See you over the weekend, promise to tell tales of the most thrilling wine list I ever held in my hands, one I could actually afford to drink off of. If you're eating matzoh or pushing the eggs around the lawn, have a good one.
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April 2009
04/08/2009
04/06/2009
A Day With the Pecinas in Rioja
While plenty of people are willing to sell out Rioja to the next oak chipper, there is hope.
Here's the story: Before I left for Spain I stopped by the David Bowler tasting. I have no idea what tempted me, but there I was, asking to taste the Rioja from Bodegas Hermanos Pecina( Jose Pastor, importer). Instead of being disappointed I was excited. This one reminded me of wines I had years back of La Rioja Alta.
Fast forward eight days from first sip and father, son and Mikel, (a long time friend of Jr. who works at the winery in marketing) picked me up at my Logrono hotel and we went out to the western end of the region, on the 'other side' of the Ebro river, San Vicente de la Sonsierra, which while vast, seemed to be a secret pocket of nature through a magic door.
We were in the season when vines were weeping, the very bit of tearing that comes from their joints and trimmed limbs and a few vines were just pushing out their buds. So much nascent sexual activity! It was like sexual hormones coursing through, stimulating nocturnal emissions and swellings of tender breasts.
Vines are the most amazing creatures.
The soil here seem to be as pink as crushed coral soils of the Tondonia vineyard, but it is different: the rocks are more challenging but this land through the looking glass is likewise charismatic.
The wind was strong, and giving the mixture of goblet (called coppa, here) and double guyot trellising a good workout. The Pecina's seem to work meticulously and farmed with love. A few years into organics, they also work the soil vigourously, thrice yearly. And when asked why, all they could tell me was that it was traditional. When we tasted through the wines, always a scary thing because I tasted them in New York, would I still like them on their own home ground? The answer was yes.
Mikel took this shot of me with dad and jr.
When I told someone who organizes wine tourism about them, she asked, 'But they have a modern winery, no?"
Yes, it's modern and thankfully NOT architectural as had been the fad, a few years back when the Gehry hotel came around and the money spending was fast and loose. Now, I love a romantic winery but isn't it more important to make good wine? Like, is there a question? What is important? They make wine relatively naturaly and except for their high expression wine, (Chobeo) a nod they think is necessary for the modern wine drinker, 300,000 barrels get only old barrels.
From crianza to the gran reserva, they are lovely wines. Not terribly expensive but very expressive. Worth the money for sure.
At the top of the ladder is the 98 gran reserva --vibrant, savory, salty and filled with the umami-ness I get on the wines from here.
Pedro Sr. has the look of a satisfied and kind man who derives equal enjoyment from working the soil as smoking a cigar. To my dismay, the cigar came out when he ordered a glass of Macallan and Perrier. He asked me about the Chobeo. I admitted it wasn't my thing. He said, "it's not mine either."
I was contemplating more cardoons but I was stuffed. The owner came out, said something to Jr. and all of the sudden the boyish thirty-year old turned red. Turns out the woman was asking him when he was going to call the woman she wanted to set him up with? Sweet kid. Been making wine with his father since he was 15 and has no desire to use any fancy winemaking trills and really isn't into blind dates.
So now that we're all so cozy, Sr. filled me with a little bit of his philosophy and history.
.
The difference between a good wine and a bad wine? The small details.
To be a good winemaker you must have sensibility.
We have fights with people here who believe it is impossible to make natural wines.
Yeast and malolactic are expensive, why waste the money especially because natural is best?
And then.....
*La Rioja Alta went to making recipe wine.
How does he know? Now, sipping my own post lunch Perrier and Macallan creation Sr. tells me that he was in charge of the La Rioja Alta vines--all 1000 hectares until he left to expland the family property into a winery. This explained it all! The gorgeous vineyard work. The La Rioja Alta vigorous racking (to avoid sediment).
Feeling a little bit like a detective who found her answers, I looked at my watch. Lunch ended at about 6pm. I was jonesing to go and walk off the wines and the cardoons. Leaving Sr. with the cigar, Jr took me back to my last night in Logrono and I walked the streets.
The soil here seem to be as pink as crushed coral soils of the Tondonia vineyard, but it is different: the rocks are more challenging but this land through the looking glass is likewise charismatic.
The wind was strong, and giving the mixture of goblet (called coppa, here) and double guyot trellising a good workout. The Pecina's seem to work meticulously and farmed with love. A few years into organics, they also work the soil vigourously, thrice yearly. And when asked why, all they could tell me was that it was traditional. When we tasted through the wines, always a scary thing because I tasted them in New York, would I still like them on their own home ground? The answer was yes.
