Tyson's trip to Spain - day 2

We visit Bierzo - my new favourite Spanish wine region - and end up in Sardon del Duero where there is rather too much oak about. By Kate

We set off  the next morning in the pre dawn gloaming, with  the freshly laundered sky slowiy lightening as we sped down the motorway.  It was bitterly cold and crisp and still damp from the over night rain.  We had a three hour drive to the inland region of Bierzo, currently being hailed as one of the most exciting in Spain with none other than Alvario Palacios (the great resurrector of underperforming, largely ignored regions having put Priorat on the map 20 years ago)  now making wine  here. 

The high, sharply peaked hills,  jagged and asymmetric, were a glorious mix of still vivid green offsetting the gold and rust of Autumn.  The valleys and ravines gradually got deeper as the peaks got higher and soon, the tops were dusted with a light coating of  powdered snow.    In the hard, white light it was incredibly beautiful and utterly unlike  the rest of Spain.

 The region of Bierzo is, like Galicia, a place of small growers who do everything by hand.  This is from necessity as much as anything here as many of the vineyards are on slopes and are fiendishly difficult to work.   The main grape variety is  the very ancient Mencia, not related to Cabernet Franc after all, despite sharing a herbal,  peppery quality.  For many years, it was believed that this was only ever capable of really rather wishy washy red until yields were slashed,  vineyard work started to be done much more carefully and dense, intensely earthy, structured wines started to emerge.  A tiny proportion of whites ( Godello, Gewurtztraminer and Palomino) are also planted but they are not significant and I am not aware of anyone doing anything truly splendid with white here yet. 

We are here to visit the relatively tiny winery that Martin Codex established here in 2003.  They had reached a certain size in Galicia and couldn’t really grow any further there.  Being aware of what Sen. Palacios was doing here, they decided that this was the place to be and so bought a ramshackle 18th century property in the town of Cacabellos which was transformed into a very modern winery after setting up long term contracts with a collection of small growers, all of whom have much older vineyards.  80 is the average vine age in this region – one of the great benefits of  places which are forgotten about for so long.  Time ticks away, growers get on with growing and no-one tries to be all new-fangled, instead holding on to what they’ve got.  

The Martin Codax team were looking for plots of land at higher elevations, almost all on slopes, on soils which are a mixture of shale, schist, limestone and clay.  We briefly visited one high above the valley floor, where stunted bush vines, not yet pruned, waved their stiff, brown canes at us in the glacial wind.  Apparently, donkeys are used to at harvest time, to carry the baskets of grapes to safety.  It is utterly, piercingly freezing.

 To the minature winery next which is in a very lovely old building, beautifully restored.  Mencia is an amazingly difficult variety to vinify as the earthy intensity all too easily becomes harsh, clumsy and undrinkable and so 100% destemming is practised here (the process of removing all berries from the stems before fermentation which helps to keep the wine glossy and pliable).  Their junior red is fermented at a relatively cool 22 degrees celcius while the more serious version is treated to 26 degrees – still on the  cool side,  by red standards.  They do inoculate with yeasts at the moment but are doing a lot of research into those indigenous to the area and hope to be ‘au natural’ in time.   Malolactic fermentation is finished in oak and in the case of the basic red, this sojourn lasts a mere 2 months, while the senior gets a very acceptable 6 – 8, and not all of it is new.

 We move to the tasting room atop the winery and quickly taste through a rose and the two reds.  We have actually just listed the baby and so are very familiar with it but did not know the other cuvee. 

2008 Cuatro Pasos Rose – tank sample. 
This is absolutely delicious – lots of juicy red fruit with the characteristic earthy character giving it much more complexity and interest than most.  We have actually just listed another Mencia Rose from Bierzo, from a very renowned grower called Pittacum and based on the these two examples, I would say that for if you like your rose gutsy and slightly structured as opposed to merely very gently fruity, then you should definitely investigate these. 

2006 Cuatro Pasos 
The ‘junior’ red as discussed above, is absolutely the best value for money example I have tasted from here.  A. Palacios is also doing a ‘baby’ version which he calls Petalos, but that costs quite a bit more and much as I like his, I really don’t think it is  quite that much better than this. Both share a fabulously juiciness which helps to even out the inky, earthy notes.  There is also delicious chargrilled fruit flavours and even a hint of violets on this example while the structure is wonderfully silky and easy to drink.   Considering that this fruit is from 80 year old vines and that it is astonishingly well made, this is an absolute steal. 

We will definitely be listing this soon, so please keep an eye out for it.

2005 Martin Sarmiento 
Yet another legendary Martin.  Not really a name I associate  much with legends; it has something of the accounts department about it but clearly naming your son Martin in North West Spain is the prelude to greatness.

