The Feiring Line

Racha-Style

First, where is Racha? Northwest of Georgia (no, not Atlanta). Not far from Imeriti. Gorgeous. Rich in terroir; iron, carbon, granite, slate, marcasite, quartz,  limestone of all colors that is crawling with ancient crustaceans. The place is a raw nerve of terroir.

 Yet the mountainous, pulse-stoppingly beautiful highland-like region is gravely under-utilized and way too poor. This, Georgia's smallest wine region with no bottle-ready wine maker currently on the market--is a  land in need of champion. No foreign star winemaker such as Raul Perez/Telmo Rodriguez is on the horizon. Given my prejudice about wine, this is a good thing.

But some of Georgia's best,  committed to making wine close to nature--like Imertian Ramaz Nikoladze, or the Kartlians Niki Antadze and Iago Bitarishvili or Khaketian Gela Patalishvili--could help some of the home talent wanting to come to local and foreign tables.  But right now these local superstars are also struggling to make a dream happen-- as all were born in Soviet times when there no dreams were allowed.

Georgian wines--the good ones-- are in demand. France, Italy, London, Japan and increasingly New York are on board. Japan is actually super nuts over them. Buyers are begging for magnums. But it's not so simple. The guys here are forced to deal with issues few winemakers from acclaimed territory have to: Can they afford the bigger bottle? Even if some of the above are lucky enough to have indoor flushables, can they afford the different corks? These excellent vignerons, the small ones--and no one is under 35--(and a good dose are way over 50)  are under-financed. Every decision they make here is weighed very heavily. Yet show up unannounced even? They turn out every table as if it were a feast. Hospitality in this country defies the pocketbook -- it is their mission,  joy and victory.

In  Georgian stay, I learned lessons. One of them was at the benefit of spending many days relying on outhouses, not knowing how or where to wash my hands, how to shower and had no idea how to brush my teeth. My initial reaction was like  watching the dentist inch towards me with a sharp tool.  In early morning calls (Oh, no! I said to my gut as it rumbled with the strange bacteria it's not used to.) I tried to coat the nostril hairs.  I tried to keep myself steeled from the morning winds and mostly I felt in my bones how lucky I was that back home I a pull chain toilet five floors above. But I also was painfully aware of my city-girl spoiled life and marveled at those who not only can cope but do so with not one second of complaint. It made me think --about all of the frills I love, the lipstick, the change of clothes, the electric toothbrush, the short hop to my water closet.

You see, in Georgia this is a commonplace situation not the exception. It doesn't make a difference how lovely the house, how intricate the work, most houses outside of the city still have the little hut on the outside. And then there are those roads that wreck cars --a paved road is as rare as a need for a plunger. 

Lessons were learned. Perhaps my vanity was cured--at least until I get back home. I had no choice but to gave myself over to the experience, including the vine's vipers. This visit was through the different looking glass.  

So, is there any other top wine country in the world struggling to make their wine under such conditions? I've seen so many 'wineries' here, without easy access to water. But yet the best of the wines are clean, lovely, energetic and vibrant. Is it a miracle or is it just that they found the way to make wine with truly as little intervention as possible and present us with something salubrious and delicious.

In my short stay I began to see the truth that ...

 

one can tell alot about the quality and care of wine based on the way one cares for their outhouse. 

 

Toilet paper--Racha-style. 

 

Yes.

The wine was peasantly drinkable.  The red blend not too far from gamay and the white, a quaffable mix with a little qvevri stink at first that blew off nicely.  The man won't sell it, and his wife kept on pouring me lakes into my glass. 

Georgian wine not just as a privilege but as a necessity. I believe in them, it's  a Kickstarter campaign with a great reward program. 

More about this in the August issue of The Feiring Line (If you dare. Some of the material will indeed be scatalogical.) 

The challenge for Georgian wine

Back at the beginning of all of this, a friend took me to his friend's cooking school late night gathering. It was past midnight and they were a cocktail swilling smart set. I tried whatever was going around in the martini glass but it was too sweet--strange for a country were sweet is a rare event.

Shortly after, one of the school's partners offered me a glass of wine and hesitantly I said "Sure."

It was  deadened, undrinkable boxed Provençal rose. "It's cheap and it's good," he said. It might have been cheap, but good was overstating its charms.

Then he told me how he was studying for the second round of the WSET and was giving his own wine classes at his school. 