Mikel took this shot of me with dad and jr.
When I told someone who organizes wine tourism about them, she asked, 'But they have a modern winery, no?"
Yes, it's modern and thankfully NOT architectural as had been the fad, a few years back when the Gehry hotel came around and the money spending was fast and loose. Now, I love a romantic winery but isn't it more important to make good wine? Like, is there a question? What is important? They make wine relatively naturaly and except for their high expression wine, (Chobeo) a nod they think is necessary for the modern wine drinker, 300,000 barrels get only old barrels.
From crianza to the gran reserva, they are lovely wines. Not terribly expensive but very expressive. Worth the money for sure.
At the top of the ladder is the 98 gran reserva --vibrant, savory, salty and filled with the umami-ness I get on the wines from here.
Pedro Sr. has the look of a satisfied and kind man who derives equal enjoyment from working the soil as smoking a cigar. To my dismay, the cigar came out when he ordered a glass of Macallan and Perrier. He asked me about the Chobeo. I admitted it wasn't my thing. He said, "it's not mine either."
I was contemplating more cardoons but I was stuffed. The owner came out, said something to Jr. and all of the sudden the boyish thirty-year old turned red. Turns out the woman was asking him when he was going to call the woman she wanted to set him up with? Sweet kid. Been making wine with his father since he was 15 and has no desire to use any fancy winemaking trills and really isn't into blind dates.
So now that we're all so cozy, Sr. filled me with a little bit of his philosophy and history.
.
The difference between a good wine and a bad wine? The small details.
To be a good winemaker you must have sensibility.
We have fights with people here who believe it is impossible to make natural wines.
Yeast and malolactic are expensive, why waste the money especially because natural is best?
And then.....
*La Rioja Alta went to making recipe wine.
How does he know? Now, sipping my own post lunch Perrier and Macallan creation Sr. tells me that he was in charge of the La Rioja Alta vines--all 1000 hectares until he left to expland the family property into a winery. This explained it all! The gorgeous vineyard work. The La Rioja Alta vigorous racking (to avoid sediment).
Feeling a little bit like a detective who found her answers, I looked at my watch. Lunch ended at about 6pm. I was jonesing to go and walk off the wines and the cardoons. Leaving Sr. with the cigar, Jr took me back to my last night in Logrono and I walked the streets.
A Day With the Pecinas in Rioja
While plenty of people are willing to sell out Rioja to the next oak chipper, there is hope.
Here's the story: Before I left for Spain I stopped by the David Bowler tasting. I have no idea what tempted me, but there I was, asking to taste the Rioja from Bodegas Hermanos Pecina( Jose Pastor, importer). Instead of being disappointed I was excited. This one reminded me of wines I had years back of La Rioja Alta.
Fast forward eight days from first sip and father, son and Mikel, (a long time friend of Jr. who works at the winery in marketing) picked me up at my Logrono hotel and we went out to the western end of the region, on the 'other side' of the Ebro river, San Vicente de la Sonsierra, which while vast, seemed to be a secret pocket of nature through a magic door.
We were in the season when vines were weeping, the very bit of tearing that comes from their joints and trimmed limbs and a few vines were just pushing out their buds. So much nascent sexual activity! It was like sexual hormones coursing through, stimulating nocturnal emissions and swellings of tender breasts.
Vines are the most amazing creatures.
The soil here seem to be as pink as crushed coral soils of the Tondonia vineyard, but it is different: the rocks are more challenging but this land through the looking glass is likewise charismatic.
The wind was strong, and giving the mixture of goblet (called coppa, here) and double guyot trellising a good workout. The Pecina's seem to work meticulously and farmed with love. A few years into organics, they also work the soil vigourously, thrice yearly. And when asked why, all they could tell me was that it was traditional. When we tasted through the wines, always a scary thing because I tasted them in New York, would I still like them on their own home ground? The answer was yes.
Mikel took this shot of me with dad and jr.
When I told someone who organizes wine tourism about them, she asked, 'But they have a modern winery, no?"
Yes, it's modern and thankfully NOT architectural as had been the fad, a few years back when the Gehry hotel came around and the money spending was fast and loose. Now, I love a romantic winery but isn't it more important to make good wine? Like, is there a question? What is important? They make wine relatively naturaly and except for their high expression wine, (Chobeo) a nod they think is necessary for the modern wine drinker, 300,000 barrels get only old barrels.
