|
Primitivo Quiles - Grandes Vinos de España
Primitivo Quiles fits into this section both as a place (the bodega itself) and as people, as the Quiles family has been involved in wine in these parts since the late eighteenth century. The bodega in Monòver (Monóvar in Spanish) is the oldest bodega in Alicante, and probably in all the Comunidad Valenciana. When a visit was suggested, I leapt at the opportunity for a variety of reasons. First, I had read about the bodega, with its enormous, gnarled, century-old barrels, and was keen to see all of this. Secondly, I had heard that the senior Primitivo Quiles is one of the great figures of Spanish wine, both in terms of the trade and as a fund of knowledge of the history of Alicante and Spanish wine. Indeed, the bodega is all liquid history, its Gran Imperial sweet wine is based on soleras going back as far as 1880 that are topped up with Moscatel, while the Fondillón is relatively youthful - its solera starting from 1948, though they possess bottles going back much further. The wonderful wine smells in the bodega are heady enough. The Monòver-born writer Azorín, I was told, used to put a few drops of Fondillón on his handkerchief in Madrid, both as scent and as a reminder of home. The day was memorable from the outset, when we sat and talked to Primitivo Quiles and his sons, Primitivo the younger and Paco. As the chat continued, out came ancient bottles, photographs, log-books, old adverts from the 1920s and 1930s. Primitivo (b. 1934) reminisced about previous Primitivos, his father, grandfather and great-grandfather. We had to tear ourselves away for lunch in Raspay, the pueblo down the road which gives its name to the bodega's remarkable Raspay 'brut' red wine. Lunch was at Casa Ricardo (c. Diputación 1, tel 965478569), where we were allowed to peek into the kitchen and see the paellas being cooked over huge log fires, flames dramatically leaping everywhere. The paella came with the finest layer of rice, under a centimetre deep, and the traditional rabbit and snails. We left the lunch table approaching six o'clock, in proper old-fashioned style, and returned to tour the bodega, and see the great deposits of wine kept under the cellar floor for coolness. Primitivo Quiles buy their wine already fermented, having kept a close eye on their growers, and then undertake the wines' development and production. I tried the honey-coloured Fondillón, made with bright red Monastrell, but aged so long that the colour is leeched out in barrel and a totally different, subtle, sweet yet sharp wine arrives in the glass. One day Fondillón will reclaim its place as one of the great aristocrats among European wines. With lunch we drank, of course, Raspay Reserva. This traditionally-made Monastrell is the embodiment of the bodega's constant devotion to this grape and to the individual character of truly Mediterranean wine. The grapes are from old vines that produce on average just 1 kilo of grapes per plant. This energy compressed into each grape is developed and aged in barrel and in bottle.
I came home with six bottles from Primitivo Quiles, which I am eyeing covetously and thinking how to come up with suitable occasions to try. They include the Raspay and Fondillón already mentioned, along with the renowned Gran Imperial, a couple of bottles of the bodega's Monastrell-Merlot blend from 2004 (this wine represents Primitivo Quiles' reluctant concession to ageing in French and American oak) and, to my great delight, a bottle of Primitivo Quiles Vermouth, which I didn't know about and will add weight to my personal quest to do my bit to promote the recovery of this once-great tradition, where every locality and individual tavern worth its salt produced a distinctive vermouth with its own secret blend of herbs and spices. There is life beyond Martini.
I am rather reeling from the cumulative effect of the bodega and its fumes, Restaurante Casa Ricardo, the Fondillón, the history, and above all a day spent in the company of a family who through the generations have been at the heart of some of the greatest wines in Alicante and all of Spain.
|
