La Rioja: R. López de Heredia - The Wines of Yesterday

R. López de Heredia Slideshow

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During the 1970s when I lived in southern Spain, the northern wine district of Rioja came to represent an oasis to me during the hot, rainless summers of Andalucia, my spiritual home. By early July, the heat settles in over a large portion of Spain. The sun bears down relentlessly, especially in the Mediterranean portions of the country, driving millions of Spaniards to the beaches and cool mountain resorts. Coinciding with this time of year was our annual, much anticipated trek to Pamplona, where Hemingway's inveterate lost souls come from all over the world to see the sun rise on yet another Fiesta de San Fermín, which he immortalized in The Sun Also Rises. Since my former wife Diana and I counted ourselves among the admirers of the venerable Don Ernesto's fiesta, we too joined the migration each year.

We always set out at least a week before the commencement of festivities at Pamplona, so we could explore the Spanish countryside along the way. On one of these trips, we discovered the Rioja and it became our favorite place to pass some quiet time before surrendering to the wild, week-long festivities at Pamplona, where peace, tranquillity, and sleep are rare commodities and not even particularly desirable ones at that. We looked forward to the Rioja country, where we could taste fine wines in cool bodegas, sample superb country cuisine, and enjoy the scenery, history, and milder climate of this high mountain valley.

We had arranged for two old friends, Alice Hall, the dowager empress of American bullfight aficionados of Milledgeville, Georgia and Carolyn Moyer of Davis, California to join us in a tour of the Rioja on our way to Pamplona. On this occasion, in 1973, we had written the firm of R. López de Heredia at Haro, the wine capital of La Rioja Alta, letting them know that we again wished to visit their bodega. The reply had come in the charming, graceful Spanish of a more genteel age. It went something like, "...We cannot tell you what joy the news of your imminent visit has produced in our bodega. It would be our great pleasure to receive you."
By 10:00 on the morning of our visit, after a breakfast of rolls and café con leche, the four of us were down in the bodegas of R. López de Heredia for our "second breakfast" - - a wine tasting. Here, in surroundings as incredible as any I have known in the world of wine, Sr. Anastasio Gútierrez Angulo, the firm's export manager, let us taste some of his twenty-year old reservas–wines made in the style of a different era–wines of yesterday.

Click to read the rest of La Rioja: R. López de Heredia - The Wines of Yesterday

About the author

Gerry Dawes was awarded Spain's prestigious Premio Nacional de Gastronomía (National Gastronomy Award) in 2003. He writes and speaks frequently on Spanish wine and gastronomy and leads gastronomy, wine and cultural tours to Spain. He was a finalist for the 2001 James Beard Foundation's Journalism Award for Best Magazine Writing on Wine.

Mr. Dawes is currently working on a reality television

series on wine, gastronomy, culture and travel in Spain.

Experience Spain With Gerry Dawes: Culinary Trips to Spain & Travel Consulting on Spain

Gerry Dawes can be reached at gerrydawes@aol.com; Alternate e-mail (use only if your e-mail to AOL is rejected): gerrydawes@hotmail.com

Wine Book Reviews: Alice Feiring How I Saved the World from Parkerization & Neal Rosenthal's Reflections of a Wine Merchant

The Battle for Wine and Love: or How I Saved the World from Parkerization by Alice Feiring

Reflections of a Wine Merchant: On a Lifetime in the Vineyards and Cellars of France and Italy by Neal I. Rosenthal

These are two of the most important books written about wine in the past decade. Neither may sell as many copies as the books of Robert Parker or Jancis Robinson, but both Feiring's and Rosenthal's books will have a deep impact on the direction wine takes in the coming post-Parkerista period. Both books champion natural, honest, honorable wines with distinctive terroir, made with native grapes and native yeasts, and without the horrid use of over-oaking as a flavoring agent--an aberration which is now changing, after having been elevated to a near religion by consultants and marketeers (not for aesthetic or good taste reason, rather because new oak is too expensive, especially now during this world economic crisis). Real wines relective of their sense of place--wines made more in the vineyards than in the cellar--will become the standard, not gross, overwrought wines that panders to certain reviewers, so-called market forces and homogenization.

