Viña Real - age before beauty

Viña Real (pronounced 'vinya ray-al') is a producer I've recently come to appreciate, with my first experience being the 1951 Rioja Gran Reserva that we drank to celebrate my mother-in-law's 60th birthday. On my recent trip to Spain, my husband and I visited a few wineries in Rioja, including this one. A modern structure built to resemble a huge wine vat (large tank) reminiscent of the old wooden vats from traditional winemaking, it's the recent home of a not-so-new label that was previously housed in the C.V.N.E. property in Haro, the winemaking city in the Rioja Alta sub-region. Compania Vinicola del Norte de España, also known as 'Cune,' is the winery where the company began in 1879. Viña Real's separate facility made of wood, concrete, and stainless steel opened in 2004 in the Rioja Alavesa sub-region and exclusively makes that label. In addition to the impressive structure and the feeling that we were inside a huge wine vat, the technology employed in this winery was like nothing I'd seen before. A huge crane works its way around the winery and transports what they call IFOs, identifiable flying objects, which are silver vessels that receive the grapes and then carry them over and into the stainless steel tanks for fermentation, enabling gravity-flow winemaking.

After alcoholic fermentation in the tanks the wine is transferred by gravity through hoses to the barrels on the lower level for aging. Once in barrel the Reserva wines will remain there for 18 months, being racked off the sediment every 6 months. A barrel washer speeds up the racking process, cleaning something like 200 barrels in a day. The most I could clean by hand was 17 in a day and after 2 days of that I was out of commission for a week! The winery has 2 long caves the size of 2 football field each built into the hill for barrel and bottle aging. Made of limestone, they remain cool and humid; they were built by the same outfit that constructed the subway tunnels in Bilbao, Spain. Penicillin mold grows all along the caves and barrels and bottles, and they believe this helps keep bacteria out of the winery and protect the wine from light and temperature variances.

And now, the wine... at the winery we tasted their Crianza 2009, which was very pleasant with flavors of berries and balsamic. We bought a Magnum (double bottle) of the 2005 Gran Reserva (for 38 Euros! cheap!) to age it, since we know from experience that this wine ages tremendously. This may be our silver anniversary wine... but we could probably save it for the golden. Their Gran Reservas, not made every year, spend 7 years in the winery before release. At a restaurant in San Sebastian called Rekondo, known for its wine cellar, we ordered a bottle of Viña Real Rioja Gran Reserva 1966. The wine director uses heated metal to cut these older bottles off at the neck, just under the cork, rather than dealing with cork removal, which can be tricky in older wines. He also refuses to decant the wines, believing that drinking the wine from the bottle it aged in, with its sediment, is part of the experience. He brought us a small glass to try. Jeremy didn't even taste it; he gave it a brief swirl and sniff and then a knowing smile. The wine guy said, "that is all I need, that expression of pure joy on your face." We were so excited to try it.  At 47 years old, the wine was bright, fruity, leathery, spicy. Not at all stewed, oxidized, or tired. Perfect with the huge steak they put in front of us. Balanced, complex, smooth and alive, we couldn't believe how it shined.

After dinner we asked to see the wine cellar. The wine guy, from Argentina, explained that he is not a Sommelier or wine certified in any way. He just became interested in wine and learned everything he could about it, falling into this job by luck. The restaurant has an amazing wine collection, perhaps the best in Europe, and they source all their wines directly from the wineries so they know exactly where they came from and how they were stored. They have wines going back to the early 1920s. They have large format bottles - I don't even know if they have names for bottles so big - and I have no idea how you would pour from one. 

Truly an amazing experience, having seen the modernity of the new Viña Real space and experiencing the preserved age of the wines that preceded that space. I can't wait to see what our Magnum holds in store for us in the years to come.

A Fiendishly Clever Tasting

Last weekend we gathered at Ridge for the final blogger's tasting of 2012, and many bloggers confessed they had been slacking on their blogging. I realized that I too haven't written much since the last Ridge Blogger's Tasting in September. I offer no excuses - all I can say is Thank You! to Ridge for continuing to inspire my wine writing.

The theme this time was Three Blind Mice: 3 flights of wine with 3 tastes per flight, blinded. The 3 wines in each flight had both common theme and distinct difference. All 3 flights had a common thread as well.

We began tasting. On the first flight I could swear I was tasting the same wine in 3 different glasses, but all were slightly different. Jeremy and I collaborated and concluded that it was the same base wine, but with varying levels of oak exposure. On one end the wine was lighter and easier to drink, but on the other end it was bigger and more tannic, like it had more time in oak and needed to settle down a bit (age). Our varietal guess was Merlot.

