For this week only the Rioja Government (not Rioja wines alone this time) is sponsoring a showcase of food and wine (and olive oil) at the amazing National Geographic store. There is a tasting table by the door that starts pouring samples at 4pm and also gives you sample tapas. I believe that at 6:30pm there is also a proper wine tasting upstairs. Last night it was being hosted by John Radford (he literally wrote the book on Spanish wines).

The people behind this seemed very nice and genuine, although I think the pouring staff from National Geographic were not quite ready for all the questions they imediately received from grateful shoppers. I enjoyed stepping in to help – there were Americans, Italians, Brits and more all at the table within 5 minutes.

If you go along, look out for the wines from Dinastia Vivanco and Carlos Serres that are supporting this event. The wines change every day so no idea what you will get!

Have fun, and Happy Christmas!

I hadn’t planned another post quite so soon (after all, I wouldn’t want to spoil you and have you expect me to post THAT regularly) but I awoke to some wonderful news which I thought I would share.

Julia Harding MW, who is the main contributor to JancisRobinson.com other than Jancis herself, just wrote an interesting article and tasting notes on “Variety in Rioja“, including a review of a range of single varietal wines of Graciano, Garnacha, Mazuelo, Maturana Tinta (I think I’ve had the white but not the red) and of course, Tempranillo.

I’m not sure of the rules about republishing the details of the article as it is a subscriber-only Purple Pages article, but of the 31 wines reviewed, the highest rated 3 wines scored 18 points and 6 scored 17.5 points. The Coleccion Vivanco Graciano 2005 was one that scored 18 points and the Coleccion Vivanco Garnacha 2005 scored 17.5- a great recognition for these wonderful wines which, unfortunately are available in very small quantities and therefore sell out very quickly.

If you are a subscriber to JancisRobinson.com I recommend checking out the article for a list of some great Rioja wines (there are quite a few here I have not tried and will seek out). Oh, and if you have come here as this site was recommended as a stockist, I’m afraid I do not sell the wines, but please do contact the other stockists mentioned – Bibendum Wine Ltd and D. Byrne Fine Wines

A great bit of news and recognition to take us into 2009 and hopefully the start of even more interest in these wines (look out for an event in the near future where I will introduce the latest vintage of these wines).

Happy New Year!

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Hope you all had a Merry Christmas, and I wish everyone a great Hogmanay

I thought I’d get at least one brief post in over the holidays.

I first need to congratulate Caroline, of Caroline’s Miscellany, for winning the case of 6 bottles of Dinastia Vivanco Crianza to help make a great vinous start to 2009. Caroline was the lucky winner who posted her thoughts on the recent tasting of wines with the London Bloggers, and I’m still grateful to everyone for all the great feedback on the wines. I hope to support more such tastings in 2009, so look out for more opportunities to taste the wines of Dinastia Vivanco.

Secondly, I have to report a certain sadness that the Rioja “bug” does not seem to have taken hold in Canada YET. The selection of Rioja’s available to buy here are very limited, both in Nova Scotia and in Ottawa. There is the ubiquitous Campo Viejo of course, but not much else. However, I was lucky enough to find a Marques de Riscal Reserva 2004 ($24.70) and a Muga Reserva 2004 ($24.95) in a specialist outpost of the LCBO (How romantic is that? The Liquor Control Board of Ontario) so I could share some Rioja wines with my family at Christmas.

I think I ought to make it a mission to attract more Canadian readers to this blog so that they can be better served with selections of interesting Rioja wines, and, you never now, maybe get Dinastia Vivanco listed so you can enjoy them too?

I hope that 2008 has been a good year for you and, despite the gloomy predictions everywhere, that 2009 is better yet.

I was not the happiest person on the planet at that moment, I will admit. However, I will get back to it as soon as possible, I promise.

