Pasamonte (Garnacha Tintorera) from Vegalafaro

Always eager for a break in my routine, I said yes straight away. As ever, there were arrands to be run. We dropped off some stuff at Dominio de la Vega. I seem to have come away with a bottle of their Artemayor Cava Brut Nature 2004/5 without quite knowing how, which was nice – the usual generosity of Alvaro Faubel and the rest of the team at D de la V.

It was by now after 9:00 so obviously time for an “almuerzo popular” in Requena, as with any self-respecting working man. So, we worked away through a foot-long sandwich each, washed down with vino con gaseosa. It came in a jug, but there was much sage identifying of it as Bobal. The photographer was going crazy as the early morning light was being replaced by glare, but there was no hurrying us and we simply muttered “Photoshop”

Then off to Vegalfaro, whose Garnacha Tintorera vines we were to inspect and photograph. Here Rodolfo Valiente is doing great things with this grape in his Pasamonte red (and interesting things with Sauvignon Blanc in his Pasamonte white). The founder of the Bodega, Rodolfo’s father Andrés,  kindly and proudly drove us down rocky tracks in his Range Rover until we arrived at the selected vineyard. Various measurements, technical details and photos were taken, while I looked important holding measuring tapes and such. Then back to the bodega for some white Pasamonte and freshly cut jamón under the pines behind the vineyard.

There was just time to be handed a bottle each of red and white Pasamonte, then I was back at home well before lunchtime (though still with a vivid memory of the almuerzo and no desire for lunch). Once I was back at the darned computer screen dealing it all seemed like a dream, with just the bottles close to hand to show that the morning had been fruitful.

I think that being in Valencia, VIN365 and their wines are entitled to be written about in winesofvalencia.com. It is a truism that wine-producing countries tend to sell and drink their own stuff, and that you get a more eclectic range of wines in places like the UK that are not major producers, but sometimes you really feel like something that is not cut from the same cloth.

VIN365 Uncork the world

So, off we went to VIN365′s base 10 minutes away in Alfafar to see and collect what was coming my way. It so happens that Julio and his wife Jacqueline (interestingly, both born in Canada to Spanish parents) are pioneers of self-storage in Valencia, setting up Trasteros Públicos when no one was offering a service like this in the city. Now there are several faceless corporations on the scene, but you won’t find the owners in the office (or painting the second-storey outside walls, as Julio was today), not only keeping an eye on everything but making sure that customers and the general public are greeted with a smile and all the information they need. He also knows a hell of a lot about wine if you care to ask him, having done all sorts of courses back in Canada.

As I said to Jacqueline, I’d never actually been to a storage company before, and the image I’ve always had of dank lock-ups redolent of murky business couldn’t be further from reality. It’s all plasma screens, air-conditioning and swipe cards. The unit in which the wine is stored is temperature controlled. The upstairs area is set up as a place that you can have meetings in – a sort of temporary office. I kind of wish we hadn’t got rid of so many possessions when we moved to Spain, and that we had enough stuff to store in a unit.

Back to the wine. Pieter, like so many wine people, is an enthusiast as well as a businessman, so he couldn’t stop himself from giving me far more than we had initially agreed. I didn’t even have to carry anything, as I was entrusted with holding his charming but fidgety Turco Andaluz (Spanish Water Dog) puppy, Mora. There are few things better than being in an air-conditioned space during a heatwave watching someone carryboxes of wine that they mean to give to you.

