Sadie distances himself from poisoned Priorat project

Swartland pioneer Eben Sadie is distancing himself from his wine venture in Priorat, which was poisoned by vandals last year. As reported on db.com, Sadie has made wine in the northern Spanish region since 2004 under the Terroir Al Limit label in collaboration with Dominik Huber and Jaume Sabaté, sharing a winery with Huber for the production of six wines, including Dits del Terra, meaning fingers of the earth, and L’Arbossar.

“Eben is phasing himself out of Terroir Al Limit. The project will be kept on by Dominik and Jaume, so it won’t close, but Eben has very little to do with it these days,” Sadie’s winemaker brother Niko told me at Cape Wine 2012 last week. Sadie will retain his 45% share in the company, but will be much less involved with the running of the winery.

“I’m snowed under with Sadie Family Wines in South Africa, so will be spending increasingly less time in Priorat. Dominik is doing a great job, I don’t need to hold his hand every day,” Eben Sadie confirmed. “I’ve scaled down my involvement with the project and won’t be flying to Spain to pick every last bunch,” he added. Last June, the Terroir Al Limit cellars were broken into at night by vandals who opened the taps of some of the tanks and contaminated casks with household bleach, leading to a loss of 25% of the year’s production.

As to why the poisoning took place, Niko believes jealousy of Sadie’s rapid success in the region had a lot to do with it. “The Catalans didn’t take well to the fact that Eben came over from South Africa and in a very short space of time was making one of the best wines in the region. They didn’t like him being there, especially as he was doing so well internationally,” he said.

Eben has yet to discover why the incident took place: “I’ve no idea why it happened, there were no unpaid bills. No one has been caught yet and the investigation remains open. It would be fantastic if we had closure but we don’t,” he said. “I’ve moved on from the poisoning. Things like this don’t get me down, it’s just an economic problem. So long as you’ve got your health and people around you that care about you, nothing else matters,” he added, confirming that has no plans to enter into any further wine ventures outside South Africa.

El Bulli to auction cellar at Sotheby’s

Gastronomes around the world wept in 2010 on hearing the news that Spanish pleasure dome El Bulli – voted the world’s best restaurant four years in a row – was to close its doors for good in 2011. Now comes the news via Wine-Searcher that the restaurant is to sell off its 10,000-bottle wine cellar at a Sotheby’s auction, though the auction house is remaining tight-lipped about details of the auction until further notice.

The three Michelin-starred restaurant near the town of roses, 160km north of Barcelona, closed its doors last July, having operated at a loss since 2000. It is set to re-open in 2014 as a culinary think tank, where former head chef Ferran Adrià, 50, will investigate and develop new cooking techniques.

The 139-page, 1,600-bin list features wines from classic regions like Bordeaux, Burgundy and Piedmont, alongside cult Californian wines, rare Sherries and Spanish icon wines such as L’Ermita, Pingus, and Vega Sicilia Unico. Compiled by Adrià's business partner Juli Soler, wines ranged in price from €21.40 to €5,350 for Domaine de la Romanée-Conti Romanée-Conti 1999. Pétrus 2000 was also on the list for €3,745 a bottle. 

Voted the best restaurant in the world by Restaurant magazine a record five times, El Bulli pushed the boundaries of contemporary cuisine for more than two decades with its off-the-wall dishes created using molecular gastronomy. Though its popularity came at a cost. With staff fielding more than two million reservation requests a year, the public pressures of running a restaurant influenced Adrià’s decision to close.

“When people bring up the issue of reservations, I have to give some kind of explanation. We created a monster and it was time to find a way to tame it,” he said on announcing the restaurant’s closure. The El Bulli Foundation will grant 20-25 scholarships annually for chefs to spend a year working with Adrià on new creations, the results of which results will be posted online.

Pingus trialing natural wine

Peter Sisseck, founder of one of Spain’s most sought after wines, is trialing a natural wine project at Dominio de Pingus in Ribera del Duero. “I want to get my head around the natural wine thing. I’ve been in talks with Marcel Lapierre in Beaujolais and some of the good natural wines guys – it’s not all bullshit,” he told the drinks business. Sisseck is experimenting with making a version of Pingus with no sulphur, but is concerned that this will hamper the wine’s ability to age.

