Food & Albariño

Albariño - great with octopus (but perhaps not the blue-ringed variety!)

Before I start I should mention that there is a page covering gastronomy on our main website, but I thought that with the summer looming, and foreign holidays booked, now would be a good time to write a little about food and wine.

The first thing to remember about matching food and wine is to forget any hard and fast rules. Forget about complicated systems for selecting the right wine to enhance the food on the table. This is not rocket science. It's common sense.

Some of today's food-and-wine advisers might suggest that mediocre wines can be improved by serving them with the right food - not true (albeit that drinking a poor wine with a chicken vindaloo might prove me wrong!) So, the first rule is to pick a good wine - and this is where common sense part comes in..... The old rule about white wine with fish and red wine with meat made perfect sense in the days when white wines were nearly always light and fruity and red wines were heavy and tannic, but today this does not always apply. And furthermore, you have to take into account the way in which your meal is prepared - for example, is it served with a cream sauce, does it have citrus flavours or is it heavily spiced?

In the case of Albariño the most obvious matches, for this clean, refreshing white grape are the local specialities of Galicia - fresh fish and seafood (best served with the minimum culinary intervention). Surprisingly, it may also be recommended with less obvious foods such as goat's cheese, and it works well with most white meats, again depending on how they are prepared. Oriental food is also worth exploring with Albariño, especially Japanese and many Dim-Sum Chinese dishes - but do take care with Thai food as many dishes might prove to be a little too spicy.

I think that perhaps in the future I may include some specific recipes, all of which will be tried and tested at home. So, as they say, watch this space....

Coup de grass

Flowering has passed safely

After yet more travelling we have just returned to review the results of this years flowering (which had already started just before we left). The weather this spring has been changeable to say the least, and a good deal cooler than the last couple of years. We have also witnessed more rainfall during the winter, continuing on and off, more or less until now - indeed, the forecast for the coming week is for more of the same, and we are nearly half way through June!

Having said all that, the flowering seems to have passed relatively unscathed, and we will eagerly wait to see what the summer brings....

Apart from the obvious risk of disease there is another downside to this type of weather - the grass in the vineyards grows quite vigorously, and this means more time on the tractor cutting. You may recall that we do not use herbicides in our vineyards, which might mean that they are not as 'manicured' as some, but which in the long term is better for the soil and for the vines themselves.

It's all in the soil....

Just a few of the huge granite boulders

I recently wrote about "terroir", and that one of the factors influencing the Albariño of the Salnes Valley was the soil - giving our wine a distinct minerality and steely backbone.

Risking life and limb to illustrate the point I pulled on to the hard shoulder of the local Via Rapida (which is undergoing a major upgrade to give it full motorway status) and quickly snapped a few photos of the soil and rocks.

Above you can see some of the huge number of granite boulders that have been excavated, and which no doubt have slowed the digging work considerably. Below you have a clear cross section that illustrates not only the sand soils, but also the layers of rock below the surface. The Albariño vine clearly thrives on this, and as witnessed in many wine regions of the world, has to dig deep to find nutrients.

The sand and rock typical of the Salnes Valley

Irish tastings

Angela discovers Guinness in one of Dublin's oldest bars

You may have noticed a lack of posts recently, and this is simply because we have been living out of a suitcase in Ireland. Our importer recently held a series of tastings, both north and south of the border, in Belfast, Dublin and Cork - and it was a real voyage of discovery.

Not only was it an opportunity for the Irish people to learn about our Albariño, but as it turned out, it was also a chance for my wife to discover one of Ireland's national treasures..... Guinness! I have to say that I too enjoyed the odd pint, and I can truthfully say that it tastes much better drinking it in it's country of origin. Of course your memory of a wine (or stout) can easily be influenced, and it reminds me of the tourist who enjoys his first sip of Provence Rosé whilst sitting on a sun-soaked beach in St Tropez, eating his delicious Niçose salad. When he tastes the very same wine for a second time on a grey, wet day in Brighton it doesn't taste quite the same.

I was also tempted to introduce Angela to another Guinness based drink - Black Velvet (a very potent cocktail of Guinness and Champagne) but I will maybe I will leave that for another ocassion. Hmmm.... I wonder if Guinness and Albariño would work? Perhaps not!

Three Glorietas & One Hail Mary......

