Guilty feelings about not blogging or tweeting, particularly after a few days touring vineyards in Spain last week in the company of two enthusiastic bloggers, Andrew Barrow, who blogs as
http://www.spittoon.biz/ and tweets as
@wine_scribbler and Sarah Belizaire-Butler, who blogs as
http://eatsdrinksandsleeps.wordpress.com and tweets as
@sarahbb. Both managed to keep up a steady stream of tweets while I spent most of the time watching the battery drain out of my iPhone. Time for an upgrade, I think.
We were in Spain courtesy of Grupo Codorniu, for whom Sarah performs pr duties, to meet some of the winemakers (led by Australian Arthur O'Connor) who are attempting to bring up to date a venerable but perhaps slightly fusty company (it dates from the C16th, is still in the hands of the same family and pioneered Spanish sparkling wine) and sample some of their wines, many of which were excellent.
Among the many highlights was a visit to the astonishing Codorniu winery on the outskirts of Barcelona, which was designed by modernist Catalan architect, Josep Puig i Cadafalch, a student of Gaudi and a tour of its massive underground cellars where wine is stored.
Here are some pictures:
This one is, I'm afraid, a bit blurred (bloody iPhone again) but it shows the astonishing main hall, with its lovely curved seating, the arched doorway and the stunning stained glass panels above.
From intricate lunchtime tapas snacks (melt in the mouth octopus stood out) to delicious, fullsome home cooked fare at Codornui's 'castle' near Raimat (including a remarkable prawn and aubergine 'lasagne') and and a six course meal in the C15th atrium of a former prison now turned hotel in the Rioja town of Haro, (stunning roast vegetables and charcuterie) the food was delicious. There was also a simple lunch in a vineyard - tapas, tortilla and chorizo, morcilla and thin pork cutlets all cooked over a fire of vine cuttings, accompanied by lovely wines and followed by a 25-year-old brandy.
All of that went some way towards compensating for the meal on our first night in a boutique hotel in Barcelona, where the restaurant goes under the wing of MartÃn Berasategui, a Michelin-starred Basque chef. Heston Blumenthal and Ferran Adria have a lot to answer for: it was ill-conceived (cheese soup with salmon? Candied veal cannelloni?) poorly-served (my tuna was well done, the red wine arrived too late) clumsy (the pinapple 'jus' was straight out a can and accompanied banana from which the taste seemed to have been surgically removed; the 'cabbage cream' was pureed spinach) while requests for changes for vegetarians or the shellfish-allergic were done only grudgingly ('there is only a little meat in it'...).
But the real point of our trip was to visit the vineyards and taste the wines, which we did with gusto. From Codorniu HQ ( where we sampled fabulous cavas such as the Seleccion Reventos; £9.99 Majestic/Wine Rack)) we travelled south to the mountainous Priorat region, where Codorniu own the Scala Dei (God's ladder, named after the mountains) winery, which sits in the middle of the tiny village of the same name. While Codorniu HQ is grand and historic, Scala Dei is small and functional, making modest amounts of up-market wines from Garnacha and other vines grown on small, carefully tended plots high up in the mountains, such as the wonderfully intense, complex, spicy Cartoixa 2005 (available at Tesco, Wine Rack, Oddbins for around £30.00)
From Scala Dei, we travelled north to Raimat to see another contrasting vineyard - here, vast amounts of previously neglected land have been planted with carefully irrigated vines to produce a range of varietal wines based on the familiar varieties such as syrah and cabernet sauvignon for the mass market in both Spain and the UK. They grow about half the grapes for the main Codorniu cava production, although they also make their own. Here is a pic of one of their massive vineyards:
But despite the industrial scale of production, I was impressed by the fact that the vineyard is striving to be sustainable and converting as much production to organic as possible. In one vineyard, wheat is allowed to grow between the vines, providing a home for rabbits and quail, which themselves become food for birds of prey - who scare away the flocks of smaller birds, which had been eating the grape. Simple.
And this care certainly came through with some of their wines, particularly whites such as the Castell De Raimat, a lovely, citrus flavoured blend of the local xarello grape with chardonnay and the creamy, herby Terra chardonnay, both of which will be on sale in the UK soon at around £9.99. Raimat's own award winning sparkling wine, Gran Brut, is also lovely and worth seeking out in independent wine shops at around £14.99.
From Raimat it was a long, long coach trip to Haro, in Rioja, to try some of the Legaris wines (although the vineyard, actually in Ribero del Duero was too far to get too) in the previously mentioned atrium of the Hotel Los Agostinos. I've recommended the Legaris Reserva before in my Independent on Sunday column
http://www.independent.co.uk/life-style/food-and-drink/features/wines-of-the-week-legaris-reserva-2004-aliwen-reserva-pinot-noir-starborough-sauvignon-blanc-marlborough-2009-2275534.html and I'm happy to say the other vintages and wines we tried were just as good. As I said earlier, the subsequent six course, six wine meal was terrific, although the bar we found afterwards was a bit of a disappointment - a style borrowed from the best Parisien/Chinese red/black brothel look and a barman with one of the more eccentric tie/shirt combinations I've ever seen.
The following morning, it was a tour of the Bodegas Bildbainas winery in the centre of Haro, a tasting of their lovely wines, including the Vina Pomal (both Reserva and Crianza are in Majestic, £12.99 and £9.99 respectively; both recommended) and their top of the range, powerful, long, long finish reds, La Vicalanda Reserva 2006 and Gran Reserva 2001 (£15.99 and £24.99 respectively; independent stores). We also had the chance to taste their new, boutique wine, the Vina Pomal Alto de la Caseta 2007, which goes on the market shortly at around £45. Made from 35-year old Tempranillo vines, its one to put aside for a few years before getting out for special occasions. There is a pic of the vineyard and our party sampling the wine on Andrew's blog here:
http://www.spittoon.biz/ To paraphrase Andrew's blog subtitle, he's done that, so I don't have to...
We got to see the incredibly stony vineyard (I had a chance to drive a 4x4 around the estate, which was great fun) before a wonderful lunch in the hut in the middle of the vines:
We digested our lunch (and ate some delicious tiny cakes) on the long journey to Madrid airport for the flight home.
I'll return to some of the wines I tasted in my IoS column at a later date, but in the meantime, here is this week's column, a tribute to the truly wonderful Wine Society:
http://www.independent.co.uk/life-style/food-and-drink/features/wines-of-the-week-dunico-masseria-pepe-2007-the-societys-exhibition-grner-veltliner-2009-the-societys-corbires-2008-2294678.html