“I want to make wines that can age and it’s very hard to do so with no sulphur. Despite never using much in Pingus, a little sulphur is essential,” he said. Having studied biodynamics at the Rudolf Steiner School in Basel, Sisseck is keen to take things a step further. “The idea of natural wine is interesting. The best ones have lovely purity when they’re young, but they are extremely fragile. Any terroir expression the wines may have can be erased by bret and oxidation,” he said.

The Dane is keen to stress that his natural wine will be treated as a standalone project: “Pingus isn’t about to go natural. I want to see what I can learn,” he said. Pingus has been biodynamic since 2000 and second wine Flor de Pingus since 2005. Sisseck admits that in his single-minded approach in only working with Tinto Fino (the Ribera del Duero equivalent of Tempranillo), he “may have gone too far.”

To redress the balance, he’s started working with small parcels of native white varieties planted in the two Pingus vineyards, and is experimenting with adding small amounts of white into the Pingus blend. Having been “very spoilt” with Parker points in the past, Sisseck believes the appointment of Neal Martin as The Wine Advocate’s new Spain critic after Jay Miller’s departure post “Jumilla-gate” will be a “tremendous help” for Spain.

“Jay favoured things in Spanish wine I’m trying to avoid. He liked very big, inky, in your face, ‘show me the money’ wines. Neal is more into the historical background of the vineyards and will hopefully give more focus to Spain’s terroir message, which has got lost,” he said. 

A Taste of Andalusia at Salt Yard

Having spent an idyllic year in the intoxicating city of Granada in Andalusia, when an invite to a long, lazy, “Taste of Andalusia” lunch  from Goodge Street-based Spanish restaurant Salt Yard pinged in my inbox, I speedily rsvp’d. Salt Yard makes up one third of Simon Mullins and Sanja Morris’ Spanish restaurant empire, with Dehesa in Oxford Circus and Opera Tavern in Covent Garden completing the trilogy. A quick chat with Mullins on arrival at Salt Yard on a drizzly Sunday afternoon confirms that the pair are seeking to expand their empire with two new sites in the London district du jour, Soho, though not before the launch of their forthcoming Spanish cookbook.

Entering the buzzing upper deck of the restaurant, a glass of Mas Macia Cava is thrust into my hand. Made in Penedès rather than Andalusia, it serves as an ideal palate cleanser. The most populous of Spain’s autonomous communities, Andalusia is divided into eight provinces: Almería, Cádiz, Córdoba, Granada, Huelva, Jaén, Málaga and its capital, Seville. As varied in its terrain as it is in its cultural history, Andalusia boasts snow-capped mountains, verdant wetlands, an arid desert and miles of manicured coastline. The Andalusia we know today has been molded and influenced by everyone from the Phoenicians and the Carthaginians to the Vandals and Byzantines via the Greeks and Romans. The region’s most famous rulers were the Moors, who presided over Al-Andalus from 711 until the reconquest of Granada in 1492. Having ruled the roost for almost 800 years, the Moorish stamp will be forever imprinted on Andalusia’s collective cultural psyche.

Al-Andalus, as it was then known, was the power centre of a Muslim empire that stretched its tentacles across most of Spain and Portugal, and as far south as Nigeria in West Africa. Under Muslim rule, the Moors brought new thinking to Andalusia, and reforms in architecture, philosophy, astronomy and most enduringly, gastronomy, introducing exotic ingredients such as saffron, almonds, cumin, pimentón and pomegranate from Africa and the Middle East, which still inspire and inform Andalusian cuisine. To illustrate this interweaving of cultures, Mullins and head chef Andrew Clark – a towering figure with a sailor’s beard, heavily inked arms and a smile that stretches all the way to Gibraltar, had devised an eight-course menu highlighting Andalusia’s rich culinary history, including numerous hat tips to the Moors.

Before we’re allowed to dive into our first dish: grilled baby leeks, quail eggs, beetroot and ajo blanco, Mullins mulls over a brief culinary history of Andalusia, paying homage to the Phoenicians for passing on the skill of salting fish, and the Greeks for planting the first grape vines. Made beautiful by the raspberry ripple-like whirls in the beetroot, the dish delivers a pleasing variety of textures, from the crunch of the leek to the creaminess of the garlic sauce and the soft centres of the quail eggs. Almost audaciously, the dish is matched with a nutty Sanchez Romate Amontillado, its sweet nose of toffee, almonds and hazelnuts balanced by a surprisingly dry, saline palate.

