Drink - Victoria Moore on some statuesque Spanish wines
The other day, a friend announced that he had discovered a brilliant new winemaking region in Spain. As James loves statuesque red wines that virtually stand up without the aid of a glass, and recently announced that he was "tired" of reds from Australia's Barossa Valley, it was not difficult to guess that he had been drinking Ribera del Duero. Wines from here tend to be firm-flavoured and dark - just how James likes them - and are predominantly made with the Tinto Gino grape (a variant of the Tempranillo used to make Rioja), rather than the Shiraz favoured by the Australians. They don't have the blowsy Australian quality that James has wearied of, but they do have a fiendish intensity. The heftiest and most delicious of these reds taste of chocolate, blackcurrants and blackberries, with the silkiest, quietest whisper of oak - utterly seductive.
The Duero Valley itself (it becomes the Douro Valley, famous for its port, across the Portuguese border) is not, climatically speaking, an especially welcoming place. On a summer's day, the sun burns down with a furious heat, while the sunset gives way to bitterly cold nights. In autumn, the frost comes quickly, and it lingers on well into spring. And the vines grow high - up to 2,800 feet above sea level. All of this makes the growing season for the vines fairly short. But the extremes, rather than spoil the wine, give it the sharp edge that makes it so good.
So it's hardly surprising that Ribera del Duero, which lies about 120 miles north of Madrid, is a very fashionable thing to be written on a bottle of wine at the moment. Vines were first cultivated there by the Romans, but it is thought that modern plantings date from the vines brought by French monks in the Middle Ages. Still, plenty of other crops were grown in the area and, as recently as 50 years ago, vines were uprooted and replaced with beets, which were considered to be more profitable. So, in a sense, Ribera del Duero wine is quite new: the area won its Denominacion status only in 1982, when winemakers really began to get their act together and produce good stuff. In the past decade, the Spanish, newly reconciled to full-bodied reds, have even drunk enough of the top- quality Ribera wines to challenge the Rioja hegemony. As a result, the price of grapes from the area has risen stratospherically, and the number of wineries increases every year.
The transformation is largely credited to a Spaniard called Alejandro Fernandez, who, having made his fortune designing machines to harvest sugar beets, fell to thinking of the wine he had made as a boy with his father, and set up his own bodega at Pesquera.
Since then, Ribera del Duero wines have been blessed with as good a press as wine could wish for. Even the American Robert M Parker's influential palate pronounced itself jolly pleased with the stuff, sending prices in the US rocketing accordingly.
But beware. The words Ribera del Duero (and how wonderfully they curl around the mouth) are not a quality promise, as I discovered to my cost in a tapas bar one night last week. The wines I had drunk before had been excellent without exception, lulling me into making the foolish assumption that nothing that might be described as plonk had made its way from the Spanish vineyards to these shores. The bottle I ordered to swill down my hunks of chorizo sausage, crispy patatas bravas and salty anchovies was horribly disappointing.
So, if you're venturing into Ribera territory for the first time, it's worth getting it right. Vega Sicilia, the aforementioned Pesquera del Duero, Felix Callejo and Perez Pascuas are all producers of some repute. So go out and find a couple of bottles, then sit down with some nibbly Spanish things - the stronger the flavour of the food the better, and stick to Serrano ham, Manchego cheese, olives and bread if you can't be bothered - and enjoy.
Post this article to
We want to encourage people to comment on our content and to exchange views with other readers and hope this will be done on a courteous basis. However, if you encounter posts which are offensive please let us know by using the 'report this comment' facility or by emailing comments@newstatesman.co.uk and we will take swift action where necessary.
