¡Oye Tio! Iberian Wine News: Announcing New Direct Imports from Rioja

By: Joe Manekin | K&L Staff Member

Welcome to our new Spain & Portugal weekly update! 

Lots of new stuff to talk about, as well as upcoming events and other news items of notes. 

I do hope that you find the updates on products and information you read here useful and decidedly less sales pitchy/bombastic than the usual online retail fare. 

And, here we go…

Direct Imports from Rioja, Spain

We are quite pleased to soon be bringing in Riojas from Miguel Merino (Briones, Rioja Alta) and Puelles (Abalos, Rioja Alta).  You’ll be hearing (and, hopefully tasting) much more when these arrive in the next several weeks.  For now, though, I am thrilled to have heard from several customers who visited Miguel Merino and/or have drunk his wines on the east coast.  Both Merino and Puelles are small and know Rioja inside out, Miguel more on the wholesale side (until his fairly recent “retirement project” that is his winery) and Puelles on the viticultural side.  They are both super talented, crafting very terroir driven expressions from vineyards based around their respective towns.  We took our time finding the right Rioja DI’s and I believe that the extra time and lack of hurry to find the right producers will prove to be well worth it.

For Your Consideration

A short list of wines I'm excited about right now:

2004 Viña Valoria Blanco Crianza Rioja - $15.99

Classic white Rioja, reminiscent of LdH Viña Gravonia and less $.

http://www.klwines.com/detail.asp?sku=1075160

2008 Vega de Ribes Sauvignon Blanc Penedes - $14.99

Sauvignon Blanc?  From Spain?  Trust me.  If you like Clos Roche Blanche, I think you may have a winner here.

http://www.klwines.com/detail.asp?sku=1061388

2005 Quinta das Bageiras "Garrafeira" Vinho Branco Bairrada - $14.99

Aged white from one of the best producers in arguably Portugal’s most exciting region.

http://www.klwines.com/detail.asp?sku=1075534

2009 Bodegas Mendall Roig Finca Caiballes "R" - $29.99

Not for the timid!  Read up and know what you’re getting into for this wine.  That said, I find this to be most exciting.

http://www.klwines.com/detail.asp?sku=1074378

Alfredo Maestro Tejero "Viña Almate" Tempranillo - $17.99

Single vineyard organic tempranillo, mineral, NO TOAST French oak.  Seriously well made.

http://www.klwines.com/detail.asp?sku=1073574

Upcoming Events and Tastings

Tastings with Vibrant Rioja

Vibrant Rioja is helping us to promote Rioja wines this Fall.  We will have in-store tastings each month featuring some of our favorite Rioja producers.

Here is the schedule:

Redwood City – Third Thursdays from 5-6:30pm (9/15, 10/20, 11/17)

San Francisco – First Fridays from 5-6:30pm (10/7, 11/4)

Hollywood – First Fridays from 5:30-7pm (10/7, 11/4)

Also, perhaps 1-2 other events TBD.  We might have some Palacios chorizo, sheep’s milk cheese, even paella on hand? Stay tuned.

In-Store Tastings

@ K&L Redwood City (5-6:30pm)  map 

Friday 9/23 – TXAKOLI!  This is always a popular tasting.  Get there early before it gets nuts.  Or, get there later if you prefer the crazy.

Friday 10/7 – Riojas from Bodegas Ontañon.  Very solid producer, with a wonderful story, great vineyards, very good wines.  Taste ‘em for yourself.

Friday 10/14 – Jerez-Xeres-Sherry.  We take our sherry very seriously and do not plan on taking this one lightly.  Holly from De Maison (Spanish & French importer, as well as a leading light of all things sherry) will be pouring the good stuff. 

~

@ K&L Hollywood (5:30-7pm) map

Thursday 9/15 - Golden State Wine Co. will be pouring wines from their very strong portfolio.

Alrighty, until next week.  As always, feel free to contact me with questions.

Salud!

