A disproportionate percentage of my life has been spent focusing on the wines of France. In my defence I should add that when I was young there was only a limited number of Cape wines available in Johannesburg and most of my parents’ friends had European connections, and a taste for Burgundy. By the time I had to start making grown-up decisions about my future, French wines were already properly entrenched.
However, one of the more indulgent of my parents’ friends often served a wine from Rioja. It came from a firm called “Marques de Romerol” and every bottle I ever saw (over a period of more than 15 years, and at least 15 years after the apparent vintage date) announced proudly that it had been produced from the 1958 harvest. Since none of us knew whether this was supposed to be a famous year in Northern Spain, and since every bottle was equally good, the claim was largely immaterial as far as we were concerned.
Following my post-graduate studies, I spent a year in France, based in Montpellier but with time enough to get to know Bordeaux, Burgundy and the Rhône Valley, as well, of course, as the wines of the Midi. But Montpellier is only a few hours drive from Spain, where my student budget had infinitely more buying power.
I soon discovered there was vastly more to the wines of Spain than Rioja, though never once did I consider Rioja as an appellation for entry level wines. This was partly because of my early introduction to the wines of the Marques de Romerol, followed some years later by the great granddaddy of the region, Marques de Riscal.
Notwithstanding several trips in most years to France, and from time to time to Italy and Germany, I have managed to find time to discover an increasingly broad selection of what are now considered “new wave” Spanish wines, many from the oldest appellations in the Iberian Peninsula.
I only wish there was a bigger market in South Africa for Spanish wine: there are so many exciting nooks and crannies, so many regions with vineyards that average between 50 and 80 years of age (and a few still from the 19th century, still planted on original rootstocks), that I could source hundreds of fabulous and largely inexpensive wines if only enough wine drinkers cared to sample them.
The selection we offer has grown dramatically over the years: following on from Marques de Riscal, we have since discovered fabulous sherries from Gonzalez Byass, more Riojas from Beronia and Chavarri, a couple of delicious reds from Bodegas Maeste in the Ribeiro del Duero, extraordinary wines from Piedra in the Toro region to the northwest of Madrid (where vines are often over a century old), the Edetaria wines from the Terras Altas (which, as the name suggests, are high lying vineyards with ancient grenache vines), gems made from Albarino in the Rías Baixas, Carignan blends from Carinena (the oldest appellation in Spain) and beautifully polished reds and whites from Bierzo.