From crianza to the gran reserva, they are lovely wines. Not terribly expensive but very expressive. Worth the money for sure.
At the top of the ladder is the 98 gran reserva --vibrant, savory, salty and filled with the umami-ness I get on the wines from here.
Pedro Sr. has the look of a satisfied and kind man who derives equal enjoyment from working the soil as smoking a cigar. To my dismay, the cigar came out when he ordered a glass of Macallan and Perrier. He asked me about the Chobeo. I admitted it wasn't my thing. He said, "it's not mine either."
I was contemplating more cardoons but I was stuffed. The owner came out, said something to Jr. and all of the sudden the boyish thirty-year old turned red. Turns out the woman was asking him when he was going to call the woman she wanted to set him up with? Sweet kid. Been making wine with his father since he was 15 and has no desire to use any fancy winemaking trills and really isn't into blind dates.
So now that we're all so cozy, Sr. filled me with a little bit of his philosophy and history.
.
The difference between a good wine and a bad wine? The small details.
To be a good winemaker you must have sensibility.
We have fights with people here who believe it is impossible to make natural wines.
Yeast and malolactic are expensive, why waste the money especially because natural is best?
And then.....
*La Rioja Alta went to making recipe wine.
How does he know? Now, sipping my own post lunch Perrier and Macallan creation Sr. tells me that he was in charge of the La Rioja Alta vines--all 1000 hectares until he left to expland the family property into a winery. This explained it all! The gorgeous vineyard work. The La Rioja Alta vigorous racking (to avoid sediment).
Feeling a little bit like a detective who found her answers, I looked at my watch. Lunch ended at about 6pm. I was jonesing to go and walk off the wines and the cardoons. Leaving Sr. with the cigar, Jr took me back to my last night in Logrono and I walked the streets.
The soil here seem to be as pink as crushed coral soils of the Tondonia vineyard, but it is different: the rocks are more challenging but this land through the looking glass is likewise charismatic.
The wind was strong, and giving the mixture of goblet (called coppa, here) and double guyot trellising a good workout. The Pecina's seem to work meticulously and farmed with love. A few years into organics, they also work the soil vigourously, thrice yearly. And when asked why, all they could tell me was that it was traditional. When we tasted through the wines, always a scary thing because I tasted them in New York, would I still like them on their own home ground? The answer was yes.
Mikel took this shot of me with dad and jr.
When I told someone who organizes wine tourism about them, she asked, 'But they have a modern winery, no?"
Yes, it's modern and thankfully NOT architectural as had been the fad, a few years back when the Gehry hotel came around and the money spending was fast and loose. Now, I love a romantic winery but isn't it more important to make good wine? Like, is there a question? What is important? They make wine relatively naturaly and except for their high expression wine, (Chobeo) a nod they think is necessary for the modern wine drinker, 300,000 barrels get only old barrels.
From crianza to the gran reserva, they are lovely wines. Not terribly expensive but very expressive. Worth the money for sure.
At the top of the ladder is the 98 gran reserva --vibrant, savory, salty and filled with the umami-ness I get on the wines from here.
Pedro Sr. has the look of a satisfied and kind man who derives equal enjoyment from working the soil as smoking a cigar. To my dismay, the cigar came out when he ordered a glass of Macallan and Perrier. He asked me about the Chobeo. I admitted it wasn't my thing. He said, "it's not mine either."
I was contemplating more cardoons but I was stuffed. The owner came out, said something to Jr. and all of the sudden the boyish thirty-year old turned red. Turns out the woman was asking him when he was going to call the woman she wanted to set him up with? Sweet kid. Been making wine with his father since he was 15 and has no desire to use any fancy winemaking trills and really isn't into blind dates.
So now that we're all so cozy, Sr. filled me with a little bit of his philosophy and history.
.
The difference between a good wine and a bad wine? The small details.
To be a good winemaker you must have sensibility.
We have fights with people here who believe it is impossible to make natural wines.
Yeast and malolactic are expensive, why waste the money especially because natural is best?
And then.....
*La Rioja Alta went to making recipe wine.
How does he know? Now, sipping my own post lunch Perrier and Macallan creation Sr. tells me that he was in charge of the La Rioja Alta vines--all 1000 hectares until he left to expland the family property into a winery. This explained it all! The gorgeous vineyard work. The La Rioja Alta vigorous racking (to avoid sediment).