Dish two, though not immediately recognisable as Andalusian, was the most delightful of the line-up. Borrowing from fashionable Peru, it consisted of a simple bream ceviche with coriander oil topped with a scoop of tangerine-coloured gazpacho sorbet hovering atop the dish like a frozen egg yolk. The lime fuelled, lip-smackingly fresh ceviche was complimented by the brave flavours of the icy gazpacho, with tomato, pepper and garlic all present. It proved a wonderful match for the accompanying Bodegas Tierras Gauda Albariño 2011 – mirroring the ceviche in zippy citrus freshness, with lemon, lime and apricot all in the mix, wrapped around a flinty mineral core.

Dish three – roast scallops with plum tomatoes and cumin salt – was slight in size but mighty in flavour, the ruby red tomatoes sweetening the meaty scallops, while the cumin salt added a welcome kick of spice. Peering through the kitchen window, I noticed our ebullient, well-inked chef taking a well-earned swig from his Sherry glass while we moved on to our first “natural” wine of the feast from the Alpujarras. Cloudy and rust-coloured, its nose was oxidized and Sherry-like, and any terroir expression that may have existed on the palate was masked a musky, cider-like cloak. After an increasingly heated debate about the merits and malpractice of natural wine, we moved swiftly on to dish four: calamari, soft shell crab and prawns with saffron aioli. Served on a black slate painted yellow by the saffron, the crab danced in mid air atop the squid rings, spindly legs splayed. Lightly fried in an incredibly delicate batter, the crunchy exteriors and soft interiors were lifted by a disc of cooked orange, which added an exotic Moorish twist, while the accompanying Bodegas Hidalgo La Pastrana Manzanilla delivered an invigorating, tangy, sea air kick.

Perhaps the most Moorish of the octet was dish five: chargrilled quail with pomegranate molasses and smoked almond puree. Glinting like rubies, the juicy pomegranate pips were assuaged by the sweet, grainy molasses, both of which enhanced the tender, juicy bird in a dish you could easily encounter in Marrakech or Algiers. Our second natural wine of the lunch – a Tempranillo, Cabernet Sauvignon, Cabernet Franc, Merlot and Granacha mash up, was a slight improvement on the natural white offering, but still too barnyard-like to yield true enjoyment from. Before dish six, our trusty chef leapt from the kitchen to explain the creation – we were about to be served Essex rabbit, though he assured us he’d removed the white stilettos before plating up. Rabbit is one of the few foods I feel guilty about eating, so it came as a relief when, on chomping, I encountered a taste akin to chicken breast. The accompanying red blend from Cadiz was a class act, showing elegance, finesse, structure and layers of spiced black fruit.

The penultimate plate reached a culinary crescendo: roast oxtail slow cooked for eight hours then soaked in lemon, served with green olives and a judion bean puree. The slow cooking showed in the super soft, achingly tender meat, enlivened and enhanced by the zing of the lemon and the purity of the buttery bean puree. An exquisite symbiosis of East and West, it served as proof that often the best dishes are the simplest. Our wine match – Tabener 2007 from Huerta de Albala in Cadiz, made from 80% Syrah and 20% Cabernet Sauvignon, shone. Dense and layered, it showed notes of blueberry, blackberry, smoke and spices, and proved a delicious companion for the oxtail.

Stuffed as a pillow and pink cheeked from the wine, we rounded off our epic Andalusian feast with a taste of heaven – tocino de cielo, literally meaning “bacon from heaven”, a decadent dish first developed by nuns made from egg yolks and sugar, served with a scoop of zesty blood orange sorbet to lift the tooth tinglingly sweet tocino. Sat opposite a Granadino in a striped shirt called Cayetano who worked as a photographer for National Geographic magazine, his deeply-felt visceral and emotional enjoyment of this rollercoaster of a meal proved the ultimate compliment. If a man born and bred in the majestic, once Moorish kingdom could find pleasure and points of reference in the dishes, from the cumin and the pomegranate to the ground almonds, sultanas and saffron, then both Mullins and our beautifully bearded chef had succeeded in brightening a dimly-lit London dining room with a kaleidoscope of Andalusian flavours.