So, to keep me going during the summer, I have just unpacked the following:

Australia:

Balgownie Estate Bendigo Cabernet Sauvignon 2005
Balgownie Estate Bendigo Shiraz 2006
Balgownie Estate Pinot Noir 2007
Western Estate Shiraz/Petit Verdot 2006
Westend 3 Bridges Cabernet Sauvignon 2006
Westend 3 Bridges Durif 2007 (obscure grape variety)
Westend 3 Bridges 2005 Golden Mist Botrytis (mmmm…sweet)
Calabria Private Bin Oak-aged Saint Macaire 2007 (another variety new to me)
Westend Estate Richland Viognier 2008
Westend Estate Richland Cabernet/Merlot 2007
Westend Estate Richland Shiraz 2008
Westend Estate Richland Cabernet Sauvignon 2006
Westend Estate Richland Chardonnay 2008
Westend Estate Richland Pinot Grigio 2008
Westend Estate Richland Merlot 2008
Outback Shiraz 2006
Outback Chardonnay 2007

Chile:

Porta Reserva Cabernet Sauvignon 2007
Porta Select Reserva Cabernet Sauvignon 2007
Porta Reserva Merlot 2007
Porta Reserva Carménère 2007
Porta Reserva Chardonnay 2006
Casa Porta Winemaker Chardonnay 2009
Casa Porta Winemaker Cabernet Sauvignon 2009
Casa Porta Winemaker Merlot 2009
Casa Porta Winemaker Sauvignon Blanc 2009
Veranda Pinot Noir 2007
Veranda Cabernet-Carménère 2006 (wrapped in tissue and obviously special)

South Africa:

Myriad (Port-style fortified blend of Pinot Noir and Merlot, looks rather wonderful)

DO Utiel-Requena:

All rounded off with two bottles from Vegalfaro (after I translated a backlabel for them at Pieter’s request):  the barrel-fermented Vino de Finca Chardonnay-Sauvignon Blanc 2008 plus a mystery red in a bottle without a label.

Not bad for a bit of translating – if only school homework was incentivized this way it might not have seemed such an imposition.

The event was held at the 8th floor restaurant of the El Corte Inglés on Av. Francia, with its terrace overlooking the Ciutat de les Arts i de les Ciències.  There was a worrying array of men in suits at the head table, but their speeches were short, impassioned (in the case of the heads of Valencia’s 3 Denominaciones de Origen: Alicante, Utiel-Requena and Valencia), and some were very funny – the guy from the Academia de Gastronomía de la Comunidad Valenciana. It was good to see Joan’s 30 years of devotion to the cause of Valencian wine, both as wine writer and winemaker, being celebrated. The West Indian intellectual C.L.R. James famously asked, “What do they know of cricket who only cricket know?”, and so it is with Joan that his writing goes beyond wine to span life and literature, wisdom and folly.

Invitation to Joan Martín Book Launch

After the talks, the assembled company was invited out onto the terrace to enjoy some of the wines mentioned in the book. I wasn’t able to do the rounds, as I had been called by Bodega Primitivo Quiles (the Comunitat’s oldest winery) to say that they weren’t able to make it and could I lend a hand and look after their stand. I was delighted to do this, as I love their classically traditional wines and I have a lot of kindnesses to repay them.

After wrestling with the pull-up banner I saw that in addition to the 3 wines they had said they’d provide – their sweet Moscatel “Extra Extra”, the moderni-style Monastrell-Merlot “Roble”, their eternal Monastrell “Raspay” Reserva – the delivery company had mistakenly left 6 bottles of their historic Fondillón Gran Reserva Solera 1948. I was a bit nervous about opening this liquid treasure, but the public is no fool, and they made a beeline for these bottles. Some had never tried the region’s unique wine, and having heard Joan refer to it as the embodiment and pinnacle of the region’s ancient wine tradition, now was their chance.

We have several Russian friends visiting, who have a discerning sweet tooth, and the dark, golden, luscious “Extra Extra” hit their collective spot.

One woman offered to marry me, mistakenly thinking I was Primitivo Quiles in person and could get her a lifetime’s supply of the Raspay, I had to confess that I was an impostor but that she could get hold of the wine, for under 7 euros a bottle, at Bodegas Santander‘s two outlets in Valencia.

I didn’t even have to carry the remaining bottles, as Sergei used to work in a  circus throwing hefty Russian acrobats and Russo-Californian sun-worshipper Greg Orduyan, when not creating amazing computer animation, is to be found doing press-ups on the beach, and they insisted on carrying everything. I held the banner ahead of them, though.