Joe

***

Joe Manekin is the K&L Buyer for the wines of Spain, Portugal, and South America. He is committed to supporting the hard-working folks out there making honest wines that show a sense of place. When he is not at K&L, Joe enjoys cooking, traveling, hanging out with his dog Clem, doing occasional PR, booking and recording work for reggae band JohnStone (http://www.johnstonemusic.com/), and writing for his wine, food and music blog, Old world Old School (http://oldworldoldschool.blogspot.com/).

Wine of the Week: 2009 Burgo Viejo Rioja ($9.99)

The 2009 Burgo Viejo Rioja ($9.99) is one of our favorite young Riojas we have yet to taste this year -in stock now at the K&L near you and available online at KLWines.com!

We love Rioja. The wines are so versatile: they are generally sufficiently fruit forward to drink upon release, often times structured and serious enough to age, and amongst the most food friendly reds around. But the unoaked wines are not without merit as well. Especially for summer drinking, where fresh fruit expression often trumps oak derived nuances.

Based in the Rioja Baja town of Alfaro, Burgo Viejo consists of six families pooling together their vineyards and resources to produce very good wine. In the 2009 Burgo Viejo Rioja, Tempranillo forms the backbone, bolstered by Garnacha and Mazuelo (Carignane). This wine is all red macerated cherries, with excellent purity, texture and character, no doubt due in part to the malolactic fermentation and ageing taking place the old fashioned way, in concrete vats. This is undoubtedly one of my favorite young Riojas I have yet to taste this year. (Joe Manekin, K&L Spanish wine buyer, 8/22/2011) 

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Winery to Watch: Guímaro

If you’ve never heard of Sober, a teeny town carved into the slate and granite cliffs above the River Sil in the Ribeira Sacra DO, in the Spanish province of Galacia, you’re not alone. With a population placed somewhere between nine and 2,900, few people in Galicia are even aware of its existence. But despite its diminutive size, 35-year-old grower, winemaker and Sober-native Pedro Rodríguez Pérez is making a big impact on the wine world. He farms his family’s seven hectares—divided among 15 separate plots tottering on slopes that plunge toward the river like the Hahnenkamm—of Mencía, Godello, Caino Tinto and Treixadura by hand. And he makes wines under the Guímaro label that the New York Times has called, “light-bodied, juicy…with a welcome earthy touch.”

Grapes have been grown in Ribeira Sacra for more than 2,000 years. They were first planted by the Romans as they traipsed across Europe, and were later cultivated by intrepid monks and locals. And it’s no wonder. The region’s hot days, remarkably cool nights and stony soils are ideal for viticulture. But working this land is backbreaking, literally, with growers having to haul their harvest up the steep slopes on their backs, and few young people over the last century felt compelled to continue. Vineyards were abandoned. Terraces crumbled.

Fortunately, the budding interest in Spanish wines beyond Rioja over the past 15 years has led to a surge of interest in the vineyards and wines of Ribeira Sacra. An inspired Rodríguez Pérez returned to Sober after law school to rebuild his family’s terraced vineyards. His mission: to make distinctive wines that spoke of the remote, stony hillsides he calls home.

“There are two kinds of winemakers,” he told Eric Asimov of the New York Times, “those who want to make money and those who want to make wine.” Rodríguez Pérez makes wine. And Guímaro is, without a doubt, a winery to watch.

We currently carry two of the four Guímaro wines. The 2008 Guímaro Mencía Ribeira Sacra ($14.99) is a great place to start if you’ve never had Mencía. It is lighter and softer than the better known iterations grown in Bierzo to the east, with snappy cool-climate acidity, bright red and black fruit and a slate-y mineral vein that runs through from nose to palate. The 2008 is raised entirely in tank, which keeps the wine refreshingly vibrant and food-friendly.

We also have the 2007 Guímaro “B1P” Mencía Ribeira Sacra ($39.99), a sultry yet serious wine that might just woo Rhône wine drinkers away from France. This whole cluster Mencía is fermented in open top foudres, and impresses immediately with its smoky, peppered plum nose. Denser than the the entry level version of the wine, the B1P has hints of herbs and even more concentrated minerality to complement its black fruit.

Leah Greenstein