"Bio wine is bullshit," he said. "Too expensive."

There are some battles one takes on and there are others that I simply take to the blog. Here is a sophisticated school that prides itself on the ingredient. One of the partners is a wine expert giving food and wine pairing classes, dislikes his local wines with skin contact or 'naturalness' but will use Niki Antadze's rare wines because he is a friend. As Georgia moves forward with it's remarkable wines, in what might well be a government supported natural wine initiative--really showing up the rest of the wine world--they will have to deal with experts who can't understand having the same attitude towards wine as their food. 

I didn't engage with him I wished him luck on Georgian wine and food pairing. Which by the way, is a cinch. Just drink and eat. Simple. 

 

 

 

wild caperberries in Georgia

Don't want you to feel forgotten when I'm on the road, but after a horseback ride (I only lasted an hour) we arrived to Gela's uncle    

 

and I discovered that the fabulous pickled wild caper berries 

Actually come from this tree........          

and went wonderfully with Pheasant's Tears rkatsetelli 'press' wine---2012. You'll only be able to find the more refined bottling, and it shouldn't be missed.

 

The iconic wine list (natural style)

Who can afford to taste the iconic wines? The 1947 or 1961 Bordeaux for example? The DRCs and the Jayers? They are simply outside of financial reach, unless one has a rich uncle with a wine cellar.

I had one of those rich uncles but he was a fool.  Uncle Jack's wine cellar was tiney: half-dozen 1982 Petrus (not fake ones.) I begged him. My father begged him. She needs to know what these are like. But no, the bastard. He took it with him. 

When he died and his son was cleaning out the King's Point home--no love lost there-- they were, in the garage in a file cabinet, with a fill about 3/4 down. 

In April, on assignment,  I had lunch with Gianfranco Soldera. The topic came up. Pity the youth, he said,  who will never be able to taste the classic wines, the important Bordeaux and Burgundy, the exalted Barolo and Brunello (like his, now out of the gate at $600 bottles.). How would they ever know what wine is really like? "I was lucky," he said. "They were so much cheaper when I was young."

So is it any wonder that the world of natural wine is so explosive? The greats and there are greats, are affordable. Within reach.

After leaving Montalcino, I had a long ride up to Piemonte. With Elba to my west, I started to think what were those iconic wines, to both drink and to learn? 

So, even though Robert M. Parker Jr. thinks these are dangerous wines, I compiled a little list for him and those others who believe that drinking them will make you sick.

Bob showing mold in a glass, presumable from a bottle of 'natural wine.' 

 

In my subjective list I side- stepped some wines that might become newer classics--ones from Germany, Austria and Spain and even the States. I wanted to offer up examples that have already demonstrated agebility with grace. The list shows most sides of what is considered natural, the right, the middle and the left. Included are examples of carbonic, cold carbonic (aka 'method') and classic alcoholic fermentation.

If you're new to this world of wine, these are the people you need to start with, these are the wines that you must know or at least of, as you go forward.  Few over $125 and most under $40.

+ Domaine Peyra :  Rarer than 1947 Petrus, this  gamay of the Auvergne, made by Stéphane Majeune, had an immediate cult following.                   It was lively, weedy and delicious.  

   

Made in the classic "Néauport" cold carbonic method, but the wines surpassed the technique. I had the 2004 not too long ago, it stood the test of aging. But as it’s practically extinct, I suggest you find the wines of  Jean Maupertuis as he worked alongside of Majuene. His, from similar terroir and technique, and have that connectivity.

 

 

 

                                                                  ah, the weeds of Peyra  

 

+ The Beaujolais Gang of Four : The natural wine movement as we know it today, started in Morgon with Jules Chauvet (If you don't have the story, read Naked Wine) and the winemakers he inspired so… If you can lay hands on some of Chauvet’s wine, that would be the biggest score of all.  His last vintage was mid-80s and I'm afraid Eric Texier has bought up most of them. So the best thing to do is to try new and if you can find them, ten year old examples from those icons who, called  Villié-Morgon Gang of Four--were there at the beginning. Lapierre, Jean Foillard, Guy Breton, Jean Thévenet, and Domaine Chamonard. Mind you, all of these folk use sulfur and perhaps higher amounts than 20ppm, but for fun, try blind tasting against Dubouef, or if you don't want to be so obvious, Pizay, Jadot or Château de La Chaize.