New Tio Pepe En Rama most “intense” yet

Tio Pepe Fino En Rama is to return for a third year, and is set to be the most intense bottling yet, having been made from the best barrel from González Byass’ four ancient Tio Pepe soleras. As reported on thedrinksbusiness.com, production will be up slightly on last year’s 300 cases and will include a number of half bottles designed exclusively for the on-trade. The company decided to make the wine from its best four Tio Pepe barrels in homage to the 200th anniversary of founder Manuel María Gonzalez on 26 May.

The intensity of flavour is a result of a mild winter in Jerez, which has lead to the development of an extra thick protective veil of flor in the casks. “We’ll have an especially intense En Rama this year due to the mild winter and warm spring temperatures, and the special cask selection,” said winemaker Antonio Flores. “Despite racking off the wine a couple of weeks prior to bottling, the wine may have a stronger “haze” than the last edition,” he added.  

Described as “turbo-charged Tio Pepe” by González Byass’ marketing manager Jeremy Rockett, En Rama, loosely meaning “in its unrefined state”, is made from unfiltered Tio Pepe taken from the cask in spring when the flor is at its thickest. Without stabilisation, En Rama has a lifespan of just three months, and a mere three days after opening.

This year’s hand-drawn label, taken from the González Byass archives, is an old Sherry label from 1857 featuring a stylised grapevine surrounded by a red ribbon. Rockett believes the vintage labels have been a big contributing factor to the wine’s success: “The labels have almost become the message of the wine. “Our customers eagerly await the next release to see what we’ve dug up from the archive. Changing the label each year is part of its charm,” he said.

“At the niche end of the market you can get away with being less traditional and have some fun with your label designs, because consumers are buying on name,” he added. Tio Pepe En Rama will be available to taste at the London International Wine Fair at 11am on 22 May. UK deliveries will start on the same day. The wine is set to be bottled next week and will be priced at £13.99 a bottle.

Sula opens first wine bar in Mumbai

Rajeev Samant, founder of Indian winery Sula Vineyards, has opened his first wine and tapas bar – Vinoteca by Sula – in Mumbai. Inspired by Spain’s neighbourhood wine bars, Spanish chef Silvia Grimaldo will serve a selection of authentic tapas and pintxos, alongside the full range of Sula wines. Decked out with Burgundy walls and wooden flooring, the 50-seater bar in Mumbai’s Worli district features an outside seating area and a quirky light installation made from empty Sula Riesling bottles and candle bulbs.

Picking up on the international trend for sharing plates, Samant decided to focus on tapas and pintxos made from fresh seasonal produce and organic ingredients sourced from Sula’s gardens. Menu highlights include calamari in aïoli, grilled kingfish in a garlic and tomato salsa, quinoa salad with walnuts, feta and figs, patatas bravas and berenjena rellena – grilled aubergine filled with minced lamb. Each tapa comes with a suggested Sula wine pairing.

Desserts include chocolate truffles with wine-laced cream centres and wine-infused sorbets and ice creams, including lemon sorbet spiked with Sula Sauvignon Blanc. In addition to Sula’s entire range, the wine list features labels from Spain and Italy, and Champagnes such as Dom Pérignon, Veuve Cicquot and Piper-Heidsieck. Signature drinks include a sparkling sangria made from Grimaldo’s family recipe, and a dry martini-infused hot chocolate spiced with chilli.

Both wines by the glass and dishes start at 200 rupees. “We have made an effort and kept our menu moderately priced for the quality,” said Grimaldo. Sula Vineyards in Nashik – India’s largest grape growing region 180km northeast of Mumbai, was founded by Rajeev Samant in 1999. It was the first estate to introduce international varieties such as Sauvignon Blanc, Zinfandel and Riesling to India.

Lot 18 goes live in the UK

The UK website of New York-based online wine merchant Lot 18 has gone live. As reported on thedrinksbusiness.com, Lot18.com, which launched in the US in November 2010, sources fine and rare wines worldwide for limited-time offers. Aimed at “aspiring wine connoisseurs looking to expand their knowledge,” the members only site, which raised US$45m in venture capital funding last year, has over 800,000 US members and 120,000 French members.