Coming up are write-ups of visits to (click on the links to get a preview of the photos):

• Bodegas Ontañon
• Bodegas Roda
• Bodegas Campillo
• Bodegas La Rioja Alta
• Bodegas CVNE (Compañia Vinicola del Norte de España – or Cune for short)

I will also finally get around to posting some thoughts on the 2008 vintage in Rioja (I need to chat to some more winemakers first, to get their reactions), and some thoughts on Rioja Tourism.

In exciting, and developing news, I have been invited to speak at the Wine Pleasures Conference on Wine Tourism in January. I will be speaking about Tourism in Rioja, a subject I am totally under-qualified for, but for which I am a great proponent. I promise to do my best!

Back soon!

The Dinastia Vivanco Online Documentation Centre Wins International ‘Best Of’ Wine Tourism Award for Art & Culture

What’s that I hear you ask! Well, not content with making wine, they are investing in all sorts of wonderful projects to encourage us to appreciate wine in all its aspects – after all, wine has been important in history, religion, film, literature and art too, and not just something to drink.

So they’ve been collecting all sorts of documents, including some absolutely AMAZING books that pre-date the year 1501 called “incunables“, and making these available online. In fact, they are even digitising these books (as Google has been doing elsewhere) so everyone might be able to access them.

So now I get to write about something totally different, and if this interests you, check out the wine documentation centre here.

And to top it off, the international ‘Best Of’ Wine Tourism Awards (run by the Network of Great Wine Capitals) just named it the most important project in wine Art & Culture of 2008. Pretty nifty!

So, if you are doing research or publishing anything and are looking for some resources, documents, books, pictures, audiovisual material and more, you might want to check out the Dinastia Vivanco Online Documentation Centre.

Let me know what other categories to include and keep an eye out for.

I’m including these main categories for the moment:

• Free WiFi :: there seems to be a good range of places
• Restaurants :: the one’s I’ve tried personally
• Late Night Bars :: with an emphasis on those open weeknights – they all seem to open late on weekends
• Free Parking

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I’m here in the Dinastia Vivanco winery with my camera, my flip, my laptop, my mobile(s) … every blogging gadget imaginable and trying to get some of the sense of the activity onto this blog to share with you.

This morning the sorting table was busy with the first red grapes picked for the Coleccion Vivanco range – Tempranillo from the Tudelilla vineyards.

Even the discarded stems are beautiful!

The vintage is already a few weeks behind schedule this year thanks to the cool weather, and now that the grapes are ripe, the goal is to get them in before the weather changes and there is any more rain.

Blogging is supposed to be multimedia, and I love photography (never said I was good at it though), but video is a new tool for me. However, I’ve bought the flip, so I am going to use it!

I’ve uploaded my first YouTube videos of the grape sorting table in action, and I have a few more to add – worth a watch to see the manual effort involved in making a quality Rioja.

I’m also adding some photos from the vineyards that surround the winery and museum.

I LOVE this time of year!

I’m now in Rioja and I am not here on a pre-planned trip that takes up most of my time (as usually happens) so I have lots of opportunities to explore new places.

In fact, I’ve already had my first “new” experience as I decided to bring my UK car rather than hire one as I usually do. It meant either driving through France and Spain, or taking the ferry all the way to Bilbao from Portsmouth.

I may not be the greatest fan of ferries, but I HATE long-distance driving, so there was only one option.

As it turned out, my 33 hours aboard P&O’s “The Pride of Bilbao” was actually fairly pleasant. I will write a whole post about it soon (I need to run off now and get the keys to my flat here), but if you want to have  your own car – a solution which makes a LOT of sense if you are planning on buying wine whilst you are here as flight allowances are paltry, then I would definitely recommend it.

I’ll leave you with an image taken from the helicopter (top) deck after we had been whale-watching during sunset (it’s a tough life!)

The issue of closures is one that rages on and on and gets some people a little hot under the collar. Let me point out, therefore, that what I am about to say is a personal view, not one that necessarily is shared by any of the wineries I represent.