Forget about the title of Alice Feiring's book and get over Bow-Tie Man, the Owl Man, etc. Alice Feiring (pronounced Fire-ing) has a right to air her personal stuff. After all this is her book. And as to complaints that the second part of the title is silly and designed to help sell books. So what? Somebody had to have the cojones to take on Robert Parker, whose, IMHO, 'silly' reviews have helped wipe out the demand for many truly authentic wines and have promoted the facile, manipulated wines of the new rich and enriched any number of his favored status importers and formulaic consultants--who are not wine tailors, they are knock-off artists.

Alice is the real deal and so is Neal Rosenthal, whose Confessions of a Wine Merchant comes on the heels of Alice's book, echoing themes about the authenicity and sense of place in truly great wines and railing against the tragic (for real wine lovers) imposition of industry homogeneousness and wine manipulation over the real thing.

Both these books are deep--not frivolous, as some people would like to paint Alice Feiring's book--complex and filled with nuances that everyone who really cares about great wine should know and appreciate. Neither book is jammed with appreciation for overripe fruit, residual sugar, palate numbing alcohol levels and, Thank God, neither comes in a horrid new oak binding (barrels where supposed to be aging vessels, not gross flavoring agents that override grape varieties, terroir, etc.).

My prediction is that these two books are going to have an enormous impact on young (and not so young) sommeliers, wine directors and wine buyers (especially non-retail types, who don't use Parker scores to flog wines), because they both espouse the greatness and distinctiveness of terroir-driven, authentic, artisan wines that have a sense of place. Since these are not mass market Parkerista wines, I think this philosophy will not have an immediate effect on the Parker consumer, but it will have on restaurant wine lists run by younger sommeliers, who believe it or not have been fed up with tasting Parkerista wines for quite some time. They will seek terroir-driven wines to lend distinction to their lists and push these wines as those which help set their wine lists and restaurants apart.

Restaurant goers will discover these wines and begin to look for retail stores that carry them. It will not be long before the already choppy anti-Parkerista waters build into a very big wave, which, pardon me, copycat American wine journalists will soon see as a bandwagon to jump on, at least those who still have a palate left after tasting all the overripe, sweet, over-oaked, alcoholic junk that they have been barraged with over the past decade or so. And with greening and organic movements growing stronger in response to environmental changes, more and more conscientous wine drinkers will begin to question the manipulation of wines.

Alice Feiring: ". . . At stake is the soul of wine. This is giant corporation vs. independent winemaker. This is international and homogenous vs. local and varied. This manipulated and technical wine vs. natural and artisanal. . .wine is being reduced to the common denominator. . .I visit producers who make wines that inspire love and devotion. . . I unmask the modern way--the reverse osmosis, the tannin addition, the yeasts, the enzymes, the cold soaks, the sawdust, oak chips, the barriques, the micro- and macro-oxygenation, the rotor fermenters, and the cherry drops. There will be scientists and consultants, who help create cookie-cutter wines for the mass palate. I will deal with those who say terroir (the magic that brings soil, climate, vintage, and winemaker together in a bottle of wine) and natural winemaking are simply excuses for making bad wine."

Neil Rosenthal: ". . . proof that there is some seriously fine terroir to be found in California and elsewhere, terroir that merits being left to express itself rather than being dominated and destroyed by human manipulation in the form of superextraction or immersion in new oak barrels or any of dozens of other laboratory tricks that "correct" what nature gives us." Alice Feiring and Neal Rosenthal are heroine and hero!!! Buy both these books and take a trip through the world of real wine, you will never turn back.


About the author

Gerry Dawes was awarded Spain's prestigious Premio Nacional de Gastronomía (National Gastronomy Award) in 2003. He writes and speaks frequently on Spanish wine and gastronomy and leads gastronomy, wine and cultural tours to Spain. He was a finalist for the 2001 James Beard Foundation's Journalism Award for Best Magazine Writing on Wine.

