This has been a few days of fascinating, and highly contrasting, visits to bodegas. Friday 30 March saw me, Bob Yareham (Costa Blanca News' roving reporter, house etymologist and author of the waggish English Beauty), and Pam Smith (of this parish) catch the 10:08 train to Chiva for a visit to the mighty Vicente Gandia. At Chiva, where the operation has its HQ, we were met by Javier Gandía, great-grandson of the founder of the company, and Herman Potgieter, a South African completing his wine studies with a stint at Vicente Gandia, who took us on to the company's lovely finca Hoya de Cadenas in Utiel.
A week before I had been in Alicante visiting the bodega of Primitivo Quiles, where the family's commitment to making excellent wine in traditional fashion predominates. Just a few days before I was in Casa del Pinar near Requena where an Englishman, Philip Diment, makes prize-winning modern wines on a small scale. Vicente Gandia is very different again. It is the largest wine-producer in the Comunidad Valenciana, and one of the oldest. The founder of the dynasty, Vicente Gandía Pla, began shipping wines from the port of Valencia in 1885. The company moved on to making and shipping wines in bulk, and in 1971 began to bottle wines under the brand name Castillo de Liria, which established itself as a hugely successful global brand of well-made, good value wines. I am a particular fan of the Castillo de Liria white (Merseguera and Viura) available at my local Carrefour for an unbeatable 1.39 euros. We know that it is all too easy for the creators of a successful brand to rest on their laurels, devote heaps of money to advertizing and shift huge amounts of increasingly dull, if not downright bad, wine. The great achievement of Vicente Gandia has been to opt continually to build on their position in the market to make better and better wines, under a variety of guises. The Hoya de Cadenas range is a case in point. They purchased this historic winery and surrounding vineyards and have gone on to produce under the Hoya de Cadenas name a Chardonnay-Sauvignon Blanc blend, a Garnacha-Bobal rosé, the mainly Tempranillo Reserva and Reserva Privada (it has 15% Cabernet Sauvignon), and most recently the Hoya de Cadenas Viñas Viejas Bobal. I was at the launch of this wine in October 2006 at Veles e Vents in the Port America's Cup. This wine is a good example of the company's commitment both to quality and to innovation. The Bobal grape is Utiel-Requena's flagship varietal, for which high hopes have long been held. After a prolonged period of research and development, Vicente Gandia have produced a wine that satisfies their requirements to both quality and broad appeal. At the same time, they are using the established strength of the Hoya de Cadenas name and resources to back this grape, making another major contribution to wine in the Comunidad Valenciana and Utiel-Requena in particular.
We tasted the Hoya de Cadenas range, along with the other premium wines El Miracle, Ceremonia, Generación 1, and the magnificent (and great value) sweet Fusta Nova. It was generally agreed that the next release of Hoya de Cadenas Viñas Viejas Bobal would turn out to be even better than the first. We moved on from the tasting, with our fellow tasters Brenda and Douglas of Paquita's Country Club in Denia, back to Chiva and the Pelegri Restaurant. Here we had the most magnificent, multi-course nouvel cuisine lunch, suitably accompanied by Hoya de Cadenas wines (and Fusta Nova with pudding).
I can't think of many other big companies who would have the company president's son and another company representative devote a whole day to five members of the public who are not big shot wine trade professionals. It speaks volumes for the enthusiastic attention to detail that characterizes Vicente Gandia. I only hope that our lunch didn't adversely affect Javier's performance in the 'padel' match that he was going on to play immediately afterwards.
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