Working with over 550 wineries, offers on the US site typically last only 48 hours. Co-founder and president Philip James – who also founded wine ratings and reviews site Snooth.com ­– expects to build the UK site to 200 wineries in the next six months, but is keen not to inundate members with offers. “I thought it would work because your typical wine merchant is stuffy and intimidating for the average wine consumer. There’s also far too much choice. By telling us a bit about yourself we can cherry pick wines to suit your specific palate,” James told me at the London launch at Quo Vadis in Soho on Thursday.

“I chose the name because 18 is the legal drinking age in the UK – where I’m from, and it’s also considered a lucky number, meaning “lucky purchase” in Cantonese and “life” in Hebrew. I wanted it to evoke the excitement felt when winning an auction lot,” James added. With a constantly revolving stock, the site specialises in sourcing difficult-to-find parcels and prides itself on offering rare single bottles for sale.

Wines range from £10-100, but James (far left) calls the £10-20 bracket the site’s “sweet spot.” “We’re very much pushing the ‘get it while it’s hot’ idea to keep the excitement up. Our offers are only around for a couple of days, so when they’re gone, they’re gone,” he said. The UK site has launched with offers including Château Pontet Canet 1995 at £90 per bottle and Rubicon Estate Blancaneaux 2009 from Francis Ford Coppola’s Inglenook Estate in Napa at £42.50.

Wines from all around the world will be represented, with a strong leaning towards California, Washington, Oregon and the Finger Lakes in New York. The company’s buying team is made up of 15 sommeliers and Master of Wine students operating worldwide, who source wines for all three sites. James is looking to launch the site, which also offers gourmet food and epicurean-themed travel, in Germany, Spain and Northern Europe in the near future. Membership to Lot18.com is free.

Antonio Banderas launches wine in Miami

Spanish actor Antonio Banderas introduced the latest vintages of his Ribera del Duero brand Anta Banderas at the South Beach Wine and Food Festival in Florida this weekend. As reported on the drinks business, before heading to the Oscars in LA on Sunday, where his film Puss in Boots was nominated for Animated Feature Film, the 51-year-old hosted a sold-out seminar, entitled “Matador!” featuring seven wines from the northern Spanish property.

"We are thrilled to welcome Antonio Banderas to the festival. It is a pleasure to unveil the wines of Anta Banderas at this very special seminar,” said Mel Dick, senior vice president of Southern Wine & Spirits, organisers of the festival. After the seminar, Banderas spent an hour at Miami wine shop Sunset Corners, where he signed bottles and discussed his love of wine.

"I always wanted to produce my own wine, but it requires time that I don’t have," Banderas told the Miami New Times. “Then I found Anta in Ribera del Duero, which boasts quality vineyards, quality grapes and the latest technology in the bodega. I travelled with my family in 2008 and we loved both the place and the team. It was a family winery, just what I was looking for. The decision was made,” Banderas added.

The winery began production in 1999 under the name Anta Bodegas, but changed its name to Anta Banderas when the Malaga-born actor joined the company in 2009. The estate comprises 95 hectares of vineyards in two separate areas, one near the winery and one at nearly 2,800 feet above sea level.

Banderas recently announced that he will portray painter Pablo Picasso and his emotional struggle while working on masterpiece mural Guernica in a new biopic. He told Spanish newspaper El Pais: “Picasso is a character that has followed me for a long time, but I’d always rejected the idea of playing him. He commands a lot of respect. I was born four blocks from his birthplace in Malaga. He’s always fascinated me.”

Hip-hop help sees Moscato sales soar in US

Sales of Moscato are soaring in the US as hip-hop artists continue to name-check the low alcohol sweet wine in their songs. As reported on thedrinksbusiness.com, US Moscato sales grew more than 80% for the 52 weeks ending November 12, according to Nielsen, helping the wine to break out of its after-dinner niche. "The last thing I can remember that shot out of the cork like that was Pinot Noir after the film Sideways," said Danny Brager, vice president of Nielsen's beverage and alcohol division. “But the pop-culture inspired growth in Pinot Noir has been eclipsed by the rise of Moscato,” Brager added.

A year-on-year comparison shows sales of Moscato in America topping $300 million for 2011, more than triple what they were for 2009. With an average price of less than $10 per bottle, the varietal now accounts for 3% of total table wine sales in the US, up from 1% in 2009.