Mr. Dawes is currently working on a reality television

series on wine, gastronomy, culture and travel in Spain.

Experience Spain With Gerry Dawes: Culinary Trips to Spain & Travel Consulting on Spain

Gerry Dawes can be reached at gerrydawes@aol.com; Alternate e-mail (use only if your e-mail to AOL is rejected): gerrydawes@hotmail.com

Ribera del Duero Article & Slide Show

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Special to verema.com

Ribera del Duero: Wine Adventures in Castilla y León

(with a slide show)

by Gerry Dawes

(Other Versions First Appeared in Spain Gourmetour and Wine News )

Nearly twenty-five years ago, when I first began visiting La Ribera del Duero–the Duero river valley, which in Portugal becomes the Douro, the fabled Port river–I thought it was the dedicated wine aficionado’s back-country dream. It was a region dotted with a few castle towns, stark clean limestone-streaked hills, unirrigated gnarly old vine vineyards mostly planted with tempranillo (then called by the local names tinto fino or tinto de país), tawny wheat fields in the higher elevations, and often nondescript villages, some of which had amazing restaurants specializing in lamb and wine. Located just an hour and a half north / northwest of Madrid (like Napa Valley is to San Francisco), and an hour south / southwest of the overlooked, but wonderful provincial capital of Burgos, the Ribera del Duero is the most prestigious wine region within easy reach of the Spain’s capital city.

Slide show with captions on the Ribera del Duero.

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All images are copyright by Gerry Dawes 2008. None can be downloaded or published without prior arrangement by e-mailing gerrydawes@aol.com.

Winters can be cold and windy in La Ribera, springs wet and always with the danger of a very late frost and the autumn delightful during the harvest season. But, though I enjoyed visiting the Ribera any time, I especially liked summer, when warm days turn into delightfully cool nights at these altitudes of 2,300 to 2,600 feet above sea level, which is one of the most important reasons that the tempranillo grape grows so successfully here. During the day, the heat of the summer sun ripens the grapes and the cool nights allow the vines a respite. (Also fogs that develop in the Duero Valley provide heat relief and moisture to the vines.) In the hands of the best winemakers, these grapes produce wines that are perfectly ripe, but not overripe, and have good acidity for balance.

Read More

Experience Spain With Gerry Dawes: Culinary Trips to Spain & Travel Consulting on Spain

Gerry Dawes can be reached at gerrydawes@aol.com Alternate e-mails (use only if your e-mail to AOL is rejected): gerrydawes@hotmail.com

Desmontando el Mito de la Cocina Molecular de Ferran Adrià

Entrevista con Ferran Adrià, 27 de Junio, 2008

por Gerry Dawes

Gerry Dawes: En los ultimos 10 años que considerás que son tus contribuciones al mundo de la gastronómía mas importantes: en filosofía, téchnica, ideas etc. Y este mismo periodo como han cambiado o evolucionado tus ideas y filosofía y cuales han sido las influencias mas claves.




Ferran Adrià: Creo que en 1998, lo esencial de la filosofía de elBulli ya estaba establecido. Una cocina que se basa principalmente en tres pilares: la búsqueda técnico-conceptual, el papel de los sentidos a la hora de crear y de comer, y el sexto sentido, es decir, el papel de la razón y de la reflexión en el acto de comer.

A partir de aquí, lo que hemos hecho desde entonces es profundizar en cada uno de estos pilares, investigando también a fondo cada uno de nuestros métodos creativos, que son más de quince.

En el terreno de la búsqueda técnico-conceptual, por ejemplo, hemos dado nacimiento a nuevas técnicas, conceptos y elaboraciones, algunas de gran importancia en nuestra cocina. Yo destacaría, en orden cronológico, las gelatinas calientes, las espumas calientes, el polvo helado, las nubes, los aires, los nitros, los merengues secos, la sferificación, los croquants o la liofilización.

