| The
conversation went like this:
Publisher: My preferred wines at home
for nearly two decades were Spanish red wines, but over
the past several years, I have gotten turned off from
having to taste so many wines from the blockbuster crowd
(not just from Spain, either), that I barely drink red
wines any more. I drink cava or Champagne, unoaked white
wines and rosés."
California author: "I feel much
the same way. I am burned out from tasting so many of
these overpowering wines."
In March, at the Alimentaria food and wine fair en
Barcelona, I encountered one of Spain's top wine authors,
a man with the potential to be one of the worlds' best
wine writers, if it were not for his penchant for laying
astronomical scores on monster wines and discounting
wines with elegance, balance and harmony. When I asked
about a particularly low score that he gave to one of
my favorite wines, he told me that I like "vinos
blandos" (insipid wines), at which point,
I said, "No, I like wines that complement food,
not wines that overwhelm food and my palate." Several
other professional wine people with in earshot chimed
in to agree with me.
The list goes on, a young sommelier at one of the top
hotel restaurants in Madrid confirms that many expensive
bottles are being left only partially drunk, a new-wave
Mediterranean climate winery star confided that he often
doesn't drink his own red wines at home and a director
of one of the most visited wine websites in the world
says he has stopped drinking red wines away from work.
Are wine lovers developing a psychological (or maybe
real) allergy to all those over-blown, new oak laden
wines? Given the doses of new French oak, which often
comes from Bulgaria or Rumania, not France (and not
Chernobyl, one hopes) used to dar leña
(lay the wood) to wines, I wouldn't be all surprised.
I also wouldn't be surprised if some day, looking back,
wine historians consider that the abuse of new oak has
ruined more good wines that TCA and bad corks combined.
After tasting a number of these wines on any given day–I
sometimes visit up to five wineries a day in Spain–I
feel like my tongue has just been subjected to the mid-night
shift at a sawmill.
My recommended Top Thirty: With all
this in mind, after tasting scores of wines in Spain
on five trips to Spain so far this year and from tasting
samples in the United States, I have drawn up a list
of Spanish wines that I can not only drink, but whole
heartedly recommend. This, then, is not a piece about
the so-called top wines of Spain, which almost every
other wine publication lauds ad nauseum, these are vinos
which I believe that the majority of the wine-drinking
public will find food friendly, delicious, and enjoyable,
which means repeat business for both restaurateurs and
retailers.
These recommended Spanish wines fall into several
categories: Ever better Cava sparkling wines, white
wines (generally un-oaked), superb rosados, un-oaked
red wines (mostly from northern Spain), balanced, stylish
red reservas and a few big boy reds that are well-balanced
and show special qualities. Rounding out the list are
a few dessert wines, some of which are not only unusual
and give purveyors something different and sexy to promote,
many of them are astounding.
Cavas have never been better: Cava,
most of which is produced outside Barcelona in the bubbly
town of San Sadurní D'Anoia, has never been better.
In addition to the giants Freixenet
and Codorníu, several top-notch
boutique-style wineries are now making superb, flavorful,
food-friendly Cavas, some of can hold their own with
a number of Champagne houses. Agustí
Torelló Mata, Gramona,
Josep Raventós i Blanc,
Juve y Camps, Parxet and several
others are making world-class bubbly at very fair, often
cheap prices. Most of these wines are made from the
local white grape trio, parellada, macabeo (viura) and
xarel-lo, but some are also spiked with chardonnay.
Not to be overlooked are the wonderful rosats, rosé
sparkling wines, coming out of Catalan Cava country.
Some are made from local varieties such as trepat (Agustí
Torelló Mata is the most notable), but most are
made from pinot noir, one suspects because many bodegas
begin planting the great Burgundian grape in anticipation
of it being legalized as a component grape in Cava,
just as it is in many of the greatest Champagnes. After
Codorníu's success with their inexpensive, delicious
Pinot Noir Brut Rosat NV Cava, many producers such as
Gramona, Josep Raventós i Blanc, Juve y Camps,
and Parxet (who even makes a very good Cuvée
Dessert Pinot Noir Cava) are making so strikingly good
Pinot Noir Rosats that are some of the best bargains
in today's wine world.
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