As someone who works in the UK wine business, I am constantly bombarded with conflicting messages; about cork taint rates but also the potential environmental impact of drastically reducing our use of cork; about how screwcaps help to retain the freshness of wines, but also about the potential threat of ‘reduction’; about the latest ‘green’ initiatives to cut transport weight by using PET bottles, tetrapacks or even cans for wine.

I support any and all innovation and research, but I am not an absolutist. There is NO ONE RIGHT ANSWER!

I will not rehash the arguments on any of these points, you can find that on the sites of those who have studied the subject of closures in much greater detail than I have, but I thought it might be worth putting forward the case for the position adopted by wineries in Rioja.

Why are Rioja wines SO wedded to the use of cork?

Well, in the first instance, I don’t believe there is an actual law that forces wineries to use cork closures. There are wineries that use plastic alternatives, and even some that have implemented screwcap technology (for export markets) – including big names like Marques de Caceres. However, both of these closures are used only for young wine to be drunk within a year or so of bottling.

Cork is still the king for the vast majority of Rioja wine sold around the world, the aged red wines. This is for three, related reasons:

1. Rioja is a well known, highly regarded wine ‘style’.

That style is the combination of a limited range of climates, grapes and techniques so that a consumer who buys a bottled labelled “Rioja” gets something they will recognise (within limits). Critics could argue that this European approach stifles innovation and individual expression (these people can still make their wines, just not label them Rioja) but one could also argue that it helps to inform the average consumer.

The long term ageing of wine in bottle, using a cork closure, is an important part of this style. Whether it is the limited porosity of the cork or something else not yet understood, Rioja winemakers have over a century of experience of making wine in this way, and so they have some understanding of what effect it will have on their wines.

Alternative closures are either inappropriate for extended bottle ageing (e.g. plastic cork), or have too great an impact on the speed of development of the wine (e.g. screwcap).

I’m well aware that these limitations are being addressed in the relevant laboratories, and once the ageing process is better understood it may well be that screwcaps will be used to reduce spoilage. If other regions and winemakers want to spend their money and effort investigating this, Rioja is still prepares to wait until that work is done!

2. Rioja buyers actually WANT tradition.

For example, just ask any supplier of Rioja wine about the infamous Rioja Reserva wire nets. They are an anachronism (an interesting story for another time, but of no function today) but customers love them.

Producers would love to get rid of them in most instances as they cost a lot of time and money to put on the bottle, and these are costs that are hard to recoup, but customers would buy fewer bottles.

Many Rioja producers would love to really modernise their image, maybe including new closures, but many consumers would be put off buying these wines. That isn’t to say that there isn’t a niche for this, but it is not the path to riches for small producers!

3. Screwcaps, and other closures, are not popular everywhere!

Many British critics (including bloggers), as well as some Americans and other English speaking markets like Australia and New Zealand, have become convinced of the potential benefits of alternative closures. If you sell the vast majority of your wine in these markets, as the Australians, New Zealanders and Californians do, then it isn’t a problem to use them.

However, Rioja has a global reach. It is sold in many more places, such as Mexico, South America, Russia, China and of course throughout Europe too. In most of these countries, consumer and ‘expert’ perceptions of these new alternative closures is very different, and therefore Rioja producers must take this into consideration too.

In short, there is still a lot of debate and research taking place in the field of wine closures. For the time being, there is no conclusive reason, on quality or commercial grounds, for Rioja producers to switch to alternative closures, but don’t underestimate the producers ability to switch were the commercial demands to change.

It was great to meet so many people and I look forward to sharing more information about Rioja with all of you.

If you are thinking of going tomorrow, I encourage you to do so, but I recommend you go early as the party really picked up from around 14:00.

Fantastic!

Here are some photos:

Tapas at rest

The Crowd

Dinastia Vivanco Stand 19

A spot of lunch