Mighty oak?
The Spanish love it full of oak, the British and the Americans prefer lots of fruit. Can the producers satisfy both camps? Fiona Sims goes in search of the perfect Rioja.
Rioja has had a bit of a roller coaster ride of late. The famous Spanish region won few friends when it hiked up prices in 1999 - while quality was hurtling in the opposite direction. In 2000, exports of Rioja to the UK - the biggest export market - fell by almost a quarter. But things are finally calming down. This year's harvest (a tad smaller than last year's bumper crop) saw the regulatory council encouraging growers to do some green harvesting, which has resulted in more concentrated fruit, with well-balanced acidity and potential alcohol over 13%.
"Rioja has been through a very turbulent time recently. Prices were up by 25% but there was no improvement in the wines - which is not good for the consumer," says export director Victor Charc n at Bodegas Lan.
Which brings us to Rioja's other conundrum - its split personality. The Spanish are obsessed with oak and like to keep the wines in it for as long as possible. The Brits and Americans (also big Rioja drinkers) want more fruit, more colour and more concentration. Enter longer maceration periods and earlier bottling.
So, an increasing number of Rioja producers are trying desperately to keep both markets happy. But that's not as easy as it sounds. The Spanish, apparently, send back the international style because they don't like it.
When it's good - with appealingly sweet vanilla oak and savoury, plummy fruit - Rioja pleases everybody, but the Spanish do tend to like their Rioja on the leathery, dusty side, overlooking any faults (or what we consider to be faults in this age of hi-tech winemaking).
Traditionalists argue that Rioja is in danger of losing its identity, and that in their quest for more concentration, growers are tempted to over-crop, producing wines that are hugely tannic and rather tough on the palate.
An increasing number of producers are discovering the merits of lower yields. The impact it has on Rioja's star grape, Tempranillo, means that it is possible to extract great colour and concentration without having to resort to more unsavoury methods. Result? Concentrated fruit and accessible tannins, balanced with great acidity - perfect with food. "A lot of New World wines do well in tastings and competitions but don't work with food. That's where we have a lot to say," says Tom Perry of the Rioja Wine Exporters Association.
Another rising trend in Rioja is the singling out of prime vineyard lots and the separate vinification of those grapes - as at Bodegas Lan - often followed by maturation in French oak barrels, rather than in the ubiquitous vanillary American oak. "You forget the wine is made of grapes because all you taste is oak - and we want to get away from that," Charc n says.
Bodegas Salceda plans to phase in more French oak. The creaky but perfectly decent family-owned Salceda in Rioja Alavesa was bought by Navarra bigwig Chivite three years ago. The long-term plan is to tear down the winery with its old-fashioned gear and replace the lot with stainless steel. But in the meantime Fernando Chivite has been instituting a few changes - with promising results. The 1998 Salceda Crianza is fabulously fruity, packed with raspberries and plums.
Old embraces new at Bodegas Muga. On the surface, Muga is about as old-fashioned as it gets. You can practically see the trichloroanisole (TCA) spores drooling over all that wood. But there's a new energy about the place - as well as new bits of kit. "We don't have to forget our roots but we need the experience of old eyes and the new technology of the young," says Muga's modest, forward-thinking winemaker Jorge Muga Palac¡n.
But it doesn't get more new wave than at the Campo Viejo-owned Bodegas Ysios. This is the new face of Rioja, with its Gaudi-admiring, Santiago Calatrava-designed winery (Calatrava did the airport at Bilbao) currently under construction near the picturesque town of Laguardia in the heart of Rioja Alavesa. The Scandinavian fir walls and ceiling has already been tested for TCA and the spectacular aluminium roof, get this, "creates a feeling of movement - similar to the changing colours of the vines which surround the building". How New Age. Shame about the wine, though. We tasted the 1998 in the Rioja Exporters Office back in Logro¤o and it failed to excite - but it's early days.
Rioja - the facts
Tempranillo is the big grape in Rioja, representing more than 60% of the denominaci¢n de origen (DO). Next in line is Garnacha Tinta, with 18% of plantings. Mazuelo comes in third, with 3.5%, followed by Graciano, with barely 395 hectares (0.7%). The main white grape in Rioja is Viura, with tiny amounts of Malvasia de Rioja and Garnacha Blancha. This little lot adds up to some 53,000 hectares of vines, spread over the Autonomous Regions of La Rioja, the Basque Country and Navarra. Average annual yield is 190 million litres, 75% of which is red wine, with the rest whites or rosés. Subzones are Rioja Alta, Rioja Alavesa and Rioja Baja. Rioja is also one of the few wines in the world to be held back by producers until ready to drink. Crianza must not be sold until its third year, and spends a minimum of one year in oak casks; Reserva spends at least three years ageing between oak barrel and bottle, with at least one year in cask; Gran Reserva makes an appearance only in the best vintages, and spends a minimum of two years ageing in oak casks and three in bottle.
On the tapas trail
Given Rioja's rough ride recently, sales haven't really suffered in the general scheme of things - people are still drinking it - so the industry has been trying to find ways to broaden Rioja's appeal to both Spanish and foreign tourists, and even to locals.
One of its aims is to encourage interest in those not involved in the winemaking business Hence its "Wine and the Five Senses" campaign involving a series of lectures, exhibitions and other activities, such as this year's Best Pinchos competition.
All restaurants and bars were encouraged to enter their best-selling pinchos (a kind of tapas), the best featured in a booklet. The overall winner was Caf‚ Crema, a smart chrome-decked bar on the edge of the main piazza, which wowed the judges with its courgette and aubergine medley. But what has this got to do with Rioja wine? Well, this is where the bulk of the cosechero wine is drunk - the Beaujolais Nouveau of Spain - drunk in rough glass tumblers. It also just happens to be the perfect accompaniment to pinchos.
With its nucleus in Calle de Laurel in the city's historic centre, many of Logrono's bars specialise in just one type of tapas. There's one, for example, that specialises in mushrooms - Bar Soriano, with its funghi-etched windows. For about Pts200 you get three grilled mushrooms, based with a mixture of oil, lemon and garlic, stacked then skewered on to a slice of bread. Then there's Lorenzo with its "Tio Agus" pinchos - grilled, skewered cubes of paprika-marinated pork tenderloin served on a finger roll and smothered in "grandma's special sauce" (oil, vinegar and mixed herbs). Next up is the tomato bar - El Soldado de Tudelilla - run by a husband-and-wife team who serve up plate after plate of tomatoes, either served plain with onion, or with tuna, anchovies, olives and all the trimmings. The raw onions, in case you're wondering, are soaked in water to tone down their wine-clashing heat. It has another speciality, too: capricho - sardines and mild green chillies squished into bread. Next door is the Elegant bar, run by a women from San Sebastian who serves up scrambled eggs - the Basque way. You get the picture.
Five must-have Riojas for your list
Bodegas Lan Lanciano Reserva 1996 (£174.96, Anthony Byrne 01487 814555)
Bodegas Lan Cum Laude 1996 (released early next year through Anthony Byrne)
Bodegas Muga Reserva 1995 Seleccion Especial (£128.10 x 6, C&D Wines 020 8778 1711)
Torre Muga 1998 (£246.60, C&D Wines)
Bodegas Salceda Crianza 1998 (£71.30, Burridges of Arlington 01293 530151)
All prices per 12 bottle case ex-VAT