Moscato’s recent sales success among urban drinkers has been boosted by plugs in R&B and hip-hop songs by the likes of Kanye West, Ne-Yo, Lil’ Kim and Ab-Soul. West was one of the first to elevate Moscato's profile, serving Saracco Moscato d'Asti at a party in 2005 and mentioning the wine in a remix of the song Make Her Feel Good.

"Moscato is coming on strong, especially in the urban market," said New York-based wine consultant Lisa Carley. "The rise of Moscato and sweet red wines seems to indicate that Americans are getting more comfortable with wine in general. Because of that, they are drinking what they like as opposed to what they ‘should’ drink," Carley added.

The rising popularity of Moscato from entry-level brands like Sutter Home, Gallo and Yellowtail is leading to increased plantings of Muscat in California, Chile, Argentina, France and Spain. "Moscato is a good gateway wine for people that don't typically drink wine. It's sweet and it's not intimidating," said Megan Metcalf, editor of US trade publication Wine & Spirits Daily, adding, “People who would have drunk White Zinfandel are now drinking Moscato.”

Julio Iglesias interview

Julio Iglesias doesn’t do things by half. During his 42-year music career, the Madrid-born singer has sold more than 300 million albums in 14 different languages, making him among the top 10 best-selling musicians in history. Last year, the 66-year-old, who has reportedly slept with over 3,000 women, released album number 77, and he’s currently midway through a world tour – ‘It’s a great excuse to drink wines from different countries every night,’ he says, laughing.

His speech is littered with huge numbers – a million dollars here, 800 million pesetas there, and I quickly get the impression that Iglesias’ world is one in which money is no object. ‘I used to spend more than a million dollars a year on wine,’ he tells me, in a genuinely casual, rather than boastful way. The singer has bought so much wine over the years that he seems to have lost count of how many bottles he has in his three cellars in Spain, Miami and the Dominican Republic.

‘I’ve got about 5,000 top wines and hundreds of thousands of normal wines,’ he admits, without hyperbole. Generous with his plentiful stock, he gives away about 100 cases of wine to friends every year and thinks nothing of cracking open a bottle of Pétrus 1982 after a concert to share with his band. Isn’t it wasted on the uninitiated? ‘Not at all,’ he counters. ‘They’ve all become wine connoisseurs and have built cellars too. The vodka days are over!’

It was in the summer of ’82 that Iglesias tried to buy the acclaimed Ribera del Duero estate Vega Sicilia. ‘I was having dinner with friends in Madrid and it came up in conversation that Vega Sicilia was on the market for 800 million pesetas (around US$6m back then). I got on the phone to them the next morning, but it was too late.’ The winery had already been sold to a Venezuelan family, who went on to sell it to the Alvarez family, the current owners. ‘It wasn’t my lucky day, I guess,’ Iglesias says wistfully.

Vega Sicilia aside, he insists he’s not just a trophy collector – wine has shaped his outlook on life. ‘My understanding of life has become much stronger and clearer through my appreciation of wine,’ he says, describing spending those millions on wine in the ’80s as: ‘the best thing I ever did in my life’. Brought up in Madrid in the '50s by his doctor father, Iglesias got by in the early days by drinking ‘any old stuff from Valdepeñas’. In his late teens he played as a goalkeeper for Real Madrid football club, until a near fatal car accident in 1963 ended his sporting career. During his rehabilitation, to develop dexterity in his hands, he started playing the guitar and subsequently, writing music.

Iglesias’ wine epiphany was equally notable. In 1973 he was invited by Baroness Philippine de Rothschild – a big Iglesias fan – to a dinner party at her home in Paris after one of his concerts. ‘She asked me what I thought of the wine and I told her that I’d never tasted anything like it,’ Iglesias recalls with brio. ‘She summoned the butler to serve a second wine, this time in a decanter, which I later learned was Lafite 1961. It was the first time in my life I’d felt a wine all the way down to my toes. It worked its magic through my body and made me realise that wine had a lot more mystery and history than I had first thought’.

