Not so flying wine makers of pingus!
Come on now, you wine buffs – see how you score on the following:
First question: What is Spain’s most expensive wine?
Second question: What do Federico Schatz, Stellan Lundqvist and Peter Sisseck have in common?
If you answered Vega Sicilia to the first question, you get cero puntos, and if you didn’t know the answer to the second question, ditto: in fact they are all non-Spaniards making outstanding wines in Spain. And the answer to the first question is coming up.
Many readers will have heard about the superb organic wines produced on a tiny vineyard in Ronda by German-born Schatz, and how they are becoming more and more popular with discerning drinkers. The prices have gone up by a factor of five since I first visited the bodega in 2001.
Lundqvist, a Swedish millionaire economist, transported grape varieties from the Napa Valley to a small finca in Mallorca in 1985, and now the wines of Bodega Santa Catarina are sold all over the world.
Sisseck is a Danish engineer and oenologist, trained in Bordeaux and California, who makes a wine in Ribera del Duero that is reckoned to be among the best in the world. It is certainly the most expensive wine in Spain. A mere 5,000 bottles of Pingus – for that is its name – are produced annually, and if you can get hold of one consider yourself lucky.
Maybe the traditionalists are right when they assert that despite what the flying wine makers tell you, really great wines can only be made where there is terroir, that nebulous French word for earth, but meaning everything when it comes to classic wine making…
Only those soils where grapes have been grown for centuries have it. Which is why, come what may, no-one can ever take away from Bordeaux, Burgundy, Rioja, Ribera del Duero, parts of the Rhine and Moselle valleys, and even tinier parts of Switzerland and Austria (not forgetting Hungary and Bulgaria) that special quality that comes from having their own terroir. Which goes a long way to explain how Dutch-born Peter Sisseck came to be making one of the world’s greatest wines without a flying wine maker in sight – and using a grape variety which has grown in the area since medieval times.
Sisseck launched his career in Spain as the wine-maker for Hacienda Monasterio, one of the Duero’s leading producers, but it was not until 1995 that he decided to branch out on his own; (he still consults for Monasterio). His objective was simple: he would spare no expense to make the perfect wine.
When asked why he chose Spain to work, Sisseck patiently explains that wine in this country has always been treated as just another product, like bread or oil, and has never been put on a pedestal as have, for example, the wines of Bordeaux… He maintains California has no history (he probably means terroir), and that in France there is nothing left to do – so, in Spain there is a potential still to be realised.
Destiny has played its part in the success story. Although Sisseck had already decided to make a unique wine in traditional style and with no expense spared, his first purchase from a small farmer opened the door. The tempranillo grapes, which were pressed and fermented in traditional style, proved to of such an outstanding quality that he felt he had no option but to buy the vineyard.
The rest, as they say, is history.
Pingus, once ready to leave the winery, is disposed of in the traditional French way, en primeurs. Quite simply the total production of the vintage is sold and paid for at one go, and the winery has nothing more to worry about until the next vintage. The main drawback for the producer of the primeurs system of selling is that it enables third parties to benefit from the increase in the value of the wine between the primeurs sale and later improvement in the bottle. Typically, the first vintage of Pingus produced no more than 325 dozen bottles.
Since there are only 15 distributors in the world with the right to buy Pingus, it is no surprise that the primeurs sale lasts about 15 minutes. Sisseck refuses to speculate with his own wine, and is pragmatic about the final price which the drinking public pays. Only 5% of Pingus remains in Spain to be drunk.
You are unlikely to come across a bottle of Pingus at your local wine store, although the worldwide web will produce results if you don’t mind paying shipping costs. However hope is at hand. Although Sisseck refuses to increase the production of his flagship wine, there is now a little brother and Flor de Pingus can be picked up much more reasonably.
Recent prices quoted on the internet range from 40 euros for a bottle of the Flor de Pingus 2001 vintage, to 9,000 euros (yes, you read right) for a bottle of the 1995 Pingus.
In 2002 Sisseck started a new project in Sardón del Duero, Quinta Sardonia, near the famous Abadía Retuerta. The 2003 vintage won first prize in the the Cata de los Dos Dueros, held during Iberwine 2005 that recently came to a close at the IFEMA in Madrid. It sells at 39 euros
Amusingly, although Sisseck and his kind reject the flying wine makers’ main thesis, ergo, that you can make wine anywhere that the climate is right, he was at one time on the verge of becoming a FWM himself. A proposal to make a wine in Sicily appears to have foundered owing to his dislike of having to make several changes of aircraft to get there!!