Aun así, a nivel más general, y aunque pueda decir que la evolución no nos ha movido de este eje al que he aludido con sus tres pilares fundamentales, existen ciertos cambios o influencias que han marcado estos últimos años. Por ejemplo, la conexión con otros campos creativos, como por ejemplo el diseño industrial, la ciencia, el arte, la industria alimentaria. O la influencia no tanto estética sino de filosofía de cocina de toda la gastronomía asiática, sobre todo de Japón. Creo que esto resume la evolución que hemos podido experimentar en estos últimos años.

Gerry Dawes: Cuando comí en El Bulli en Mayo, veía una tendencia a platos creativos un poco menos hyper-modernos, mas sustancial en cuanto al placer de comerlos. Esta representa un cambio de filosofía, una tendencia, una evolución, cambio de dirección. A lo mejor estoy equivocado, pero a mi me parece que era la mejor de las cuatro veces que he comido en El Bulli.

Ferran Adrià: Lo que sucede es que, a diferencia de 1997-98, ahora tenemos un importante patrimonio de técnicas y conceptos que podemos utilizar. En aquella época podían darse menús algo monotemáticos, muy conceptuales porque estábamos, si se quiere, dando a conocer una determinada técnica. Ahora, el background que tenemos es muy grande, y podemos elaborar menús en los que, por ejemplo, sólo aparezca un plato con sferificación. Ahora no hay ninguna técnica o ningún concepto que monopolicen el menú.

Gerry Dawes: Cualquier cosa que quieres añadir. Estoy escribiendo un artículo, que seria para el numero de Food Arts (publicación de Marvin Shanken, de imperio editorial al que pertenece The Wine Spectator) y celebrará su 20 aniversario en Septiembre. Y el numero recordará el artículo que hice en 1997, que fué el primero en una revista americana importante sobre El Bulli.

Desmontando el Mito de la Cocina Molecular de Ferran Adrià

Ferran Adrià: Me gustaría aprovechar esta ocasión para “desmontar” el mito de la cocina molecular. Sé que en muchos países se dice que en elBulli practicamos cocina molecular. Y la verdad es que se me ocurren pocos calificativos que definan con una tal inexactitud la cocina que practicamos.

Porque la cocina molecular no es un estilo de cocina. De entrada, el nombre proviene de la gastronomía molecular, que a su vez designa únicamente el diálogo entre cocineros y científicos para intentar entender los procesos químicos y físicos que se producen en la cocina. Pero como ya he repetido otras veces, saber qué le sucede a un entrecôte cuando se está cociendo, o por qué se puede montar una mayonesa, no aporta nada a la evolución de la historia de la cocina en su sentido estilístico. Todo conocimiento es bueno para el cocinero, pero no por ello contribuye a crear un nuevo estilo. Por poner un paralelismo, no es necesario que un gran arquitecto sepa cómo se hace una aleación de metales para que cree una obra importante para la historia de la arquitectura. O en cualquier caso, este conocimiento, que ya digo que siempre es positivo, no tiene nada que ver con su aportación estilística. Y a todos nos parecería absurdo que a la arquitectura de este creador que conoce las aleaciones metálicas se la llamara “arquitectura molecular”.

Tal como se está planteando este tema, parece que una cocina sea un lugar en el que básicamente se realizan experimentos científicos. Y este no es el caso. Quiero aclarar que la ciencia para el cocinero tiene un gran valor, aunque, repito, siempre para intentar entender los procesos, para saber más, para enriquecer nuestro conocimiento. Del mismo modo que puede ayudar a entender los procesos de otras disciplinas.

A partir de ahí, apareció, pues, el nombre de “cocina molecular”, como nombre para definir la cocina de vanguardia que hacemos en elBulli y, en general, en muchos restaurantes de todo el mundo. Y con ello se quería definir una cocina “basada en la ciencia”, cuando en realidad lo único que ha hecho la cocina de vanguardia es intentar abrir campos, saber más de todas las cosas, pero no sólo desde un punto de vista científico. Se han establecido contactos no sólo con científicos, sino también con artistas, diseñadores industriales, expertos en nutrición, en industria alimentaria... Y de todo ello se ha procurado extraer un mayor conocimiento, pero no dejan de ser herramientas al servicio de la filosofía, del estilo, de la manera que cada cocinero tiene de ver la cocina.