A great event, and I was sorry not to reacquant myself with the wines of the other bodegas, listed below (apologies to any I’ve missed out):

Dominio de la Vega

Finca San Blas

Heretat de Cesilia

Vicente Gandia

La Casa de las Vides

Chozas Carrascal

Hoya del Castillo

Coviñas

Vegalfaro

Bocopa

Hispano-Suizas

I don’t know if pregnancy had anything to do with their opening surprise last night, but we were asked to blind taste a white wine that was described as “experimental”. I thought it might be a white wine made with Bobal, the signature red grape of Utiel-Requena and Pagos del Molino, but it was too floral and delicate for that.

Bunch of Bobal grapes (from Wikipedia)

It was very pale and clear, and tasty and refreshing, if a tad diluted. I wondered if they were doing something clever with a local white variety like the Tardana. To our collective surprise (all save one member who had spotted it) they announced that it was a Moscatel and Macabeo blend (50% each) with negligible 0.5% alcohol.

The removal of alcohol is done by some modern process I didn’t fully understand that does not involve heating the wine, hence retaining more aromas (the Moscatel is there among other reasons to boost the aromatic levels). But there it was, a virtually alcohol-free wine. The market they have in mind is made up of drivers, pregnant women, diabetics (the wine is made with sweetener rather than sugar and has only 6 calories per 100 ml). If the remarkable success of alcohol-free beer in Spain is anything to go by (Spain is the leading consumer in Europe where “cerveza sin” accounts for 15% of the market), they’re on to a winner. It was released in early 2010. As it was a blind tasting, I never caught the name, but I’ll find out.

The other two wines were more familiar. First up was “Fussión de Bobal” 2005 (that is how Fussión appears on the label, despite the temptation to write Fusión). As the name suggests, here we have more than just Bobal. Much more, with Bobal, Merlot, Syrah, Petit Verdot, Cabernet Sauvignon and Cabernet Franc all in there. The Bobal is from a century-old vineyard and is the only one of the varieties aged in oak for this wine. It was hefty, chewy wine, for me the tannins rather overpowered the fruit. It may have been the cold weather, but I found it a bit unapproachable and lacking in roundness. Perhaps given a bit more time and a few degrees Centigrade I’d warm to it more.

The last wine was a beauty. Arras de Bobal 2004 is 100% Bobal, again from very old vines. They express their passion and ambition for the grape with this wine, only making it in good years (so don’t bother looking for the 2006 and 2008 vintages in future).

Olga and Adela at Vicente Flors

Olga and I got the train so that we wouldn’t have to be making anxious calculations while enjoying Vicente’s Clotàs Tempranillo over lunch. Also Olga had never been to the town of Castellón. We caught the 9:32 at El Cabanyal Station in Valencia. I always enjoy how the line heading north emerges straight into huerta, the market farms that until recently surrounded and distinguished Valencia. A glimpse of a world that has almost gone.

Once past Sagunto and on into the province of Castellón, things become more industrial. Castellón is famous for its ceramic industry, which has been hard hit by the economic crisis. Few people know that Castellón was once internationally famous for its wine. When Olga told her dog-walking gang in the Parque Turia that she was visiting a winery there, they suggested she must have got it wrong. And this group includes some passionate Valencian patriots.

They don’t know how wrong they are. Vicente is a living embodiment of that tradition. Though he worked in banking until taking early retirement a few years ago, his bodega was lived in and worked by his grandfather, and his father carried on the winemaking. As we drove up towards Les Useres, Vicente pointed out ruined bodega after ruined bodega.

