Lealtanza Rioja Reserva Dali Label 2004

Many years ago I went through a phase of being really into art - impressionist (mostly monet), pop-art (lichtenstein and warhol) and of course the surrealist movement spearheaded by Dali. I kind of got into Dali by way of rave flyers, promotional leaflets for all night dance events, for which Dali was ideal material. Works like the persistance of memory and the great masturbator were frequently used for flyers due to their striking imagery and allusions to the underlying drug culture of the day. So when I was recently shown a wine labelled in homage to Dali I was quite interested.

Bodegas Altanza was one of the wineries visited on my recent visit to Rioja with Wines of Spain. It was the last of the wineries we were visiting and we werent sure what to expect really. We had seen the full spectrum of styles from the old school style of Remelluri, to the ultra-modern Baigorri and somewhere in the middle of those two extremes sat Altanza. The winery itself was pretty state of the art, lots of polished steel, temperature controlled tanks, a huge, clean barrel hall with loads of french oak barrels (including a few from Demptos!), with the odd transylvanian, russian and american oak barrels kicking around too, a throwback from when they experimented with different oaks to see what impact it would have on the wines. But when you taste their wines, there is a sense of tradition about them, they seem to sit in the middle of the two "camps" - fresh and fruity characters but structured and complex, with well integrated oak flavours and a touch of the raw meaty essense that I tend to find in old school rioja.

Twice now, Altanza has produced a wine of such complexity, intensity and sheer character, that they have felt it deserved a special treatment. So they decided to honour the great spanish artists, the first to be honoured was Miro, in 2001 followed three years later by Dali. The Miro was bottled in a dense, incredably heavy burgundy bottle, Dali is in a monsterously heavy bordeaux bottle. It is sold in packs of three, each bottle adorned with a label depicting one of Dali's lesser known works (the sheer cost of licensing the images from the Dali estate precludes using the more famous images, besides which the estate controls which images they are allowed to choose from). It would be fair to say that having tasted the wine, if it was given to me blind and I was asked to pair it with an artist, then I dont doubt that Dali would be my first choice. It is an intense experience, rich concentrated flavours seem to jumble across your palate - dark red soft fruits mixed with a touch of spice, vanilla and other oaky influenced flavours all with a definate savoury edge to them. The wine stays with you, working away at your brain, continually assaulting your tastebuds with flavour long after you have put the glass down. Its intense, much in the same was as standing underneath Dali's Christ of St John on the Cross, currently residing at the Kelvingrove museum in Glasgow. Even as an athiest, the immenseness of the canvas (roughly a metre wide by two metres tall) and the perspective of the painting all seem to prey on you long after you have moved on to the next piece. It is easy to see why Dali was chosen for this wine.

Rioja - Palacios, Remelluri and de la Marquesa

I was fortunate enough to be taken to Rioja at the beginning of the week for a brief visit. Organised by Wines of Spain and the Consejo Regulador DOCa Rioja a small group of sommeliers and wine buyers from the UK and one from Sweden were shown around six bodegas across Rioja.

I wasnt sure what to expect at first, when I saw the itinerary for the trip. I decided to not research the wineries in order to go with an open mind to them and not form any pre-judgements. Im glad that I did, for they each had something unique to offer, whether it be in their physical wineries and their methodology, or in their wines that we tasted, and after visiting six different bodegas and tasting something like 50 wines over the two days, its fair to say that its opened my eyes to Rioja as a wine and a region.

We started off with Bodegas Palacios in Laguardia. After being shown around the winery and its cellars, we were given a tasting of eight wines, all quite good, if rather average. The whites were certainly fresh and vibrant, and the reds all starting off with a slightly milky aroma - its the lactic acid our host proudly proclaimed, typical of tempranillo. From that we can deduce that their wines all undergo malo-lactic fermentation in the barrels. Off the six wineries we visited this was possibly the least inspiring, but it was interesting to see their perspective on the methods of production and it certainly is a winery with a long history.

From their we headed up to Labastida up in the Cantabria hills to visit Granja Nuestra Senora de Remelluri. This was certainly the most beautiful of the bodegas we visited.