Abalone

About the author

Gerry Dawes was awarded Spain's prestigious Premio Nacional de Gastronomía (National Gastronomy Award) in 2003. He writes and speaks frequently on Spanish wine and gastronomy and leads gastronomy, wine and cultural tours to Spain. He was a finalist for the 2001 James Beard Foundation's Journalism Award for Best Magazine Writing on Wine.

Mr. Dawes is currently working on a reality television series on wine, gastronomy, culture and travel in Spain.

Experience Spain With Gerry Dawes: Culinary Trips to Spain & Travel Consulting on Spain

Gerry Dawes can be reached at gerrydawes@aol.com Alternate e-mails (use only if your e-mail to AOL is rejected): gerrydawes@optonline.net or gerrydawes@hotmail.com

Galicia's Terroir-Driven White Wines

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Galicia's Terroir-Driven Wines
(Full-size copy of the article. Tasting notes below.)



About the author

Gerry Dawes was awarded Spain's prestigious Premio Nacional de Gastronomía (National Gastronomy Award) in 2003. He writes and speaks frequently on Spanish wine and gastronomy and leads gastronomy, wine and cultural tours to Spain. He was a finalist for the 2001 James Beard Foundation's Journalism Award for Best Magazine Writing on Wine.




Mr. Dawes is currently working on a reality television
series on wine, gastronomy, culture and travel in Spain.


Experience Spain With Gerry Dawes: Culinary Trips to Spain & Travel Consulting on Spain

Gerry Dawes can be reached at gerrydawes@aol.com
Alternate e-mails (use only if AOL is rejected): gerrydawes@hotmail.com

Ferran Adriá in Food Arts

Food Arts Over the Foaming Wave Article on Ferran Adriá

(Double click on each page to enlarge.)


About the author

Gerry Dawes was awarded Spain's prestigious Premio Nacional de Gastronomía (National Gastronomy Award) in 2003. He writes and speaks frequently on Spanish wine and gastronomy and leads gastronomy, wine and cultural tours to Spain. He was a finalist for the 2001 James Beard Foundation's Journalism Award for Best Magazine Writing on Wine.

Mr. Dawes is currently working on Mr. Dawes is currently working on a reality television series on wine, gastronomy, culture and travel in Spain..

Experience Spain With Gerry Dawes: Culinary Trips to Spain & Travel Consulting on Spain

Gerry Dawes can be reached at gerrydawes@aol.com Alternate e-mails (use only if your e-mail to AOL is rejected): gerrydawes@optonline.net or gerrydawes@hotmail.com

My Apologies as an Americano to Spain for the Ignorance of John McCain

To all my friends and readers at Verema.com:

Please accept my apology as an American and, I am sure, the apology of at least two-thirds of my fellow Americanos, for the ignorant, uninformed, malicious and mind-boggling comments by John McCain about Zapatero and Spain, which he seems to think is in el quinto coño de Alaska, which in turn he obviously thinks is in South America. If he gets elected, I will be viewing the next catastrophic years from the same vantage point as my brothers and sisters in Spain--from Spain!

Please excuse the disgrace I feel that one of the American political parties is run by sinverguenzas de primera clase, que es decir, por la clase mas baja que hay.

No somos todos asi. Lea el Huffington Post.

Si hay Díos en el cielo este tío y la tonta de Vicio-Presidenta van a perder y por mucho.


About the author

Gerry Dawes was awarded Spain's prestigious Premio Nacional de Gastronomía (National Gastronomy Award) in 2003. He writes and speaks frequently on Spanish wine and gastronomy and leads gastronomy, wine and cultural tours to Spain. He was a finalist for the 2001 James Beard Foundation's Journalism Award for Best Magazine Writing on Wine.

Mr. Dawes is currently working on Mr. Dawes is currently working on a reality television series on wine, gastronomy, culture and travel in Spain.

