Wine people and Casa Quemada!
How many times have you heard someone order ‘un Valdepeñas’ when asking for a cheap Spanish wine, much as one asks for ‘una caña’ when ordering a beer?
Of course, you will get what the barman wants to give you, and in the case of a caña – this is like ordering a pint in a British pub, but with absolutely no control over the size of the glass the beer is served in. Mind you, not so long ago it was acceptable to order a cerveza del barril or cerveza del grifo (tap beer) to signify you wanted the house draught beer.
Curiously, you never hear anyone ordering ‘un La Mancha’, or even ‘un Manchego’, although this is what you get when you order a Valdepeñas.
La Mancha, needless to say, is Spain’s largest wine-growing area, as well as Europe’s largest. In its heyday it was referred to as the mother of all the wines of Spain, although, as Alejo wrote in his book Viñas y Vinos de España (1966), “What a lot of La Mancha wine gets drunk! How much knowingly and how much unknowingly…..”.
In fact, Carlos III, in the 18th century, imposed a tax on the wine – which paid for the building of the Puerta de Alcalá and the Puerta de Toledo, two of Madrid’s landmarks. When the railway line linking Madrid and the region was completed in 1861, the city’s wine supplies were assured for ever: each day the tren de vino hauled twenty wagons to the capital.
The Valdepeñas Denominación de Origen (DO) is a small enclave on the southern side of La Mancha, and the town itself bears some resemblance to an English market town, not too big and not too small, where everyone knows everyone else. When I used to drive down to the south from Bilbao or Irún, this was invariably the first night stop (no motorways then), and the restaurant of the Hotel Londres was always opened on the dot of 9 pm – and never a minute before! This was a little frustrating for hungry children, but it gave us parents the opportunity to wander around the old town taking small glasses of local wine with tapas at the bars in the main square. Far more enjoyable than staying in what was then the parador El Hidalgo, on the main road north of the town.
The red wine from the area was, and still mostly is, light in colour and body, best served a little cold, and with a freshness of taste that is highly appealing. And although the regulatory authorities of the La Mancha DO have been trying for years, with varying degrees of success, to persuade wine makers to forget about quantity and concentrate on quality, they do not have to preach the same message in Valdepeñas.
Indeed, there are 60 bodegas in Valdepeñas compared with 290 in La Mancha, but the grapes are the same: traditionally a mixture of the white airén and the red tinta fina (tempranillo) in a proportion of about 80/20. Traditionally the bodegas of this DO have always been smaller and with a lower number of co-operatives than in La Mancha. Surprisingly, there is little difference in the climatology, although, as we shall see, there are micro climes in Valdepeñas that do not exist in La Mancha.
Over the past decade a small number of wines in the Valdepeñas region have come to the fore. Viña Albali, from the Felix Solis stable, can be found in any supermarket on the Coast, and Señorio de los Llanos is another well-priced favourite. Progressive wine makers are experimenting with anything from chardonnay to cabernet sauvignon – so expect some interesting wines to come out of the region over the coming years.
Pedro Sánchez Jiménez was born in Valdepeñas in 1954, and his business activities, from animal feed to wine, have never taken him far outside the region. However, seven years ago he and his partner bought 12 hectares of land and planted some vines in an area with a unique micro-climate. They chose the location with great care, near to a reservoir and with a higher level of humidity than most surrounding land. Pedro and his partner had one aim: to make a superb wine with no expense spared and no shortcuts in the process.
But why not choose an area already known for its quality wines, like La Rioja or Ribera del Duero? Precisely because, Pedro believes, given the right conditions a good wine can be made anywhere.
With only three years’ production behind them, the partners produce a respectable tinta fina (tempranillo), and have plans for the release of a Syrah in 3-4 months and a chardonnay in 2-3 years.
