Think of Spanish wine and promptly there comes to mind the peculiar forward taste of the Tempranillo grape, blazing with life but coated with a creamy vanilla mask like the face of a flamenco dancer. Such is the standard Rioja; but even if the combination of oak and Tempranillo works in that uniquely favoured region, this should not be a reason for thinking that it will work elsewhere.
It doesn't work, for example, in the Valdepenas, where "Gran Reserva" may often connote an overdose of flaky make-up, like a stale duenna making mouths in the glass. Nor should it blind us to the fact that there are Spanish wines - and some of the very best - which either blend the Tempranillo with more northern varieties, or avoid it entirely. This we learn from Corney & Barrow's stunning selection, offered through the Wine Club.
These wines are not cheap, but their price is more than matched by their quality. The most interesting is the Bierzo, planted in ancient vineyards along the pilgrims' route to Santiago de Compostela and made from the MencIa grape. This is the wine that the French pilgrims would never drink, bringing with them instead their own supplies of Madiran from the other side of the Pyrenees. Readers of this column may recall the praise that I once lavished on Madiran. I do not retract my former judgement. Nevertheless, Corney & Barrow's Bierzo, expertly made by Descendientes de J Palacios (Alvaro and his nephew Ricardo Perez Palacios), shows that those French pilgrims were wrong to prefer their Tannat grape to the rich and subtle MencIa. Bierzo is grown on chalky foothills so steep that they must be worked by donkey: maybe it was the lingering aroma of equine suffering that caused Sam the Horse to refuse his share. The slopes act as suntraps, producing a deep ruby wine that is both strong and clean - the perfect accompaniment to our indigenous pate.
The Sunday Hill Farm pate, incidentally, is easy to make. De-vein the liver and liquidise it in the mixer. Take an equivalent weight of belly, without the skin but with all the fat, and mash it in the mixer to a creamy paste. Rub the liver and the belly together in a deep pie dish (not possible without using your bare hands), add a crushed clove of garlic, two tablespoons of salt, a glass of gin, herbs, nutmeg, red or green peppercorns, and lots of black pepper. Decorate the top with bay leaves, cover and place in a bain-marie in a baking tin. Cook in a low oven for three hours, making sure that the bain-marie doesn't evaporate completely. Leave it to cool with a weight on top to ensure that it adheres to the bottom of the dish. This works best with the liver of a young pig like Snowball: Napoleon, who had spent an extra six weeks on this earth, and who drank a lot of cheap Valdepenas over Christmas, produced a markedly coarser taste.
Alvaro Palacios is clearly a very dynamic, if not fictitious, grower, since, as well as the Bierzo, he makes the wine from Priorat, at the other end of the country, where hot, dry slopes of black llicorella slate rise steeply above the Mediterranean. This wine is a blend of Grenache, Carinena and Cabernet Sauvignon - each blend vinified separately, and cuvees from old and young vines matured apart until blending. Apparently, 1999 was a difficult year, and Senor Palacios was awake for many nights, keeping vigil on the vats as they seethed and sighed, and no doubt thinking all the while of those other more soothing vats in Bierzo. But the result is a triumph, and a bargain at the price.
Hacienda Monasterio is a blend of Tempranillo with Cabernet Sauvignon, Merlot and Malbec, and is made by a Dane trained in Bordeaux. Yet it is an intensely local product, with real Spanish guts beneath the gallantry and charm. This is an immensely sophisticated wine, which will go on maturing for many years. Compare it with the Rioja Reserva, and you will understand how the Tempranillo grows up when stripped of its vanilla mask and pushed out into society. The four grapes are entwined in each other like the Three Graces, and the effect as enticing as Canova's sculpture.
None of that is to disparage the Rioja. It is as good as its label suggests, with just that hint of iron and leather that Sancho Panza discerned, before a key on a thong was discovered in the bottom of the cask. I wonder if that was the first example in literature of a "tasting note"? If so, how wine writing has declined since Cervantes.