+Claude Courtois (Les Cailloux du Paradis):Lest you forget Claude, do not! He started in the Var, and with a pregnant wife, headed north after a fire destroyed his land, and started over in an unsung area of the Loire and was dedicated to nothing but purity from the start. One of the originals and he does it with passion--he  has launched his own branch of the natural wine world. The wines resist density, are non-sulfur, they are transparent and other worldly. Beware the magic.

 + Clos Rougeard :  Back in the day when natural meant natural enough, no messing around, organic andwines  that take their time. Drink one now and then stick in the cellar for over a  decade.

 + Catherine et Pierre Breton-- Nuits d'Ivresse :  One of the first cuvee of Bourgueil to not use sulfur and so easy to tell the difference, so much more livelier than their other wines.   

+ T& JM Puzelat, Clos du Tue Boeuf :  Iconic Loire valley producers, committed and benchmark. Look for aged chenin blancs or menu pineau. 

+ Domaine Overnoy Houillon:   Period. Blissful, ethereal and magical.  Jura. Jura.To drink Pierre and Manu's Ploussard is to be happy.

+ Jean Marie Fourrier:  What, you say, in Burgundy that's who you recommend? Fourrier and not Pacalet (bought grapes), or Prieure Roch (okay, go ahead, you need it for your education.) Fred Cossard's Domaine de Chassorney (Lay them down, no sulfur? that's right. ) or Claude Rateau (mea culpa). I say Fourrier because, well, this is natural wine in Burgundy at its best. Not touched by wood, very low sulfur, and long lived and beautiful terroir.                   

 + Domain Gerhard Schueller :  Cult Alsatian wine that some might not understand. Be afraid. Be very afraid. But also be prepared to break through the fourth wall. These would give the Robert Joseph's of the world a run for their money, or run for a glass of seltzer. But approach with an open mind.  (also Audrey & Christian Binner. Domaine Frick. Domain Julien Meyer) 

 + Dard & Ribo :  Classic, benchmark natural syrah from the Northern Rhone. You won’t want to age these too much. Good example of the philosophy, drink now for we die tomorrow.

 + Domaine de l’Anglore : From near Tavel, Eric Pfifferling created his domaine in 1988, and a good example of is it carbonic or is it terroir. But if you listen very carefully to the differences in his wines, and why these go far and beyond, and are age worthy.

 +Domain Marcel Richaud:   Cairanne terroir delivered by a seeker and a believer and a delight to find someone who avoids the brutishness of 100% grenache.

+ Chateau Le Puy Cuvée Barthelemy and Chateau Meylet:  Both Biodynamic. One  from Cote de Francs. The other from St. Emilion, both from the right bank, merlot-based unsulfured Bordeaux. And they said it couldn't be done. The Meylet is more fragile but terroir driven. Two sides of the same natural coin. 

 +Emidio Pepe: The great Montpulciano d'Abruzzo. Concrete, no wood and no sulfur equal long lived reds and whites, nose thumbing at those who think natural is shtick.

+ Radikon & Dario Princic:  Tie!  If you want to check out  high level wines of no sulfur and skin contact, these Friulian winemakers are your go tos.  

+Azienda Agricola Paolo Bea:  Before Giampiero went radical (like his work with the nuns with Coenobium) he and his father worked gently with nature and resisted the oncomng attack of new world winemaking in Montefalco. These would have been natural before the natural movement, just old world, non messed with and no fear winemaking, aka natural enough.                                                                                            

+Chateay Musar :Before the late 60's they used no sulfur at all, after that for a few decades it was just at bottling. In the mid-90's, it was moved up to low amounts after alcoholic fermentation. Never the less, the older bottles are magnificient. This shows of the old-world sensibility (shared by Emidio Pepe)  of longer vat time and bottle age before release from the cellar. 

 

Barrels of Barthelemy  @ Ch. Puy 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Next Week? Burlington, Vermont.

Next Thursday from 4-7 come and sip and chat with me at the

Dedalus Wine Shop

180 Battery Street, Burlington, Vermont 

 

 Hope to see you. 

Lil Wayne and the D'Oliveiras

Once upon a time there was a sommelier who worked in Hollywood. I was scouting stories for The Hollywood Reporter, for a  deep throat-like column, dishing on what people drank, but all anonymous. The column never materialized, but I loved this one young wine geek's particular story  and so here you go.