The memory of the Lafite lingered, sending Iglesias on a lifelong wine journey. He began picking up the odd case in the countries he toured in – reds in France, whites in Germany – and got seriously into collecting in 1978, after building a 4,000-bottle cellar in the Miami home he shares with his second wife and their five children. He grew his cellar by seeking out bargains at New York merchant Sherry Lehmann. ‘In the late ’70s you could still get hold of great 1947s and 1961s. The ’75s were coming onto the market and I started spending a lot of money on Bordeaux, buying up all the Pauillac, Pomerol, Graves and Margaux I could get my hands on. Before you can appreciate great Burgundy, you’ve got to cut your teeth on good Bordeaux’.

Outside of France, Iglesias collects Spanish icon wines from Rioja and Ribera del Duero, particularly (perhaps still longingly) Vega Sicilia, as well as Pesquera, Pingus and CVNE Imperial. ‘I’ve recently got much more interested in Spanish wines’, he tells me. ‘I love trying wines from lesser-known Spanish regions like Calatayud, Jumilla and Zamora’. He dips his toe in the New World via Australia, South Africa, California and Argentina, but his wine heartland is very much Bordeaux and Burgundy. ‘My latest obsession is Pinot Noir,’ he tells me excitedly. ‘Romanée-Conti from a good year is absolutely unforgettable. When made well it’s so approachable young. You don’t have to wait for it, which is great, because I don’t have too much time.'

Article originally published in Decanter magazine

Wine Academy of Spain denies accusations against Campo and Miller

As reported on thedrinksbusiness.com, The Wine Academy of Spain (TWAS) has issued a statement categorically denying the accusations against Pancho Campo MW (pictured) and Jay Miller that Spanish wineries were being charged up to €40,000 by Campo for a visit from Miller. “The Wine Academy of Spain never requested from any wineries monies for the visits of Jay Miller or for tasting their wines,” reads the statement, signed by Campo, president and founder of the academy. “All the expenses for Jay Miller to travel to Spanish wine regions to taste and review wines were covered by The Wine Advocate, including his transportation, accommodation, meals and any other related expenses,” the statement continues.

According to Campo, the only occasion when fees had been charged were for “the organisation, setup and management of events that included seminars, conferences, masterclasses and guided tastings, which were open to the public,” but that “None of these fees were ever paid to The Wine Advocate.” Campo asserts that it was made clear to all Wine Academy of Spain staff that wineries could not pay fees for Jay Miller to taste their wines on behalf of The Wine Advocate, and that Miller was not allowed to accept hospitality at restaurants or gifts.

Earlier this year, TWAS organised a wine show in Jumilla with the Association of Wine from the Region of Murcia (Asevin) featuring a masterclass by Miller. Before contracts were signed, Asevin sent out an email trying to raise money from the wineries, contrary to the stipulations in the proposed agreement. According to Campo, “At that point, TWAS put the event on hold until the wineries were informed that they could not be asked for any kind of payment for possible visits and for submitting samples.” Campo is preparing to take legal action “in order to obtain the necessary measures against persons and publications having published information potentially damaging the reputation and the honour of The Wine Academy of Spain.”

Jay Miller resigned from Robert Parker’s bi-monthly publication The Wine Advocate last week to return to wine consulting, lecturing and wine retail. Miller denied his stepping down had anything to do with the Spain debacle. “Some may believe my stepping down is in response to my critics, nothing could be further from the truth. I have never accepted (or request) fees for visiting wine regions or wineries,” he said.

Both Miller and Parker indicated this was a voluntary departure on Miller's part, with Parker referencing the tediousness of tasting mediocre wines that can "burn out the best of us,” adding, "change is never easy, but often essential.” Miller's Spain, Chile, and Argentina responsibilities will be taken over by UK-based Neal Martin, while coverage of Oregon wines will go to David Schildnecht.

Marqués de Murrieta

Wine and the City tastes two stunning wines at historic bodega Marqués de Murrieta in Rioja – Capellanía Reserva 2006, a complex old vine Viura with immense ageing potential, and Castillo Ygay Gran Reserva 2004, a classic Rioja combining red fruit with cedar aromas.

Bodegas Baigorri

Wine and the City tries two delicious wines at the cutting edge Bodegas Baigorri in Rioja – Baigorri Reserva 2007, which scooped the best Rioja gong at the New Wave Spanish Wine Awards, and the signature Baigorri de Garage 2007, with Lottie West from Wines From Rioja.

