BEST VALUE IN SPAIN!

Tom Stevenson has been writing about wine for nearly thirty years and is the author of more than 20 books. He's been nominated on three occasions as Wine Writer of the Year and received the coveted Wine Literary Award, America's lifetime achievement award for wine writing.

Every year he invites a team of specialised journalists to help him compile a handbook of the best wines that the world has to offer. These fall under numerous different categories, from best newcomer to the best bargain wine.

In the case of Spain, Tom handed responsibility to John Radford, author of the award winning New Spain, winner of the Livre Gormand Best European Wine Book and the Premio Especial Alimentos de España from the Spanish Government. John is also chairman of the Spanish committee of the Decanter World Wine Awards.

We are therefore delighted to reveal that Bodegas Castro Martin is now listed as one of the Top 10 'Best Value' producers in the whole of Spain.

As a former buyer I am truly delighted to receive the accolade of 'best value wine', which for me is the most significant of all the different categories in this report - quality and value is, after all, the Holy Grail of any worthwhile wine buyer......

First post, first review

After a few celebrations and a brief norovirus (don't ask), I finally find the time to wish you all a very Happy New Year - a healthy, safe and prosperous 2008.

Meanwhile, back in the real world, we have just received our copy of a new guide, produced by Wines from Spain and distributed throughout the United States. Our entry is for Castro Martin 2005, and the tasting note, written by Doug Frost (Master Sommelier and MW), reads as follows:

"The aromas show both red and green apple, white peach, apple blossom, and some honey; dusty rocks and minerals are prevalent in the nose as well. The mouth is a bit fleshier, with sweet peach skin, apple, lots of ripe citrus, and a stony finish. I'm sure there are other combinations, but this wine just loves seared scallops."

Who are we to argue?

Happy Christmas 2007

Tomorrow we will be heading off to colder climes (the North of England, not Aspen) to celebrate Christmas.

May I take this opportunity to wish all our friends and customers around the world, a very Merry Christmas and a Happy, Healthy, Peaceful and Prosperous New Year.

Drinking at Christmas

The UK government is having a bit of a crackdown on excessive alcohol consumption - and probably not before time. It's a little depressing to see some UK town centres regularly filled with hoards of young drinkers sprawled about the place in a drunken stupor (unfortunately a sight not exclusively reserved to Christmas time).

However, when it comes to excessive drinking I am not sure that the wine industry is entirely to blame, as I rather suspect that many offenders who stagger the streets on a Saturday night are more likely to be filled with beer and spirits, rather than bottles of Albariño!

At Castro Martin we always try to promote wine consumption in moderation, and I am sure that it will not be too long before we will include a message on our labels to that effect.

One of the other trends that we have also noticed recently are the increased levels of alcohol in wine. It is now quite common to see some new world wines reaching nearly 15% alcohol (the level of fortified wine). This is not intended as a criticism of the new world, as this higher alcohol simply results from the natural process:

Warm climate = more sugar = more alcohol

Until now, this has never been a concern in Rias Baixas - the anticipated alcohol range for Albariño would normally be between 11,5% and 12,5%. Having said that, for the last two years at least, we have seen wines at the upper end of this band, and we are left wondering if this is the effect of global warming on our verdant little corner of Spain.

As a positive selling point I always mention to our customers that Albariño is a 'drinking' (food and/or aperitif) wine, where two people can sit down, share, and easily finish the bottle, without feeling too many adverse side effects..... in other words, enjoyable, easy drinking.

So, enjoy your Christmas holidays, and try not to overdo it on the turkey either!

(For more information about the UK drink awareness campaign click here.)

Autumn in Galicia

After weeks of sunshine, the cool, damp mists of Autumn that we would normally expect, have finally arrived here in Galicia. As vines start to shed their leaves and we experience a real chill in the air, this is natures way of telling us that it's time to reach for the secateurs.

I have to say that I am never really sure whether the act of pruning signals the end of the 2007 cycle, or actually represents the first step in preparation for 2008. Whichever way, it is a long, tough job, and often in very unpleasant conditions.

By complete coincidence the 'Word of the Day' on my Google homepage yesterday was Pergola! The definition was as follows:

Pergola: (noun) An arbor or a passageway of columns supporting a roof of trellis work on which climbing plants are trained to grow.
Synonyms: arbor, bower
Usage: The thick vegetation met overhead, interlacing into a natural pergola

There are actually two theories why the Pergola system is used extensively in Rias Baixas. The first, and more popular theory is that it allows better circulation of air around the canopy, suspending the fruit high above the cool, damp Galician soils.

The second theory is that Galicia was (and to an extent still is) a poor, rural part of Spain where many people exist on subsistence farming. It is still quite common for Galicians to raise pigs, poultry, sheep and even cattle for home consumption, and growing your own vegetables is taken for granted outside the towns and cities. Land for farming is therefore a precious commodity that has to be exploited to the full, and for this reason using the overhead Pergola system allows people to grow a second crop, or even graze animals at 'ground level'.

I am sorry to confess that as a 'City Boy' I opt for the local supermarket (where much of the fresh produce originates from our region anyway)!

Happy Thanksgiving!

We wish all our American customers a very Happy Thanksgiving.

(And don't forget - Albariño is great with turkey!)

2007 - A bad year for vintage snobs

"It is enough to make wine connoisseurs choke on their Pétrus. Hugh Johnson, the doyen of wine critics, has decreed that vintages hardly matter any more.

