I’m having a Spanish week. Spent much of last Thursday listening to Alvaro Palacios of L’Ermita fame (Priorat’s superstar) talking passionately about how great it is to be a young producer of Spanish table wine today – followed by Luis Hidalgo talking about how depressing it still is to be a producer of sherry, despite the new initiatives of vintage dated sherries and the particularly ancient VOS and VORS sherries. (See inside information for his idea for revitalising the Manzanilla category.) See fine wine news this Saturday for an overview of Spanish wine today.
We all know that if you want to drink wine made by the talented, French-inspired Alvaro Palacios it tends to be extremely painful on the wallet. The stunning L’Ermita 2002 Priorat is around $300 or £180 a bottle, and even his more accessible Priorat Finca Dofi costs £60 or well over £30. A young vintage of his ‘everyday’ Les Terrasses Priorat from bought-in Cariñena retails at around £15 or $30, and I find it quite hard work nowadays.
But since 2000 this young tearaway, who tore away from his family bodega in Rioja Baja to pursue his own goals, has been back on the home farm in Alfaro and we can now enjoy the deliciously mellow yet exciting results.
Palacios Remondo, Propriedad Herencia 2001 Rioja is £15.95 from Berry Bros and rather less than this from a few other UK retailers, while you can buy it for as little as 17.50 euros in Spain and from $23.99 in the US (though it’s a bit expensive in Germany).
What I like about this near-transparent crimson wine is how dangerous is tastes. It’s unfiltered, unfined, aged in new French oak and just bursts with life yet, like a more traditional rioja, is round enough to drink now. I’ve always been rather keen on the best wines of Rioja Baja, the warm Mediterranean eastern end of the region whose strength has been old Garnacha vines, and felt it has been unfairly discriminated against beside the Tempranillo-dominated Rioja Alta and Rioja Alavesa. Here’s what Alvaro P had to say about this new responsibility, now run alongside his and his nephew’s Corullón, Bierzo operation and the state-of-the-art Priorat winery:
“In 2000 I had to take responsibility for this huge hundred-hectare vineyard in Rioja Baja. I wasn’t that happy about it. Alfaro had been 100 per cent Garnacha. Now it’s 77 per cent Tempranillo! My father planted vines in 1988 in the ‘modern’ (then fashionable) way. It’s not perfect but we can make very beautiful, even magnificent wines for less than 10 euros. If I want to find a beautiful vineyard in my home town, I go for the old, tightly spaced vines that are 45-60 years old. The vines compete and the wines are automatically richer with more depth.”
The grapes that went into this wine were grown at an altitude of around 500 m and Garnacha dominates the blend with 40 per cent, plus 35 per cent Tempranillo, 15 per cent Mazuelo (Cariñena/Carignan) and 10 per cent Graciano.
I strongly recommend it as a taste of Palacios talent without the premium usually demanded for the hype of Priorat.
This is the superior bottling from Palacios Remondo while Montesa is the simpler blend.
08 feb: The fruit is the best selection from the vineyard known as Montesa planted in the late 1980s, fermented in large oak and aged, with malolactic fermentation, in 100 per cent new French oak barriques as opposed to the bottling sold as Montesa which sees only about 10 per cent new oak and much of it American.
Ben Williams, London SW15 reports: ‘Thought it should be shared that this wine is on the list at the four pubs/ hotels/restaurants owned by Huntsbridge between Cambridge and Peterborough at just £27 a bottle. How superbly fair.'