The second flight clearly showed an age progression, as the first wine was a paler red color with tinges of brick on the rim, while the second and third had brighter color and fruit on the nose. We guessed it was a Zinfandel blend going back to early 90s, then early 2000s, then a more recent vintage.

The third flight was most confusing, because the differences were so slight. We thought we were tasting Monte Bello at very small age intervals.

We were wrong... about everything.

Flight #1: Ridge Estate Cabernet Sauvignon 2009 in 3 bottle formats: magnum, regular, and half-bottle. The perceived differences in oak that we tasted could be correlated to how wine ages in different size bottles. This is due to the ratio of air to wine, which is smaller in a magnum (it ages more slowly) and larger in a half-bottle (it ages more quickly). So the one that tasted more "oaked" was the Magnum, which is aging more slowly and still hasn't mellowed. Regarding Merlot vs Cab, in the past I have confused these two at Ridge - they almost tend to take on opposite characteristics.

Flight #2: The only thing we got right here was the difference in age, though we thought there were a lot more years in between. Again, Ridge Estate Cabernet Sauvignon, this time from 2004, 2005, 2006.

Flight #3: 3 bottles of 2007 Ridge Estate Cabernet Sauvignon. The ultimate trick! The same wine, same vintage, same size bottle. People talk about "bottle variation," how the same wine can taste different from one bottle to the next. This can be due to slight variations that may develop in the wine as it travels from the tank and through the bottling line. Wine is always changing, always evolving. But how big a difference there is can sometimes be all in your head. 

In conclusion: the mind plays tricks on us, especially when the host plays tricks on the tasters! 

Thanks again, Christopher, for a fun tasting and a great end to this year of wine.

Happy Thanksgiving!

Wiemer wines are still dominating my Thanksgiving table...

Riesling Dry 2008 (Magnum), Gewurztraminer Dry 2008, Riesling Semi-Dry 2008

Happy New Year!

Mumm's the word

Friday we went up to Napa to escape the fog of San Francisco and enjoy some wine tasting before the weekend rush. We went to Mumm Napa, sister sparkling wine producer to G. H. Mumm in Champagne, France (both are owned by Pernod Ricard). Most of the wines are made from a base of Chardonnay and Pinot Noir, two of the classic Champagne grapes. We had a relaxed patio tasting overlooking the vineyards and mountains, hosted by Claudia, who gave us suggestions for what flights to try. She also let us compare sparkling wine in a regular champagne bottle to that in a magnum - twice the size. Their magnums go through extended lees aging (when the bottles age on the dead yeast cells before disgorgement), so they have more toastiness and complexity to the taste - 7 years aging versus 3 years, as an example. I love these characteristics in Champagne and sparkling wine so it was really exciting to taste the differences. We did this comparison for both the Brut Rose and Brut Reserve. The regular bottles were great but I loved the magnums even more. I love dry pink sparkling wine in general, I think it is the prettiest and most exciting wine to drink, and I've rarely met one I didn't like. The Brut Rose Magnum was so delicious. And the Brut Reserve Magnum was magnumificent!

We also liked their DVX line of wines, which go through some neutral barrel aging and partial malolactic fermentation before bottling for the second fermentation. Traditionally, still wine designated for sparkling wine is stainless steel fermented and extremely acidic, which helps its longevity and age-ability going into the second fermentation. DVX is softened a bit before the second fermentation, but the acidity still remains in the finished wine, so it had this amazing creaminess and crispness in an interesting balance. (Malolactic fermentation is a process whereby the natural malic acid present in the grape juice/wine is converted to lactic acid, a softer acid found in milk. This fermentation happens naturally at the right temperature, and most red wines go through it. Some winemakers allow white wines like Chardonnay to go through ML, but for other wines they usually avoid it by cold-stabilizing the white wine.) 

Champagne bottles in various sizes - as they get bigger they have funny names like Jeroboam, Methusalem, Salmanzar, Balthazar, and Nebuchadnezzar.

Thanks to Claudia for a fantastic experience at Mumm Napa!

Happy Holidays!

I've been obsessed with the Wiemer Magnums of 2008 Dry Riesling. They were a great way to spend the holidays, celebrating life with family and friends. Hope everyone had a great holiday season!

Happy Thanksgiving!

Turkey, cranberry sauce, butternut squash risotto, and Wiemer Rieslings... yum!

We had the Dry Riesling '08 and the Semi Dry Riesling '07.
The Magnum looked awesome on the table...

(I had it autographed by Fred, the winemaker)

Hope everyone had a great holiday with family and friends.