Seems like an orderly arrangement.... taken from the UK highway code

Firstly allow me to apologise for the title of this post, it is not intended to offend - it is simply that roundabouts are known as 'Glorietas' here in Spain, and it might be worth saying a quick prayer before trying to negociate one!

My post today clearly has nothing to do with wine, but is intended as more of a public service to those who might be planning a road trip to Spain (and not only those who wish to visit our Bodega).

The first thing you must know is that roundabouts are only a fairly recent addition to the Spanish road system, and appear to be springing up at nearly every junction where two roads meet. (I have to assume that the traffic ministers deem them to be safer than crossroads or traffic lights, but I regret to say, this is simply not the case!) The problem appears to be that the older generation of drivers were simply not educated as to how to deal with them, and the younger generation are being educated in what seems to be a fairly bizzare fashion. Take for example the illustrations below, taken from a brochure designed specifically to help negociate roundabouts.

What exactly does this mean - are you confused?

The next picture shows how to turn right when approaching from the wrong lane...... make a full circuit and only exit when you start to feel dizzy!

Not the simplest way to turn right!

OK, so what's the point of this message? Simply that you should forget what you have learned in your own country and approach roundabouts with extreme caution - do not expect other drivers to stop even when you think they should, and beware of drivers crossing in front of you from the wrong lane.

Do take care when driving in Spain, and remember my motto - Expect the unexpected.

Rias Baixas - Wine styles

It's true that there is a lot of snobbery in wine drinking, and we are probably all guilty of a bit of name dropping, or using the odd oenological phrase to demonstrate our knowledge. One such phrase that is sometimes used, and often abused within the wine world is the French expression
'Terrior' - and this does not simply mean soil or region as our dictionary might suggest.

In the world of wine 'terroir' can refer to any number of elements - not simply region and soil, but it can also include aspect, climate, grape variety and even the wine making technique itself. In addition to 'terroir' we then have the term 'microclimate', which can be used to narrow a vine growing region down to tiny areas or even individual vinyeards.

There is no doubt that these varying physical conditions will have an influence on the fruit (even if the same varietal), and will therefore modify the resulting wine. And after all, most wine makers worth their salt will explain that at least 90% of quality is created in the vineyard.

Within the Rias Baixas denomination, there are literally hundreds of different microclimates (which is really as a result of the way in which our tiny vineyards are distributed). However, at the risk of making sweeping generalisations, there are actually two main criteria that tend to produce distinctly different styles of Albariño. These are climate and soil.....

Although our denomination stretches barely 100km (60 miles) from North to South there can be quite significant differences in the weather, with the South being up to 1° or 2°C warmer. The South is also considerably drier - especially the inland areas of Rosal that do not enjoy quite the same refreshing maritime influences. Away from the sea summer temperatures can actually be several degrees warmer.

Rias Baixas North (sub regions - Valle de Salnés & Ribeira del Ulla)
As one would imagine the wines from the cooler Northern zones are usually not as heavy, and have marginally lower alcohol than those from the South. They have the steely, zesty, almost salt like qualities, tight structure and 'nervosity' often found in cool climate wines - in other words many of the attributes normally associated with the Albariño grape variety. This style is also influenced by the high concentration of granite in the sub-soil of the area that can provide an extra touch of minerality to the quality of the wine.


Rias Baixas South (sub regions - Soutomaior, Condado de Tea & El Rosal)
The additional heat of the South also provides extra sugar, and therefore alcohol - the resulting wines tend to be a little more full bodied and slightly heavier. It could be said that this fuller style is in some ways a little atypical of Albariño, and might not be the choice of the purist (I sometimes compare this to the differing styles of Chablis available from France). The sandy soils and alluvial deposits from the Miño river on the Portuguese border do not give the same mineral structure as the Northern wines, and they can sometimes be softer with lower acidity.

Of course, the wine making technique of each individual cellar will have a huge influence on the quality and style of the finished wine. And in addition, there are also cellars that buy a 'mix' of Albariño grapes from different sub zones in order to balance their wine, and perhaps add acidity where it may be lacking.

As I have said many times before, tasting is purely subjective and in the end it is your own tastebuds that will help you decide the style of Albariño that you prefer.

How much filtration is best for your wine?