Old tools at Vicente Flors

Vicente Flors at the Bodega

Vicente could remember when there had been more vineyards than anything else, after the replanting at the end of the Civil War, and he’s no Methuselah. Indeed he is terrifyingly energetic. He works the almost 10 hectares of vineyards himself, doing all the pruning, the turning of the soil, the ceaseless vigilance, with the assistance of one local farmer, Pedro. Vicente says he is as happy as a sandboy working outside in his vineyards in this delightful valley with its wine-friendly microclimate. I have to say that his vines were noticeably more kempt than many of the others that we saw, that are kept up haphazardly, often by people who inherited land, but can only now work it rather haphazardly at weekends and such.

We visited the old family home and winery, that he is doing up as bodega and visitors’ centre. He has casks of French and American oak, and there are also gleaming old agricultural tools and machinery that had remained in the house. Adela, his wife, had yet to visit the upper part of the house since work started turning it into an office and visitor-cum-tasting area. It is going to have a great view from the back out across the hill-surrounded plain. The ever-restless Vicente is going to plant Garnacha on his land immediately behind the bodega.

We had time to see a couple more “parcelas” of old Monastrell, and then it was off to lunch at a restaurant that our host described as “algo peculiar”. I assumed that we were headed to some outpost of molecular gastronomy, but it turned out to be just the opposite. “Pou de Beca” is, as well as a restaurant adhering to the principles of the Slow Food movement, an “Espai Cultural Obert” (Open Cultural Space). It has art exhibitions, but the cultural aspect stretches further.

The restaurant is run by a cooperative of like-minded friends. We were served by Nicolás. The menu has a fifty-year old photo on the back showing his father and other friends and family, Nicolás told us how back then they had one of the few TVs around, and his father used to hang a white sheet outside when there was bullfighting being shown, and down everyone would come to watch the stars of the corrida in action.

Now it is a restaurant that is committed to local and seasonal produce, prepared respectfully and imaginatively. My starter of artichoke carpaccio was delicious and everything from cheeses, sundry meats to the assorted plate of puddings was authentic yet elegant. Poor old Vicente is not drinking alcohol these days (and they wouldn’t contemplate serving his preferred alternative, Coca-Cola, at Pou de Beca), so Adela, Olga and I enjoyed his powerfully inky and fragrant Clotàs, while he could only sniff his glass occasionally and forlornly. Vicente is one of those people who seems to know everybody. As a result of eating with him, Nicolás gave me a bottle of the wine that he makes for his own consumption, but sadly in the excitement I left it behind. Still it’s a good excuse to go again.

In a final gesture of hospitality, Vicente and Adela gave us a quick tour of the centre of the town of Castellón, before we caught the train home. Unfortunately, this was a slow train and we were too late to watch that night’s broadcast of “Dossiers” on Canal Nou, which was all about wine in the Comunitat Valenciana, and included an interview with Vicente, along with such superstar winemakers of the region as Quique Mendoza, Daniel Belda, Toni Sarrión, Rafa Cambra, Pablo Calatayud et al. Vicente’s is a romantic project involving the recovery of a local and family tradition, but it is serious winemaking and seriously good wine. It was a treat to have such a out of the ordinary Sunday in the country just an hour away from Valencia. We can’t wait to do it all over again.

Castellón wine tasting

Outside the region’s three main Denominaciones de Origen (Alicante, Utiel-Requena and Valencia) there is another area that has a long history of winemaking — Castellón. This tradition was all but obliterated in the 19th and 20th centuries, but the process of recovery is well under way. Vins de la Terra de Castelló (VdeTC) was established in 2005 as an Indicación Geográfica Protegida. “Vinos de la Tierra” is a strange category. In the Comunitat Valenciana it is a status adhered to by one of the region’s grandest bodegas, Bodega Mustiguillo, which is in Utiel, but has rather magnificently opted to remain outside DO Utiel-Requena as the sole bodega in its own Vino de la Tierra El Terrerazo. Mostly, Vinos de la Tierra status is a rung below Denominación de Origen, along the lines of France’s “Vins de Pays”.