Torres

Like Robert Mondavi was to California, so, to many, Miguel Torres is Spanish wine. The leading Spanish brand in the UK, Torres sells 4.2m bottles in Britain a year, with Viña Sol, Esmeralda and Sangre de Toro brightening supermarkets aisles across the country. Globally speaking, Torres is one of the most recognisable names in Spanish wine, and inextricably linked with the man behind the brand – fourth generation Miguel A. Torres.

Though respect for the environment has always formed part of the Torres modus operandi, it wasn’t until 2006, after watching Al Gore’s Oscar-winning documentary film An Inconvenient Truth, that Miguel Torres became startlingly aware of the very real threat of global warming on both the wine industry, and the planet. “It opened my eyes”, says Torres. “Global warming is one of the greatest social and environmental challenges facing humanity this century. Temperatures have already increased by one degree, which has brought the harvest forward by two-weeks. If they increase by five, Southern Europe will be full of arid steppes.”

Torres’ green commitment runs deep. He was honoured with a lifetime achievement award last month at the drinks business Green Awards for his pioneering work towards championing green issues in Spain, and his dedication to sustainable causes, while last year, at the inaugural Green Awards, Torres was named Green Company of the Year.

Torres, who turns 70 this year, has donated £9m of his own money to environmental issues. He drives a hybrid car and has bought 45 more for his staff. Before the climate conference in Copenhagen in December ’09, Torres welcomed 200 environmental experts into his home to prove that the wine industry is worried about the planet and the direction in which it’s headed. “Climate change is a reality. I’m astonished to see the speed at which it is taking place. Everyone should make a contribution to fight against this threat,” says Torres.

Bodegas Torres was founded in Vilafranca, Penedès, in 1870 by Miguel (I), his brother Jaime Torres Vendrell and their father. To symbolise the trio they created the three towers (torres) logo, which graces Torres bottles to this day. Over its 141-year history, the business has withstood everything from phylloxera to Civil War. Torres is expected to stand down as head this year, and speculation is rife as to whether of his son, Miguel Jr, or daughter Mireia will take the helm. “The board of directors is following the issue closely,” is all Torres will reveal.

Working in keeping with the philosophy of co-founder Miguel Torres Vendrell, that: “a good wine always respects nature, everything Bodegas Torres does is focused around minimising the impact of the winemaking process on the environment, with the overall aim of increasing vine and therefore wine quality. This June, Torres will host a Symposium for Environmental Exchange in Vilafranca, where Ricardo Lagos, the United Nations special envoy for climate change, is due to attend, along with green-focused wineries from around the world, such as Chivite, Codorníu, Yalumba, Fetzer and Concha y Toro.

Torres produces 44 million bottles a year, turning over £175m in annual sales and exporting to 140 countries. The company owns 2,440 hectares of vineyards across the world, in California’s Russian River Valley, Curicó in Chile, and Penedès, Priorat, Toro, Jumilla, Ribera del Duero and Rioja Alavesa in Spain. The recent impact of global warming has forced Torres to move his Spanish empire north, towards the Pyrenees, which will allow for cooler grape growing conditions.

In collaboration with the Catalan Institute of Vines and Wine, Torres operates research programmes aimed at recovering ancient Catalan grape varieties in danger of extinction. The region was once home to more than 100 indigenous grapes, but after the phylloxera epidemic of the mid-19th century, only a dozen have survived. In the past 15 years, Torres has, quite remarkably, rediscovered 58 varieties by asking farmers to inform him when they find a vine they don’t recognise. Torres’ great grape revival can be found in Grans Muralles, a DO Concha de Barberà wine made from the virtually extinct Garró and Samsó varieties, along with Monastrell, Cariñena and Garnacha.

The aims of the company’s latest project, Torres & Earth, include making use of biomass to produce biofuels, investing in solar panels, encouraging the use of wind power, and recycling water from waste management systems. But Torres’ green reach stretches all the way round the earth. The company has collaborated with the University of Barcelona to help protect the Bonelli’s eagle and the Ornithologists Union of Chile to safeguard the Andean condor.

“All of us can and must do something. Only by carrying out small acts of respect towards the environment as individuals, will we be able to raise ‘green’ consciousness on a lager scale,” says Torres, in an impassioned call to action we’d be churlish to ignore.