Johnson, 68, says that wine growers have developed so many clever techniques to compensate for bad weather or disease ruining their crops that almost any year is a perfectly good one for drinkers."

The Times, London, 11th November 2007

It was almost a year ago now since I wrote about vintage guides, and how it is difficult to generalise about the quality of an entire harvest, by simply allocating a number of stars against the name of a particular region. In a round about way I guess that this is what Hugh Johnson is also implying - there will always be exceptions to the rule, and good wines will still be made even in what is deemed to be a 'bad vintage'. We have the technology both in the vineyard and the cellar to make something good even when nature conspires against us.

He comments that the gap in quality between good vintages and bad is narrowing, and also hits out at some of the ridiculous prices being paid at auction for the top 'names', perhaps even questioning whether they are really worth the money being paid.

Of course we should not forget that the average wine consumer is sheltered from too many bad experiences. Inevitably the wine that he or she buys from the shop shelf will have been filtered through a series of extensive tastings by teams of highly competent wine buyers, all but eliminating unwelcome surprises.

By contrast Stephen Williams, managing director of the Antique Wine Company in London, disagreed: “Winemakers may have all this technology, but great vintages are made in the deckchair when mother nature shines and they don’t have to do anything.”

Clearly Mr Williams has never run a wine cellar!

So, where is the driest place in Spain?

Normal autumnal weather is finally restored!

I'm sure that by now you have probably guessed the answer to this question.

As difficult to believe as it may seem, the driest place in Spain between 1st September and 15th November 2007 was southern Galicia! If memory serves me correctly we have had perhaps only two days with rainfall during this period, the rest of the time we have enjoyed pretty much 'wall-to-wall' sunshine. This is in complete contrast to last year when it started to rain in mid-September and did not stop all winter.

Of course we have conflicting feelings about this type of 'Indian Summer', as whilst it is nice to enjoy a bit of warming winter sunshine, it is also the time of year when our reserves of water need to be replenished.

In any event it started to rain yesterday evening and has not stopped since then - normal service is resumed.....

Hot Stuff!

The question of the month?

The Spanish are not very big on hot, spicy food, hence it is virtually impossible to find a curry restaurant in my local area. It is therefore quite interesting that a Spanish food and wine magazine should ask the question "which wines go with curry?"

I wrote a month or two ago about matching food with wine, but this is a particularly difficult question to answer, and, as they point out in the article, it rather depends on the way in which the curry is prepared. There is no doubt in my mind that if we are talking about something extremely hot such as Madras or Vindaloo, then my advice is - stick with a cold beer!

The article suggests that with hotter curries you can drink white wines with a softer acidity and perhaps even a little residual sugar, such as a Viognier, or a ripe Chenin Blanc from South Africa. (Before I receive complaints from my wine making friends around the world, I am not suggesting for a moment that all these wines contain residual sugar!)

They go on to recommend that with milder curries you should turn to wines with a little more acidity, such as a dry Riesling, Chablis or even Champagne. Of course, amongst this selection they include our very own Albariño.

A few years ago when I worked in London I once participated in an extensive tasting in a well-known Indian restaurant. Armed with a wide selection of both red and white wines we tasted them with various spicy dishes. As with any type of cuisine there were some good matches, and some violent clashes, depending on the combination of fruit, tannin, acidity and spice. I have to say that in my opinion, there was no simple magic formula for finding a match.

In conclusion, I still have some reservations about wine with curry, although I would not wish to discourage you from drinking Albariño at any time of day. Perhaps I will just test the theory of this publication the next time I cook a curry at home.....

The value of having an Advocate....

Love him or hate him Robert Parker Jr has been influencing the latest fashion in wine for nearly 30 years now. Those of you who follow my blog will know that I am not a great fan. Not because of what he originally set out to do, but more because of what he has since become.

His original idea way back in 1978, when he produced the first issue of his Wine Advocate, was simply to unlock some of the mystery of wine for the average man in the street. Using a concise rating system out of 100 points, his readers would know if (according to Parker's taste), the wine worth buying or not. No harm in that - indeed a very good idea.

Unfortunately, over time, his publication became absurdly over-influential, not only in determining the success or failure of a particular property, but also, more importantly, influencing the style and taste of wine itself.

In Bordeaux for example, he latched on to the distinctive style of winemaker Michel Rolland as being a benchmark for the modern taste of that region. Dark, ripe, over-extracted wines were to become the order of the day, albeit that they simply did not age in the same way, or perhaps even as well as wines that were made using the more traditional 'old fashioned' methods. His palate was perhaps influenced by the North American style of up-front, forward, fruit driven wines. Fine if you like that sort of thing, but not so fine when, as a result, every wine maker on the planet becomes desperate to clone this modern, 'Parker style'. Their goal of course, to glean a few more precious Parker points.

From my own experience as a buyer back in the 80's, I also heard one or two stories about his work in Burgundy (before he farmed out tasting for that region to Michel Bettane). I was told first hand, by growers themselves, that he had rated their wine when it was actually not possible that he had even tasted it! Heaven only knows why he would chose to do that.

So, my advice in buying wine is the same now as it has always been: Sure, use a wine guide (or even better, cross-reference several) to give you some ideas, but in the end, drink what you enjoy drinking, and not what someone tells you that you should drink!