Castellón is a bit of a Cinderella in Valencian wine terms, with its three larger DO sisters, but every year Guzmán Orero, secretary of VdeTC and the man behind the wines of Masía de la Hoya, is a buzzing bundle of enthusiasm at the VdeTC stand at the Mostra de Vins, Caves, Licors i Aliments Tradicionals that takes place in the old Turia river each spring. So, it was a particular pleasure to be invited by Enocata.com to attend a wine event set in the imposing Antiguo Casino (built in 1814) of Castellón — apparently the first official wine tasting event open to the public to be held in the town. This was organized by the Asociación de Sumilleres de Castellón y Provincia (ASUCAP), whose 50-odd members had a blind-tasting of Castellón’s wines in November 2009, and selected the highest-ranking 14 wines (from 9 bodegas) for presentation to the public on Saturday January 30, 2010. It was good to see several hundred people in the Casino gardens really paying attention to and enjoying their local wines.

The bodegas included:

Bodega Vicente Flors
Bodegas Vega Palancia
Mas de Rander
Viñedos y Bodegas Mayo García
Vinos Masía de la Hoya
Bodega Sanjuán
Bodegas y Viñedos Baron d’Alba
Bodegas Vinya Natura
Bodega Bocoi

I very much enjoyed the wines, which were mostly reds, and the bottles that linger most clearly in my memory are the Clotàs from Vicente Flors, the Vega Palancia Etiqueta Negra, the Selección from Masía de la Hoya, and the Magnanimus from Mayo García.

There’s a lot to be said for wines like these from areas that are on the fringes of today’s wine map. The people who make them tend to be passionate about what they do and their locality. The battles they have fought and continue to fight to get recognition for their wines have steeled them to produce the best wines they can. I thoroughly recommend keeping an eye out for the wines of Castellón, and also visiting the city and province. This was my first proper visit, and I know that there is plenty more to discover, gastronomically and otherwise. The next day there were some 12,000 people on the streets of Benicarló — once famous for its wine — celebrating the “Demostración Gastronómica de la Alcachofa de Benicarló” as part of their annual artichoke festival. I look forward to exploring all such possibilities more fully.

I did just as he said, and there he was in full flow, with jolly and eager audience engaging with the wines Miguel Ángel had brought for the group. I was shy of joining in mid-session, despite his waving me over, and I am always drawn to a proper bar you can lean on and, in my case, bore the staff. I was doubly fortunate, as Marta behind the bar was tolerant and friendly, but also offered fascinating snippets of her professional life as an underwater photographer. Having been advised by the Spanish Embassy to leave Honduras following the recent coup, she decided to come back to Valencia and do a degree in her subject. It struck me she should be teaching it.

Anyway, I was delighted to see that Cava Siglos has a blackboard with the wines offered by the glass. Until this becomes a widespread practice Valencia will continue to be a place where asking for a glass of wine is a bit like Russian roulette. I ordered a glass of one the always dependable and enjoyable cavas from Dominio de la Vega (2.60 euro) to act as a bridge between the Club de Enófilos and Cava Siglos.

I was enjoying this, when Miguel Ángel popped by with one of his bottles, offering me a chance to taste it. I couldn’t refuse, and the next thing I had a pale gold glass of Muga Fermentado en Barrica 2008 in my hand. Cask-fermented whites can be rather overpowering, but this 90% Viura (aka Macabeo) and 10% Malvasía blend combined a rich viscosity with freshness and delicacy. It was voted best in its class at Enoforum 2009, where Spain’s winemakers blind-taste each other’s wines, and is still going strong in 2010.

Justifiably excited by the wines he’d laid on, Miguel Ángel was back immediately with another wine from Rioja, Cantos de Valpiedra 2006, a new wave Rioja from Familia Martínez Bujanda, all brightness and fruit with less emphasis on oak. There is plenty of acidity, and it should soften further in bottle, but I found this a fine, fresh and sinewy wine.