There are all sorts of people who come in here and it’s hard to sell a wine under 14% alcohol. The people who are creative, the true talent, not the producers, they are incredibly fun to talk to. Like even though Bruce Willis wanted a cabernet, we talked about it. Like Gwyneth Paltrow? When I brought out the Bermejos from the Canary Islands she was like, Oh, I love Lanzarotte. My Nana is from there.

Other people? They are trying to seem important and they’re the ones who don’t talk and treat you like the help.

But one of the most interesting evenings I had on the floor was when the rapper Lil Wayne came in with a few friends.

This was a very funny situation.

He frequently stays at the hotel and his tour bus packed out back. He dressed like a skater with skinny pants and Vans, dreads pulled back in a hoodie. Our wine list was as large as an eagles wine spread. It really is a list that you need help with, and that’s what we’re there for. He was flpiping through  very carefully, literally, he read it from cover to cover. I went over and asked, and can I help you?

  And he said no. Not really.

Then he pointed to the last wine on the list and said,  I want this 1902 Verdelho.

Ok. I’l be right back.

 It was the D'Oliveiras.

I brought the bottle over and  I showed it to him, had he  had it before.

Nope .

Do you know anything about it?

Well, he said, it’s pretty old.

And I asked, are you familiar with the term borracho? I told him that for many Spanish speakers it means drunk but it is the kind of old wine making on the highland of Madeira, where the farmers used to press the wine in the field old goat skins.

Ah that’s interesting, he said.

Meanwhile he’s with three other people who couldn’t give a shit. They were all texting, completely ambivalent to time  and space and place and not drinking anything, not ever water, and space but Lil Wayne? He  was very  present.

I decanted the bottle and realized he ordered it all for himself and while he waited for me to finish, he had a cocktail. It was a Halle Berry, a vodka, with jalapeno infused blackberry juice. He told me it was the closest thing he's had to a Purple Drink (Robitussin + grape Kool-Aid).

I found this quite funny, there’s a whole doc done on it.

To go with the madeira he also ordered a cotton Candy Foie Gras (a torchon cube of foie is rolled in corn nuts and dipped into a cotton candy machine so a shroud covers it and it’s served on a long stick, and drank down the $900 a bottle of 1902 down in 22 minutes. He even left a little for me.

 What I find endearing is that the liver dish he chose and Madeira was obviously a brilliant pairing. And that Verdelho is one of the most dynamic complex wines I ever tasted-- so incredibly full of flavor at the same time, a prevalent sweetness, and people in our current era they don’t drink sweet, because of the stigma. But, here’s a guy, a progenitor of all kinds of social value and he is the only human being who I sat in front of who I talked wine at the table, who bought a bottle of sweet wine!

He drank one one of the most fascinating creatures on the list. Whether or not he appreciated it he did it carefully, thoughtfully and quickly.

 

Catch me speaking with the fabulous Melissa Clark on Splendid Table about --guess what. And in case you were wondering it's Fire-ing. But I'll totally forgive the wonderful Rosetta.)

http://www.splendidtable.org/story/yes-natural-wines-pack-surprises-but-would-you-prefer-sawdust

The Eyrie Vineyard Library

 

I snuck out of my cave on this brilliant day to taste some old Willamette Valley Eyrie Vineyards. It is always such a treat to see Jason Lett hold forth on his family's estate.  For one, he is an excellent speaker, natural and  unguarded, has a lovely expressive use of language. Also, the love he has for his legacy is inspiring.  

I'm always touched to hear a winery stops at their max,  8000 cases. They did that  in 1983 and stayed at that volume. The need not to grow? How refreshing to see someone do what they do and do it well and, be satisfied.  No need for world domination.  

It seems that David, his father, was obsessive about keeping a huge amount in the wine libary, at this point about 6,000 bottles deep. At one time Jason thought he'd get away and do his own thing. but  in 2004 when his dad needed help for harvest he showed up and never left.

When his father got sick, he allowed Jason to find his ownway though the wines.

I'm sure there was much argument, after all, David was a difficult, loveable, hard headed guy (from my limited knowledge and tales that have been told) but one of the more touching comments was that every time Jason tastes from the library one of his father's vintages, the collaboration continues. I love this idea of conversing with ones ghostly parents through the wines they made.

 

Eyrie Pinot Meunier. 1993!

