sebastian…ask for appellation Chacolí (Denominacion in Spain).  Read on for more information on Chacolí and its counterfeit version.

Today a Decanter.com article caught my eye:  “Sisseck of Pingus owes success to Bordeaux,” which was a preview on an interview with the winemaker in their current issue.   More interesting was the bit at the end of the article that stated that Peter Sisseck is moving away from the very pronounced new oak influence that characterized Pingus from the beginning.  “These days I am more wary of new oak.”  This is music to my ears….could it be we are starting to move away from the excessive new oak that has characterized so many Spanish wines in the past few years?

When I arrived in Spain over 6 years ago, Robert Parker and his team were just starting to pay attention to the wines in a big way.  Since then I have seen awareness of him take off in the wine sector…frequently these days, winery professionals talk about the ratings they’ve received from the Wine Advocate.  I often ask my groups of wine tasters if they’ve heard of Robert Parker, and though many of the foreigners have, very few of the Spanish groups have. The concept of wine ratings still hasn’t really filtered down to the typical Spanish wine consumer…he or she still rely on the recommendations of family, friends, or their local wine merchant.  There are quite a few wine guides and magazines in Spain that rate wines, but ratings are a tool that is just starting to be used as a marketing tool by wineries, distributors and wine merchants.