Hot on its heels came a Vino de la Tierra de Castilla y León, Leione 2006. This wine is made with Prieto Picudo, one of those previously little-known Spanish grape varieties that are busily bringing colour and variety to the country’s wines. These are not mere novelties. This wine has 91 points from Robert Parker’s “Wine Advocate“. The grape is really interesting. It lends itself to making quite light wines, and this was a really enjoyable flowery, fresh, cheerful red wine, but also with good ageing possibilities. This example had an extra something, helped on its way by its 9 months in cask. A very interesting and highly enjoyable wine, two qualities that do not always go together. I’m keeping an eye out for more of this wine and others from Dominio Dos Tares and the (elder) sister bodega Dominio de Tares (Denominación de Origen Bierzo).

We weren’t done yet. Thankfully, Marta had silently placed a lemony and palate-cleansing tapa of carpaccio de solomillo in front of me, which prepared me for Enrique Mendoza Petit Verdot 2005 (DO Alicante). Señor Mendoza blazed the trail for Petit Verdot in Alicante, where this late-ripening variety mainly associated with Bordeaux is thriving. This wine is supple and fresh, but also offered plenty of structure in an appealing blend of ripe fruit and substance. An imposing wine to round off an evening that went on a lot longer than I originally expected.

I’m sure Miguel Ángel’s students enjoyed his very wide-ranging and impressive choice of wines as much as I did. His group included the owner of Cava Siglos. It is great to have a place in the heart of the old quarter which is not only elegant, with an excellent wine list and a nice selection of wines by the glass, but with friendly and charming people running it, too. I can’t wait to go back.

This Olivastro 2008 (it means oleaster and was how a particular bit of the family vineyards was referred to) showed us another side of the Bobal. It is produced by the just-established family winery, Bodega y Viñedos Carres (website forthcoming), and is the first vintage from José Luis Torres Carpio, another of the young winemakers that the Club does such a good job of bringing to our attention. The wine is made from grapes from the small vineyard tended by his father and grandfather before him (and his grandfather’s father and grandfather before that) in a corner of Requena with the wonderful name Casas de Eufemia (some 160 inhabitants).

What this amounts to is that José Luis has not only known these vineyards since he was a toddler, he has also absorbed the knowledge of his forebears. Though trained as a winemaker, of course, it was wonderful to hear him talking about how he combines his training with what these fifty-year old vines “say” to him. He uses no fertilizers nor does he irrigate. He uses no yeasts in the wine beyond those that appear naturally. He is drawn to biodynamic and organic ideas, but as yet hasn’t decided whether he wants to align himself formally with those practices and go for certification.

In an expression of his love for the Bobal, he has decided to make a wine that maximizes the essence of the grape through carbonic maceration. Whole, hand-picked grapes are fermented in a dry ice environment before the lightest of pressings.

The wine rests in containers before being passed into oak casks. As before, José Luis doesn’t want to be constrained and categorized by the norms of the Denominación de Origen, so he doesn’t identify the wines as “crianza” on the label, though they spend long enough in oak to qualify, some nine months in the case of this first vintage.

The result is a wine that combines the immediate brightness of flavour and fruit (strawberries with, I thought, a touch of plum and that pleasanter-than-it-sounds hint of bubble-gum I often find in carbonic maceration wines), with the greater substance offered by the Bobal as compared to the classic carbonic maceration Gamays of Beaujolais. There is then the additional complexity from the wood ageing. Add in the Bobal’s famously intense colour, and there is a lot to this package. This is a carbonic maceration wine with knobs on, a wine that is not made to fade away after its first spring, as is often the case with this method.

Finally, the women of the club made a particular point of saying how much they liked the artwork on the label. I must buy a bottle and get a photo for this page, which shouldn’t be too painful at around 8 euros. There is something really enjoyable about being introduced to a brand new wine, especially one made with such craft and devotion. I wish this new bodega and its winemaker all the very best.