A twenty year old pineo meunier from two different plots, high acid, high tone and high delight. Made me feel like playing Frank Zappa. An absolutel beauty. Look for it on choice and lucky wine lists and I bet I know which ones. This wine was pure forest wild strawberries, long delight  and showed no sign of tiring. 

 1993 Chardonnay Estate

(picked at 21 brix) elegant, floral and compelling.

1983 South Block Pinot

A dancer in disguise, etheral, skimmed the floor with elegance and endurance

 and finally.......

1974 Pinot Noir Estate

Sorry, not available. This was the scond year the south block gave fruit and made up 45% of the cuvee.  It is not only a beautiful old lady, but it is the  Queen Mother in high heels. Smoky, touch of tannin and grip with strawberry pinched in wintergreen.

 

A treat for the mid day.

 Heading out on my bike, I had a last minute lament with a colleague. We admited to major guilt.  Too much writing, not enough tasting. Were we losing our edge?  Were we not up on vintages and regions. Had we missed something? She went off tasting. I went back to my cubicle. Where is the balance. Take this as a warning; a tongue must be used or else it is lost. I'm on the hunt for mine.

 

The smell of violets in Barolo

When I first smelled the Clos Roche Blanche Cot,  I was overwhelmed by its violet juice sucked through a chalk straw magnetism. It was the violet that stung me.. every time. Yes, even though I could never actually wear the scent, I'm obsessed by it.  

 

        

So you see, on a morning in Barolo just a few weeks back, I was thinking about violets. It was just after Maria-Teresa Mascarello and just before Beppe Rinaldi. We were steps away at Giovanni Canonica, and sitting in his white clothed study, tasting his concentrated 2008 and I wrote a note that said: thick, crusty, violent violet. His wife had asked him about how to salt the lunch she was making for him. Then we took to see his cantina,  nothing more than tarp covered winemaking equipment and then stood on the grass in his back yard in the brilliant light when I saw something flash from the spring tender green grass.  

 

   

After decade of frustration, of one scent-less violet after the other, I finally found my very first viola odorata.

In my palm, it felt like the most fragile crystal and I feared my excitement would fracture its petal.  The smell was  a dream, not at all like the drug-like attack of gardenia or  jasmine. It did not smell like old sheets or bad poetry and it did not smell like the ghastly perfume, Violetta di Parma. It was a ghost visitation and I couldn't get enough.   

 "James," I said to my new Australian friend, "Smell this." I hoped I was giving him a gift. I wasn't sure.

James is a chef. He is the rare kind who has an exceptional wine palate as well as for food.  Over the next minutes as I went from violet to Barolo back to James, I saw him with the flower pressed to his nose, trying to crack its code. I saw he too was hooked. It was a rare moment, a first time for him too.

Over the years, when feeding my violet obsession, I'd heard all commercial attempts whether in Creme de Violettes (hello Aviation cocktail) or perfumes  were  synthetic.  Some fragrances and taste got away with the spoof; seductive and sweet.  Others like that Violetta di Parma are horrific visions of tortured flowers in the muck. Where were the real things? Will I be forced to go to Giovanni Canonica's backyard in spring for my yearly fix? 

  

 

I asked the master perfumer, Mandy Aftel of Aftelier if it was true that no natural violet scent had been captured.  From her atelier in California she confirmed, "Violet has resisted scent harvesting forever. I think because it has a tiny yield and from what I have heard, the extracted essence doesn't smell like violet." She added, "I have never been able to find a natural one. "

And the world weeps. 

But Mandy, master blender  of natural and ephemeral essences, is on the hunt. If anyone can conjure a captured memory as beautiful as what I smelled on that Saturday nebbiolo filled morning, she's the one.

The day went on to more magic,  filled with old men with bad teeth, a flirt and a wizard in La Morra. It was a day lavished on my favorite grape and soil mates.  I was aswirl with sandlewood, tar and roses and perhaps a bit of that viola with a different kind of chalk, as the limestone in Piemonte is darker and earthier--it  continued to  raise goosebumps. I tried to keep the poetic perfume close to me, as if I could imprint my nostrils with its memory. What I smelled in that flower was not, I would bet, what Australian James smelled. I wanted to know what he did perceive. What did he find in its stamen, in its gentle trap door. What was so powerful to him that he too had to steal some sniffs?