 This Martin was a monk who was  born in Bierzo in the 18th century and who went on to become a famous botanist, eventually travelling to Galicia to do some definitive writing on the plants there. 

 The nose on this is full of smoked black cherry flavour but both here and on the palate oak is still slightly too prevalent. This is a minor infringement though and it has more than enough structure to stand up to it with great acidity and sinewy tannins.  The intensity of the earthy fruit suggests that this will age and that eventually, the slightly overly buttered oak flavours which are now in evidence will recede gracefully.

 We leave the winery and walk mere metres down the tiny street to a restaurant.  Our schedule meant that we had to have an early, light lunch – practically illegal in Spain – and so  it is completely deserted.  Bread arrives first and it is superb.  I don’t normally give white bread a second glance unless it is an emergency (starving after a morning or afternoon of hard tasting on a wine trip often qualifies as such) and although today definitely was not an emergency, this merits several return trips to the bread basket.  Heavy and moist with a crunchy crust, it is heaven. 

A very meaty selection follows next – local ham, pork cooked with mushrooms, empanadas with pork and veal but I am actually happy with hunks of bread and sweet red peppers.  I was really very full on those when homemade looking chips and plates of pulpo arrive and I have to admit to making short work of piles of both.  So much for a light lunch. 

We leave for the long drive to Sardon del Duero, the region right next door to Ribero del Duero and on our way out of Cacabellos, pass pilgrims on the Santiago di Compastela trial, plodding resolutely through the icy afternoon.  The hills, an endless succession of ups and downs, seem to stretch for hundreds of miles to the horizon.  I don’t envy them. 

We drive and drive and the landscape slowly changes once we have climbed the slopes of the central plateau.  Gradually, faded, murky yellows with splashes of green – pale spearmint and darker blue/green tones -  replace the more vibrant colours.  The light is even harder and the small hills are bleached white by the cold.  Trees are stripped bare and only the bare bones of small bushes remain. 

The drive seems endless.  We are all tired, especially the male contingent who all went out and stayed out until  3am.  We stop for a short break at a remote petrol station where snow lies on the hill just behind it and on the scrubby grass bordering the parking lot.  Tyson has his first snowball fight and, not being terribly practised in the art, tends to get more than he gives but that is certainly one way of keeping awake.   

  The afternoon visit is not inspiring, with wines absolute doused in oak to the point that the entire range – Tempranillo, Syrah, Cabernet and Petit Verdot all tasted almost exactly the same.  Slightly over cooked fruit drenched in cloying double cream and prickly with oak tannins which leave the tongue itchy.  The saving grace was the fact that this oak fest was happening in a partially restored Abbey, in the process of being turned into a boutique hotel.  The Chapel, an amalgamation of bits of buildings dating from the 12th, 17th and 18th centuries was  magnificent, with the original baptismal tucked into a knave and the vague shadow of a coloured fresco still visible in the dome just above where we tasted.  These inspiring surroundings somewhat made up for the wines and the fact that the temperature was  nothing short of fridge – a terrible distraction and one that did the wines absolutely no favours.  I do not like them any better later that night at the restaurant when both they and I were considerably warmer, but in these circumstances, they were very hard work indeed. 

Thankfully, we have just over an hour to thaw in our rooms before dinner.  We are staying in the restored flour mill that Claire and Tom and I had visited for lunch last year, while on visit to Vega Sicilia, so that was a huge treat in itself.  

 We drive back to Vallodolid for dinner, to a restaurant famous for its great slabs of very red, very rare meat which make most of our party  very happy.  I was not unhappy still feeling really very full after my chips and pulpo orgy, so was completely content with a plate of vegetables and could only pick at the cod that arrived afterwards.  Ethical eating is clearly not yet much of a consideration here. 

Despite the less than delicious wines, it is a very good evening, principally as it is a chance to spend some time with Tyson.  We talk a lot over dinner about his background and how hard he had worked for years before he got his break.  It is a story that is utterly chilling in parts, given that it is so typical of so many young people in South Africa.  Tyson, like many of his friends had given up High School at one point, not really seeing the point of finishing.  He eventually went back two years later but those of his friends who did not are leading directionless lives, utterly constrained by their lack of education and opportunity. 

We know that Tyson is having a fabulous experience – working very hard mind, but doing things that he will remember for the rest of his life.  This talk reminds me of the urgency of the situation though.  A year is not a long time and we really want him to go back fully equipped for a much more challenging, rewarding career in wine.    I am very happy with how he has progressed so far and feel that he has been kept busy enough with the wine courses, finding his feet in London and the reams of tastings we are sending him to or that he attends at Green & Blue.  It is time to step it up a gear though, which he assures me he is ready for.  I completely believe him.   

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