Swedish wine tasting season opens in Jávea!
I’m delighted to say that my services have been retained for another year of wine tasting events with Milagro Javea, a Swedish owned company specialising in bringing small groups over from Sweden to Javea for cultural and activity based holidays in the area! And, following our first successful tasting of the year, I can now officially announce that the season has begun!
Discussions with Milagro owners, Elisabeth and Lasse, over the last two years, as well as important feedback (always positive, I’m pleased to say!) from extremely happy clients have established a philosophy for these events, of which I thoroughly approve. I like to offer wines from some of the famous areas of production Cava, Rioja, Ribera del Duero, for example; but also, from the local area.
This, I should point out, is not solely because we believe it’s beneficial for visitors to have a taste, in all senses of the word, of the local area in which they find themselves, but also because wines made in the Valencia community, are some of the best in the whole of Spain! Plus, as regular readers will realise, in wine terms, this means the Denominaciones de Origen Valencia, UtielRequena and Alicante, as well as, on occasion, nearby DOs, Bullas, Yecla and Jumilla!
Considering the above, regular readers will know that our Swedish friends are in for a treat – there are outstanding wines from all of these areas! Plus, as I’ve said many times before, you don’t have to pay a lot for them! It’s so good, I feel like signing up for a Milagro holiday myself !
So, we started with one of the famous areas of production – DO Cava, because, to quote Mary Poppins, ‘. . . it’s a very good place to start!’ I’ve written before about Fermí Bohigas, a centuries old winery which started making family still wines (they still do) but saw the potential of sparklers and started majoring in Cava, at around the same time as the name ‘Cava’ was coined!
We enjoyed their Bohigas Reserva Brut Nature, the driest style of sparkling wine, which went well with the cheese nibbles we had whilst chatting about the changes happening in the land of Cava, the different sweetness levels of Cava, innovation in the DO and the differing styles of this, Spain’s super fizz. As usual, there was great interest, with a steady flow of questions, which of course keeps me on my toes!
The first of our two white wines was an old favourite of Elisabeth and myself – Cullerot, from Cellar del Roure, the first of three wines from the excellent DO Valencia group, Terres dels Alforins. Cullerot, with it’s distinctive and attractive label depicting tadpoles (cullerot means tadpoles in Valenciano), is an eclectic blend, including local variety Verdíl, with Chardonnay, Pedro Ximenez (PX), Macabeo and Malvasía.
The wine is made in large clay tinajas (amphorae), very much in the same manner employed centuries ago. Regular stirring of the lees (the sediment) over a period of time adds mouthfeel to the wine along with a certain creaminess to accompany a fresh lemon flavour with just a passing nod to some tropical fruit. Lovely wine!
It’s quite a while since I tasted Blanc d’Enguera, from Bodegas Enguera, also a member of the above group. I had no doubts about how it was going to be received, though – I really like this dry white wine! Made with Verdil again, a variety indigenous to the Valencia region and used practically nowhere else, along with Viognier, a wonderful aromatic variety, originally from France, and Chardonnay, a portion of which has been aged in oak. There is also a little Sauvigon for added acidity. On the nose there are hints of grapefruit and Seville orange peel, with further citrus notes and a fleeting memory of apricot, with a faint vanilla from the oak! Wow!
Our first red wine was another local variety, oft talked bout in Cork Talk – Bobal. Pasión de Bobal is a deeply coloured red wine, with characteristic Black Cherry notes on the nose and on the palate. Made from 60yearold vines, the wine has had some oak aging, the combination of which ensures a full red wine with presence on the palate and a good, richly fruited length.
The final wine, was one that I have not tasted for many years (so many wines, so little time!) and I’m really glad I returned to it for this tasting. When Rafael Cambra first started the garagiste winery in Ontinyente, he made just two wines, calling them simply Uno and Dos! Although he now makes a few more different wines, he’s kept these two startup wines, and why wouldn’t he?!
Uno, is made with 100% Monastrell, handharvested from old vines, with the finished wine being aged for ten months in 500 litre oak barricas, rather than the usual 225 litres, to give the wine an oak influence, yes, but less so, therefore putting the glorious dark plum and damson fruit first. There’s an added herby note on the nose, bay leaves with a little thyme and a slight earthy minerality. Real quality!
NB: all wines were purchased from Casa de Vino, Javea.