Im a big fan of the white that they make, an amazing blend of about nine varieties - Garnacha Blanca, Malvasia, Moscatel, Marsanne, Rousanne, Viognier, Chardonnay and Viognier and finally Sauvignon. So I was really looking forward to this, and the good news was the sun was out, we were having lunch here and the reds were every bit as good as the white. They make four wines - the Blanco, a Reserva, a Gran Reserva and a Reserva Especial - the Coleccion Jaime Rodriguez, named in honour of the owner. All were astoundingly good, but for me the two standout wines were the blanco and the gran reserva. The gran reserva is a blend of 85% Tempranillo, 12% Garnacha and 3% Graciano, richly spiced and concentrated it seemed to last forever on the palate, its flavour greatly complementing the lamb chops grilled over a flame from vine trimmings. After a delicious lunch served in the winery, we took a stroll around the vineyards in the late summer sun, down to an ancient cemetary carved out of stone in the earlier life of the farm as part of an old monastery, the remains of which survive at the top of the mountain looming over us. Looking at the carved shapes in the stone, we got to thinking either the indiginous peoples were very small or the infant mortality rate was exceptionally high. They were tiny.

We left Remelluri as a tv crew was setting up to film a celebrity chefs program as he strolled through the vineyards of Remelluri discussing ingredients and picking fruit. Our destination was the Bodegas de la MarquesA in Villabuena. This was a smaller, family run bodegas trading under the name of Valserrano in the UK. Now in the hands of two brothers, Pablo and Jaime de Simon, one the oenologist and the other in charge of marketing/sales. The winery was probably the smallest of the six that we visited, but had one of the largest ranges of wines to offer. Jaime, the oenologist, proudly makes use of many of the traditional varieties and as such they offer a range of single varietal wines - mazuelo and graciano which were both amazingly different from what one would expect. The Mazuelo had a dark inky colour with a strong violet character on the nose. There was a licorice root element to the finish and a rounded warm spicy end note. With a year in a mixture of mainly french oak, the wine has a well balanced oak influence - vanillin, cedarwood and nutmeg like flavours, and well drawn out silky smooth tannins.

The Graciano by comparison had a much more herbaceous character with dark black tea and green leafy aromas, a touch of roasted nuts and defined dark soft fruit flavours. The tannins seemed bolder than the mazuelo, a little harsher on the gums, but the length was longer, more intense and a touch smoky on the finish.

Then it was time to leave and move on to our next winery. This was such a cool winery I want to give it a seperate post.

Granja Nuestra Senora de Remelluri Rioja Blanco

Just under a year ago, one of our major suppliers changed their rep. The old guy left to pursue his hobbies further and we got a new contact. The new guy is a totally different character to Chris (the old one). Noel is great, his sheer enthusiasm for wine and in particular certain wines is contagious and gets me fired up. I love it when he comes to see me, because I know that he wont bring me any crap, and I know that I wont get any bullshit from him. It was Noel who turned up one afternoon with a satchel full of wines to try, and the passion and enthusiasm to make me actually sit down and taste them with him. Im so glad that I did, because amongst those wines was one hidden gem, that through some sheer fluke of logistical errors, he had managed to get his hands on. That wine was the Remelluri Rioja Blanco. Now they only make a small amount of this wine, and about three dozen bottles make it into the UK through Alliance wines. They guard this jealously and needless to say you dont get samples. Now whether Noel just got lucky and someone at the warehouse just got careless, or perhaps being the new guy they gave some some serious ammo to come and see me, who knows.

The wine was amazing. Now Ive had plenty of white rioja before, horrible, overoxidised wines that more resemble sherry that white wine. In fact when I was at Gleneagles we sometimes used bottles of Castillo Ygay's white rioja as sherry if we ran out of Croft. Im amazed that we often got away with it!!! So I didnt really hold out much hope when Noel raved about the wine and cracked it open. On the nose it has the most amazing aromas, fresh aromatic, floral notes with white fruits and apricots. Its cepage reads more like a white Chateauneuf - Moscatel, garnacha blanca, viognier, sauvignon blanc, chardonnay, roussanne and marsanne and finally some petit courbut. It hasnt the oilyness of most white chtxneufs but a fresher almost more new worldy rhone-a-like style. I was lucky enough, having tasted it, to then be able to get six bottles. Bloody hell it wasnt cheap, but Ive taken a hit on the margin to put it on at £75 a bottle. Considering that the white Chtxneufs are priced at a similar price, thats a real steal! But when its gone its gone, I doubt Ross will sign for another six!!