The Casa Quemada wine that is presently the flagship of the new bodega is termed ‘vino del autor’. You may not yet have come across this phrase, since it is of recent origin and up there with the equally trendy term ‘vino del pago’. Nonetheless, what it means, evidently, is that the wine is question has been made with a great deal of care and in limited quantities. In this case, the oenologist is Pedro’s brother, José Luis Sánchez, who has left his personal stamp on the finished product.
Of course, I imagine there are thousands of wines worldwide that fit the description of vino del autor, but if the wine-buying public is turned on by the description then so be it. (The term should of course mean that you can tell by taste which oenologist made which wine, and that is rather hard to swallow……)
So, how do you make a wine, using the same grape variety as your neighbours, and having the same soil and rainfall, that is so special as to be identifiable – as a superior product?
The answer islots of loving care, apparently, mostly at harvest time.The grapes must be picked by hand, carefully, and without destroying the stalks, and a maximum time of 10 minutes is all that is allowed between the picking and the crushing. From the minute a grape is removed from the vine it starts to oxidise and the longer the delay in getting it to the press, the more it will have deteriorated. The collecting baskets for grapes must be small enough so the grapes at the bottom do not get damaged by the weight of those on top. Above all, the yield per vine should be about half that of normal grape production – meaning that the resulting must is more concentrated.
A lot of nonsense is talked about old barrels, says Pedro, since the older they are the poorer the wine will be, as they get pitted inside and the wood can impart an unpleasant taste. Pedro uses new barrels of French and American oak, and it is in these that his wine spends 14 months, prior to another 6-8 months in the bottle.
All these measures cost money, but you will get a better wine without a shadow of doubt. Then there is the presentation. The Casa Quemada bottle weighs about twice what a regular bottle does with the cork top quality Portuguese with the capsule being recyclable – all of which add to the expense.
Pedro claims that too much wine suffers from bad handling and cellaring. When I mentioned the now-famous Wall Street Journal blind tasting that placed the most expensive wine, Chateau Latour, at the bottom of the list, and a Bordeaux costing a tenth of the price at the top, Pedro immediately says the Latour must have been badly stored. His preoccupation on this score has even reached a level where Casa Quemada wine is delivered in a special air-conditioned truck owned by the bodega – rather than trusting the precious cargo to run-of-the-mill transport companies. That’s perfection for you.
Clearly, Pedro has no wish to compete with other wines from the same region on the basis of price. Casa Quemada retails at 23 euros and is only sold to restaurants and specialist wine shops. However Pedro likes competition and thinks it good for business.
I asked him if he sees New World wines as a threat to ‘Old Europe’. He admited that they tend to have a more pronounced bouquet. However, pressed on the subject, he trotted out his theory that, rather like the artificial spray supermarkets use to spread a smell of fresh baking around the bread counter, New World producers have a way of artificially enhancing bouquet and the taste of fruit. Maybe he is right! (a bottle of Casa Quemada to any reader who can prove or disprove this theory).
At a recent wine fair in London, Pedro and his right-hand man on the Coast, Ronny Hess, sampled products from all over the world. One that really impressed was a Jordanian wine, and he promises me the name so I can try it. What about China, I ask? When that sleeping giant gets its act together, won’t the world be flooded with cheap wine?
Pedro thinks that by then the Chinese man-in-the-street will be pretty much into wine, so most of it will get drunk within the country’s borders. Well, we shall see, providing you do not mind waiting about 10 years!
Casa Quemada is a well-structured wine with lots of body and a ‘solid’ taste. As regular readers will know, your humble hack is not into descriptions like “traces of vanilla with blackcurrant overtones and a finish of lightly-refined custard apple…..”, but it is certainly recommended as something of a curiosity, if you can afford it.
You can order Casa Quemada to accompany your meal at the Gran Hotel Amanhavis and the Red Pepper restaurant in Puerto José Banús. The wine is sold at Vinos Sebastian Tel 635-556-177, and Vinos Las Delicias in Marbella, also direct from Casa Quemada Tel 677-514-055. For further information contact Ronny Hess on 677 514 055.