 If he and I tried to paint it aromatically, we would undoubtedly come up with wildly disparate water colors.  Me? I would go for the pinpoint sweet, but where would I put the powder, underneath? And where would the soap be? Oh, just the lightest hint please. And how did they come up with that nasty Violetta which drove me to a nasty madness--by focusing on the soap and the powder? I am sure James would be closer to my interpretation, this you know about someone when you taste and smell side by side. This you know.

I'm back in New York. Life and death situations are building fortresses and I  find myself more guarded, but yet  I find myself still thinking about the flower and its layers.  I see how many violet perfumes are failures in their melancholy interpretations. Without a perfumer to mess with it, relying purely on nature, the scent has complex bottom and top notes and plenty in the middle.  I could see them all. The powder. The ink. The ultra-sweet candy. The almost lilac, but pinker. I smell the hope and I smell the death. I also smell one of the most appealing notes that I can ever hope to smell in a wine, that special violet juice sucked through a chalk straw.

 

 

 

With respect: To Pedro López de Heredia

This morning I heard the news of Pedro López de Heredia's passing. He was 85 and hadn't been well for a few years.

I met him only once but know him mostly through his daughter Maria José, and as a way of sending my condolences to her, as I know this is a huge loss, I offer an excerpt from my first book, chapter  4 entitled, Rioja Loses Its Spanish Accent. 

To all of us who love Spanish wine and the new wave of them coming up, we can thank the hold outs, especially López de Heredia, who kept the flame of Rioja burning. 

López

++

On the flight to Bilbao, I begged my way into a bulkhead seat. Being the kind of person brought up to feel guilt with no provo- cation, I looked uncomfortably at a long-legged football player type crammed into a tiny seat while all five feet and one hundred pounds of me luxuriated in the extra room. Once I overcame an urge to offer a seat swap, though, I indulged in a rare moment of tranquility, happy to be tiny. This trip was before liquids were banned on planes and it was still possible to sneak wine on board disguised as fruit juice in a water bottle. I had some wonderful gamay from the Loire, which I drank happily. I was just ready to reach for the Ambien when I realized my sleeping potion was in my checked luggage. At the same moment, the infant next to me started to wail. So I read through the night, including an inter- view with Pedro López de Heredia, Maria José’s father. He was quoted as saying, “If we allowed ourselves to be guided by the financial profit that drives many winemakers to use accelerating techniques during the wine making process, our product would lose their personalities.” Wow, I thought, now there’s a father for you.

We don’t get to choose our fathers, but Pedro’s passion for wine honesty and integrity is what I look for, whether choosing literature, wine, or love.

I was staggeringly tired when I landed in the spring-bright sun, and I slept soundly during the one-hour connecting flight from Bilbao to Haro, where I awoke to the sight of the old Tempranillo vines just coming to life. The fresh leaves pushing from splintery stumps looked like hands reaching for the sun. The silver-tipped Cantabrian Mountains lit up the background. The sandy soil looked like crushed coral. I felt I was standing in the basin of a drained-out sea. Perhaps that’s why I found a sea-like savory salinity in so many older Riojan wines. Haro was the town that put Rioja on the map. Problems in the French vineyards helped make the region famous. In 1849, when a powdery mildew destroyed vineyards, Bordeaux merchants crossed into Rioja and set up consultancies to help Rioja make wine suitable for the French palate. Again, in 1877, when the louse phylloxera ate up their vines’ roots, the French looked to the tempranillo-based wines of Rioja to replace their Bordeaux. So the region has a long history of French influence. The French fo- cused on Haro because it was conveniently located near both Bor- deaux and Rioja and directly linked by rail to the ocean for shipping. The town became home to several great wineries, including Muga, Cune, La Rioja Alta, and López de Heredia.

All but LdH have added the modern amenities of stainless-steel tanks, new oak, and perhaps a few more tricks as well. The other three are widely thought of as also producing some traditional wines. But, though not wildly modern in their techniques, Cune and Muga do produce some hormonal, over-the-top wines to compete in the vinos de alta expressión market. The real old-fashioned cheese—López de Heredia—stands alone.

I was signing in at the hotel when Maria José López de Heredia breezed in to fetch me for lunch. She was ablaze in canary colors: gold eye shadow, lemon-yellow silk scarf trailing behind her Isadora Duncan–style, buttery-looking boots, and a tan cor- duroy skirt. “Ahlyce!” she cried. “Eeet’s goude to zee you ah- gayn! Look at this weather! Eeez gorgeous, no?” She summoned me in her raspy, chirpy voice. “Queeck, we have to run for lunch.”