Experience Spain With Gerry Dawes: Culinary Trips to Spain & Travel Consulting on Spain

Gerry Dawes can be reached at gerrydawes@aol.com Alternate e-mails (use only if your e-mail to AOL is rejected): gerrydawes@optonline.net or gerrydawes@hotmail.com

Navarra: A Spanish Kingdom's Wines Wear the Versatility Crown

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Text & Photographs by Gerry Dawes©2008

Immortalized in the Middle Ages in the French poem Chanson de Roland (whose legendary setting is in the hills above the Pyreneen village of Roncesvalles); its capital Pamplona made famous the world over in the 1920s by Ernest Hemingway in The Sun Also Rises; and again in the 1960s by James A. Michener in Iberia, beautiful, rugged and evocative Navarra is arguably Spain's most versatile wine region.

Located in mountainous north central Spain, Navarra is hemmed to the north by the Pyrenees (and France) to the north/northwest by Basque Country, to the west/southwest by La Rioja and to the east/southeast by Aragón, a climatic range that includes high mountains, green northern zones, the arid Ebro River basin in the south and a desert called Bardenas Reales. These varied climatic influences, which include very important temperate zones provide a breadth of truly great winemaking potential.

Chardonnay at Chivite's Arinzano Estate

Several of its wineries have proven just that: Its first-rate Chardonnays are among the finest in Spain; garnacha-based rosados rank with the best in the world; the cream of Navarra's Bordeaux- and Rioja-style wines (especially from bodegas such as Julián Chivite) stand alongside many of Spain’s most distinguished reds; and late harvest moscatels — Aliaga, Chivite and Ochoa to name three — are counted among the most delicious dessert wines in the country. Navarra even boasts a stunningly good, little-known, old-fashioned vino rancio known as Capricho de Goya that rates in the high 90s on nearly everyone's point scale.

Bodegas Camilo Castilla

Wines have been made here since the Roman occupation, as evidenced in southern Navarra along the Ebro River by the remains of several wineries, such as the one at Funes, that date back more than 2,000 years. In the Middle Ages, Navarra was a sprawling kingdom that included Bordeaux, French Navarre, parts of La Rioja, portions of the Basque Country (mountainous northern Navarra and Pamplona, called Iruña in Basque) and Aragón.

Roman Winery at Funes in Southern Navarra

Navarra's importance was vital in establishing the Camino de Santiago pilgrimage route that buttressed the Christian frontier, especially in the 12th and 13th centuries, when Cistercian monks arrived to establish monasteries and plant vineyards all around northern Spain.

Chardonnay at Chivite's Arinzano Estate

Several of its wineries have proven just that: Its first-rate Chardonnays are among the finest in Spain; garnacha-based rosados rank with the best in the world; the cream of Navarra's Bordeaux- and Rioja-style wines (especially from bodegas such as Julián Chivite) stand alongside many of Spain’s most distinguished reds; and late harvest moscatels — Aliaga, Chivite and Ochoa to name three — are counted among the most delicious dessert wines in the country. Navarra even boasts a stunningly good, little-known, old-fashioned vino rancio known as Capricho de Goya that rates in the high 90s on nearly everyone's point scale.

Bodegas Camilo Castilla

Read the rest to this 5,000-word article.

About the author

Gerry Dawes was awarded Spain's prestigious Premio Nacional de Gastronomía (National Gastronomy Award) in 2003. He writes and speaks frequently on Spanish wine and gastronomy and leads gastronomy, wine and cultural tours to Spain. He was a finalist for the 2001 James Beard Foundation's Journalism Award for Best Magazine Writing on Wine.

Mr. Dawes is currently working on Mr. Dawes is currently working on a reality television series on wine, gastronomy, culture and travel in Spain..

Experience Spain With Gerry Dawes: Culinary Trips to Spain & Travel Consulting on Spain

Gerry Dawes can be reached at gerrydawes@aol.com Alternate e-mails (use only if your e-mail to AOL is rejected): gerrydawes@optonline.net or gerrydawes@hotmail.com