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Half of the wine in Spain comes from Castilla-La Mancha. But only in the last ten years the land of Don Quixote has produced some of the best wines in the country. The revolution has been posible thanks to the liberalization of the strict old rules on wine making and the energy and imagination of a handful of entrepreneurs, who ignited these changes. Most of these radical winer makers were not related to the region, and arrived there full of dreams, ready to experiment with new grapes and techniques and change the way things had always been done.
Finca Sandoval 2004 is the Che Gevara of this revolution, a red from Ledaña, Cuenca, which sums up the best things that freedom and talent have brought to Castilla La Mancha. I tasted it this week at an interesting “farm restaurant” in Madrid, called Montana, in calle Lagasca. The owners, Ignacio and Erica, are obsessed about the quality of the food they serve, so they have carefully selected a group of farmers all over Spain as exclusive purveyors.
The Finca Sandoval 2004 I tried was delicious, sensual and exhuberant. It was a very dark, very dense wine that showed its strong personality from the first moment. It made me think of one of my favorite places in Castilla La Mancha, the Spanish Contemporary Art Museum, located in the medieval city of Cuenca, not far away from Ledaña. This very special museum, owned and run by the Juan March Foundation, is the product of painter Fernando Zobel challenge of the status quo of the sixties. Together with friends artists Gerardo Rueda and Gustavo Torner, he decided to create a place to house their favorite works of art and to continue painting. Almost by chance, he landed in Castilla La Mancha, in the XV century Hanging Houses of Cuenca. The museum radiates beauty and force. Like Finca Sandoval, it is a tribute to the passion and talent of a handful of individuals that walked to a different drum.
Today I had a long Saturday lunch my family. It was the big day of the Epiphany or “Reyes Magos”, as we say in Spain, and all the children went crazy when they received their presents before the meal. While we were having an aperitif of “serrano” cured ham from the famous La Garriga shop in Madrid, I rescued from my father’s cellar a Rioja CVNE Imperial 1996, that went quite well with artichokes in white wine and onion sauce and a fantastic Iberian pig dish, rounded up with home made cheese cake.
My first memory of red wine is actually CVNE, always drank at home, a typical preference of some Bilbao families. CVNE crianza is a light and musical wine. I still remember my grandfather asking for a “half-bottle” of 37,5 cl. of young CVNE when he had lunch in his house on weekdays.
CVNE Imperial is the pride of this winemaker, a reserva only bottled when the year in Rioja obtains a top classification. 1996 was such a year and the bottle we drank today was part of the last case that remains from my wedding back in 2001. When we served the wine, it was beautifully colored, like the last red leaves in late Fall. It very slowly developed many wooden flavors with a touch of vanilla. The bottle was not in perfect shape, but nobody demands formal perfection when enjoying some the best memories of childhood.
Yesterday the editors of Iberians on wine had dinner at the fantastic restaurant Pablo Gallego, in La Coruña, Galicia. Pablo is a star among the new generation of daring Galician chefs and firmly believes in enhancing local fare with cosmopolitan creativity.
We solved the usual what to drink dilemma white or red by drinking… both. Miguel Álvaro de Campos, founding editor of Iberians on wine, ordered the high end Albariño Terras Gauda 2005 to go with the seafood salad and clams with mushrooms in green sauce (heaven, I am in heaven…).
I then asked for a Remelluri reserva 2001, a modernized Rioja that made me feel like I was carefully driving an old Jaguar through the hilly roads of Alava in a shiny winter morning.
Iberians on wine 