There was a magical, elfin quality to her. If I didn’t see the stray silver strand in her head of glossy black hair, I would swear she was sixteen. She was so incredibly cute that I wanted to pinch her cheek, pick her up, and put her in my pocket. I could easily imagine her as a chatterbox child who never stopped to inhale. She was so perky that she woke me right up from my jet-lagged stupor. We ran, sprinted, dashed for the restaurant with such urgency that our lunch might have been the reason that I’d crossed the Atlantic. At home, I hate lunch. I never like taking the time, or spending the calories, and if wine is involved—an occupational hazard—I can never go back to work without a nap. But lunch is an important part of European life, and in Spain it is absolutely sacred. There was no way to avoid it.

We slid into a tapas place, Altamauri Restaurante, just seconds before closing time. The owner turned ashen when he found out I didn’t eat meat. In a country where the pig is considered a vegetable, this is problematic. These are the times I need my pig-loving friend Skinny. Her passion for pork is so attention getting that people don’t no- tice I’m pushing the food around on my plate, reaching for the cheese instead. Sweating nervously into his huge mustache, the chef murmured an unconvincing, “No problem,” and disappeared into his kitchen. Maria José ordered wine while I noted two women on the stools to our left lighting up cigarettes in front of the no smoking sign. The chef returned, proudly bearing way too many plates of tapas, in hormonal proportions. These are not the dainty tapas of Barcelona, these are the huge, pinxto-sized plates of the Basque. The minestra—overcooked vegetable stew— had some ham in it (remember, pig is a vegetable), but there was also a salad and a battered piece of Swiss chard draped with a thick potato slice. I was happy to trust that this food was far from avant- garde, that there were no fish scales or eyes in anything. Maria José tittered about me eating like a bird while she packed away lunch with gusto. If I ate like she did, I would turn into a cow, but she, in constant motion, must have the metabolism of a hum- mingbird. No matter: The star of the show was the 1997 white from her Gravonia vineyard. We had no trouble polishing it off and wanting more, even if there was no nap in my future.

 Trained as a winemaker, Maria José is her family’s charismatic ambassador to the world. I don’t understand how she remains single. How could a woman prone to saying things like, “After a hailstorm, when vines are damaged, you mourn for your vines as if they were children” and “If you have this relationship to the earth, you make a very different wine” not have a trail of suitors? She must. Suitors, however, would have to compete with the other loves in her life, like her father, Pedro, and the family wine. “My father wanted me to study chemistry,” she told me. “That was a big fight in the family, because my grandfather yelled, ‘She’ll learn how to make wines with no grapes!’ I need chemistry. I need to know what to do if something should go wrong. But in modern wine school, when everything is right you are taught it is wrong!” She went on to tell me that any time the malolactic fermentation commences before alcoholic (the reverse order of things, but often a result of the years weather patterns), “A UC Davis grad- uate would drop dead on the spot.” Another lesson she didn’t lis- ten to at school was to plant clones instead of replanting from their own cuttings, known in French as selection massale. The sup- posedly virus-free clones are developed in the lab and raised in the sterile environment of a nursery. They can never produce grapes with the complexity that vineyard selection can. Bred for certain flavors, bred to produce grapes that are more precocious than those grown under selection massale, they are viewed as an eco- nomic boon and a safer choice. I often get press releases in which a winery proclaims the careful selection of clones for their  vineyard, but Maria José says, “We will never use them. You need three hundred clones from a nursery to give the complexity of one real vine.”

“I met Mr. Parker once,” she volunteered. “When I told Pedro,” she said, referring to her father, “that I was going to have lunch with him, he told me I could only go if he promised not to write about the wine. Pedro explained, ‘Because if he writes about our wines, we won’t have any to sell!’”

She found Parker charming. “I have no problem with him,” she said. “He loves our wine.”

I wasn’t going to be the one to break it to her that she and her padre were delusional. Parker told me that Rioja is overrated and, as far as the LdH white Rioja is concerned, “I hate those wines. I won’t review them because I don’t need any more enemies.” He likes the reds enough but, he said, “I like their neighbor, La Rioja Alta, better.”

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