Feeling a little bit like a detective who found her answers, I looked at my watch. Lunch ended at about 6pm. I was jonesing to go and walk off the wines and the cardoons. Leaving Sr. with the cigar, Jr took me back to my last night in Logrono and I walked the streets.
04/03/2009
V-Marketing Series: Part 5
All during the LVMH talk, I was tweeting (yes you can go to Twitter and sign up for the Tweets) some of Xavier marketing tips.
Of course, I realized I had to adjust my own presentation to address his address. The flash light had to shine on this point: LVMH's champagne portfolio alone represents more bottles than produced by the whole of Rioja.
When producing that much all you have is a dream because you don't have quality. Rioja needs quality and to be true to itself, reclaim its identity instead of twisting their grapes into New World stand ins.
And, then if they were looking for reviews, I also encouraged them to send wines to
But I warned them that Shizuku was looking for authentic wines and the ones produced by LVMH wouldn't make the cut. For example, when is the last vintage you could drink of Cheval Blanc?
At the end, a man in the front of the room bowed to me, that was cute. A man who sells oak product--including staves and chips complimented me so I figured I was somewhat diplomatic. A few people told me Brava,but mostly I had no idea how it really went over. And while I can't imagine anyone's mind was changed, perhaps there were some good ideas slung around.
The next day, as there was interpreter for me,I decided to go visit a Rioja producer new to me and one I had a feeling I would quite like.
Next up: Bodegas Hermanos Pecina
V-Marketing Series: Part 5
All during the LVMH talk, I was tweeting (yes you can go to Twitter and sign up for the Tweets) some of Xavier marketing tips.
Of course, I realized I had to adjust my own presentation to address his address. The flash light had to shine on this point: LVMH's champagne portfolio alone represents more bottles than produced by the whole of Rioja.
When producing that much all you have is a dream because you don't have quality. Rioja needs quality and to be true to itself, reclaim its identity instead of twisting their grapes into New World stand ins.
And, then if they were looking for reviews, I also encouraged them to send wines to
But I warned them that Shizuku was looking for authentic wines and the ones produced by LVMH wouldn't make the cut. For example, when is the last vintage you could drink of Cheval Blanc?
At the end, a man in the front of the room bowed to me, that was cute. A man who sells oak product--including staves and chips complimented me so I figured I was somewhat diplomatic. A few people told me Brava,but mostly I had no idea how it really went over. And while I can't imagine anyone's mind was changed, perhaps there were some good ideas slung around.
The next day, as there was interpreter for me,I decided to go visit a Rioja producer new to me and one I had a feeling I would quite like.
Next up: Bodegas Hermanos Pecina
04/02/2009
Search
I'm hunting the Leon Trotskys, the Philip Roths, the Chaucers and the Edith Whartons of the wine world. I want them natural and most of all, I want them to speak the truth even if we argue. With this messiah thing going on, I'm trying to swell the ranks of those who crave the differences in each vintage, celebrate nuance and desire wines that make them think, laugh, and feel. Welcome.
And, if you'd like a signed copy, feel free to contact me directly.
May 2013
Links I like
Isabelle's wine blog; the first MW to champion natural
Elizabeth's Great Italian Blog
Jamie Goode
Tom Wark's fermentations and the big picture
Eric Asimov's NYT blog: THE POUR
Amy making wine in France LA Gramiere
Jeremy Parzen on Italy
Becky Wasserman needs to write more
Jon Bonne's blog
Peter gets trashed on Champagne
Jimbo's Loire Blog
Joe's Cancer Chronicles
Bert's Vineyard Visits
Wit from White, Down Under
Alfonso's poetic blog
DefinititiveInk (from Josh who pushed me to blog)
Good stuff from the west from Ken
Bert's Terroir Travels en France
Great stuff about Rioja from Tom Perry
Dr. Vino's site
Brooklyn Guy's Food and Wine Blog
Henry's Take on Booze
Fiona Beckett's take on Nat from London
Andreas Keller Olfaction
Levi's Brain
Kermit!
Melissa Clark's blog and feedbag
Not a blog, more of a site, but Pierre's has a great overview of vin nature
Walter Speller's take on (mostly) Italy
Olif's
Hardy's!
Bruno's insider food buzz for Fes
a lovely assortment of simpatico wine &food
Joseph D in Krakow
Sylvie & Friends
the great Berthomeau, one of the top French blogs
Chambers Street Wines has some great articles, too
Wine Fairy
Truly swell caviste in the 14th, Les Papilles
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