It was particularly good of Castell de Sorells to provide us with their Castell de Sorells Cava Brut, as this time of year is naturally frenzied for the wine world in general, and Cava especially. There were three representatives from Castell de Sorells (Víctor, Fran and Antonio) despite an assortment of colds and sore throats. Perhaps something to do with working in a winery that is a replica of a 15th-century castle. They explained to all and sundry that this Cava, a snip at under 7.00 euros, had been disgorged (when the yeasts and sediment from the second fermentation are frozen in the bottle’s neck where they’ve gathered and removed and the cork put in) only the day before. This was a reserva from 2006 (though this is not stated on the label) so it had been given plenty of time to develop subtleties and generally come together. The fizz was matched with Eddie of Tahine’s exotic bon bon of foie coated in Peta Zetas® (popping candy).You can then fascinate your guests with a detailed explanation of how and why Castell de Sorells is the only Valencian Cava producer allowed to make Cava outside the area of Requena.

From this longest-standing Cava producer in Valencia we moved on to what must be the youngest bodega, Bodega Sánchez Zahonero. I’ve written about Alfonso and his L’Essència elsewhere in these pages, and it was a pleasure to have this energetic, enthusiastic and gold medal-winning young winemaker at the event, with Lorena and a brother who looked identical to him under the soft lighting and after a glass or two – though not to Lorena, one hopes. Again, Eddie broke with conventions with the two red wines, by matching this vibrant young wine with marinaded red tuna with wasabi. Absolutely delicious.

And the third wine was an old favourite in every sense, the Raspay reserva 2003 from Primitivo Quiles. The family has been involved in the wine trade of Alicante since the eighteenth century, and they make their Monastrell wine the old-fashioned way. This hasn’t prevented it from being awarded 90 points bby Robert Parker‘s “Wine Advocate”. You should try Googling this wine and see how US and other international wine sites rave about how distinctive and unusual and magnificent it is in a world of global homogenous wines. It is not that easy to get hold of in Valencia, however, and it was a great help to have José Luis Llorens of Bodegas Santander (and their excellent sister shop Beals), the only stockists, to tell people all about it. I thought that this highly distinctive wine might not be to everyone’s taste, but it went down a storm, to my delight. There was the added excitement of a sort of light show in the form of Eddie and colleagues’ live flambéeing of langoustines, another unexpected and successful combination.

We’ll see those who sign up in time at the January event. Can’t wait to see what Eddie comes up with to match the wines I’m setting out to find.

At the 2009 edition of Effervescents du Monde®: ” held in Dijon on 19-20 November, among the 3 Golds and 10 Silvers awarded to the Spanish sparkling wines were a Gold medal to Cava Luna de Murviedro Brut (the first Cava from the powerhouse Murviedro bodega, made with 100% Macabeo, it was launched in December 2008 ).

There were two Silver medals. One went to good old Reymos with its cheap as chips Charmat-method sparkling Moscatel (Moscatel Reymos Brut, DO Valencia). I always think that this is a really cheering drink to pick up at the supermarket when I don’t feel like splashing out. Apart from the allure of the bargain price, it is sweet without being cloying, and its 7.5% alcohol means that you’re unlikely to run amok. The second was another feather in the cap of Castell dels Sorells with their Cuvée Saten Gran Reserva Brut Nature 2003, after its Bronze at the Decanter World Wine Awards 2009

A jury consisting of Asian wine experts blind-tasted and judged the first best Spanish wines for Asia competition, “Challenge to the Best Spanish Wines for Asia”, gauging the wines in the context of Asian tastes and cuisines. Among the 14 Gold medallists were the Peñas Negras 2005 from Bodegas Emilio Clemente from DO Utiel-Requena (good luck with their weird website, which made me feel like I’d already had a few too many) and Finca del Mar 2008 from regional giant Bodegas Vicente Gandia (DO Valencia), whose wines can be found all over the world. Onward and upward, then for wines of varying styles from the Comunitat Valenciana, and congratulations to the respective bodegas.