Our traditional 'Kieselguhr' filter

One of the great conundrums of wine making is deciding precisely how much filtration your wine requires before bottling. Too little can leave the wine cloudy and possibly unstable, too much and you have a highly polished wine with little or no flavour. Purists may even argue that wines should be bottled without any filtration at all - commercially however, this would be a dangerous decision to make, or at the very least, something of a calculated risk.

In our Bodega we have two types of filter - a Kieselguhr (diatomaceous earth) filter, which uses a fine powder of siliceous earth to absorb particles in the wine. In more traditional cellars this is probably the most widely used system - it is not overly agressive and still leaves the wine clean enough to bottle with a reasonable degree of safety.

Our more modern, 'membrane' filter

The second type that we have is a 'membrane' filter, which as the name implies, uses a physical barrier through which the wine passes, rather like a very fine strainer. The level of filtration is determined by the density of the filter (or filters) used, and this is measured in microns. The finer the filter, the cleaner the wine - but also, possibly, the more bland the wine....

So, deciding the level of filtration is a fine balance - producing a wine that retains character and some body; but a wine that will remain bright and stable in the bottle.

Making a fine wine is not as easy as you might think!

Time to come clean......

Well, did you wash your hands on April 1st?

I recently recommended a virtual visit to the Bodega using Google Earth, and as I think I mentioned at the time, this is really quite impressive.

Slightly less impressive was the Prolafiol 'virtual tasting' that I recommended a couple of days later..... on April 1st! So, for those of you who did not understand the concept, then please allow me to explain:

Prolafiol is actually an anagram of April Fool, which I'm afraid means that this was just another example of my strange English sense of humour. I therefore apologise to any of my readers who may have spent hours scrubbing their hands and frantically rubbing the screen trying to extract wine odours. (Well, maybe there were just one or two people, you never know).

Actually, here is Spain, they do not 'celebrate' April fool's day on April 1st, but they do have a similar day of practical jokes on December 28th that is known as the Día de los inocentes.

To be truthful, I can't see my wife Angela planning any dastardly jokes, but don't say that you haven't been warned!

Time = Money!

Juan (Señor Gadget) demonstrates the new equipment

Much of the investment that we make in the Bodega is to do with improving the quality of our wine, but not always..... As I have said in previous blogs, the pruning and tying of vines is a back-breaking job, made even more so by our 'Pergola' system of training. Anything that we can do to make the job a little easier is therefore welcomed by our staff.

This year we have made a modest investment in a new gadget for the vineyard which carefully ties the shoot of the vine plant to the training wires (it leaves a precise space around each shoot so that it does not become constricted during growth). The chore of tying vines to the wires is now infinitely quicker than before, and so we are able to save time, and perhaps a few pesetas, for other important jobs in and around the Bodega.

Cold stabilisation (note the 'frosted' metal tube)

In earlier blogs I have discussed the process of cold stabilisation (chilling the wine rapidly to approximately -5°C to precipitate the tartrates), and over the last months we have invested here too.

The machine that we use is a little old but very high quality, and far too expensive to discard completely, so we have given it a thorough overhaul - a completely new and much more efficient compressor that allows us to pass the wine more quickly than before - saving time and energy, but more importantly, reducing the time that the wine is exposed to possible oxidation. Our local contractors have been working on this overhaul for nearly six months now, and so hopefully, after so much time (and a substantial financial investment), we will finally start to benefit from the results.

Visit with Google, now taste with Prolafiol!

If you tried the virtual visit with Google Earth recommended in my last post, and were astonished by the technology, then you really have to try this one to believe it.....

Prolafiol® tasting technology has been around for one or two of years now and we are delighted that (after much pressure from our local D.O.), they have finally added Albariño to their list of noble grape varieties. We invite you to try this unique virtual “tasting” experience – Please start by double clicking on the image to enlarge and then follow the instructions carefully:

Hands must be perfectly clean before starting (do not use perfumed hand wash)

1. Click box in lower right corner to activate Prolafiol tasting.
2. Using finger tip very gently rub selected coloured box
(Warning! Excessive pressure may damage your screen)
3. Finger tip should now reveal trace odours of chosen grape variety
4. Repeat process for next selection (using different finger)

As with any new technology there have been problems depending on your operating system (for example, I have been trying to establish if it works with new Windows Vista). If you need any advice just drop me an e-mail.

Happy (virtual) tasting!