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.

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.

Castillo Perelada dinner at Iberica

The week started in style with the Big Fortified Tasting at Glaziers Hall and an eight course food and wine matching dinner at Ibérica Food & Culture in Great Portland Street showcasing the wines of Castillo Perelada.

Winemaker Javier Suqué was a no show, unable to fly to London due to the pesky Eyjafjallajökull volcano, whose ash emissions are wreaking havoc over Europe. It's our Decanter World Wine Awards next week and we're having nightmares about empty tasting rooms and judges stranded in different parts of the world.

Anyway, on to brighter things. Castillo Perelada, who I must admit I hadn't heard of before the dinner, is the jewel in DO Emporda's crown, and their flagship estate. While the regions of Rioja, Ribera del Duero and Priorat are well loved and respected in the wine world, Emporda is a young pretender, still striving for global recognition.

Situated on the northeastern corner of Catalonia at the foot of the Pyrenees near the French boarder, Emporda benefits from a mild mediterranean climate and has mixture of soils, from slate slopes and red clay to sandy valleys, which make for interesting, complex wines.

Originally known for its sweet wines, Emporda is now more famous for its rosés, with Macabeo and Garnacha Blanca making up 80% of the vines planted in the region. Painter Salvador Dalí, a local of Emporda and close friend of Castillo Perelada's founder Miguel Mateu, was a big fan of the estate's Brut Rosé Cava.

Perelada goes against the grain, specializing in Cava and red blends made from international varieties. The company owns over 150 hectares across five estates, including La Garriga, Malaveina and the much-prized Garbet. I was treated to a tasting of eight of their wines – Cava to start and finish, with six red blends in between, matched with an array of experimental dishes from the Ibérica kitchen.

First up of the reds was 5 Fincas Reserva 2005, a blend of Merlot, Garnacha, Cabernet Sauvignon, Syrah, Tempranillo and Cabernet Franc aged in 50-5o French/American oak. The chefs paired this with ham two ways served on a black slate: Ibérico ham and ham croquetes. One sniff of the wine and I wouldn't have put it in Spain, but rather France. It was suave and mellow, with soft red and black fruit, bramble and licquorice. It had real depth and body with velvety tannins and hints of sweet spice.

For our second starter we drank the 100% Samsó Finca La Garriga 2006, aged for 16 month in new American oak, which was paired with sautéed wild mushrooms with cep gel and a slow poached egg. The nose was a lovely mix of sweetness from the oak and savoury notes. Equally as opulent as the first wine, it had a luxurious mouthfeel, mixing pepper, licquorice and spice and wonderful length. The mushroom dish looked like a work of art and tasted divine.

On to our first of the mains – slow cooked octopus in its own jus with green asparagus, white onion and paprika oil paired with the single estate Finca Malaveina 2006, a blend of Merlot, Cab Sauv, Syrah and Garnacha aged in new French oak. Having had a couple of extreme reactions to octopus in the past, I had to bail on this dish, opting in stead for play-it-safe cod. A more masculine wine than the first two, it had robust tannins and deeper black fruit. On the palate it was soft and silky, with a delicious velvety licquorice finish. I soon noticed that I'd written 'delicious' beside every wine; not something I normally do.

On to a classic Spanish dish, Asturian white bean stew with fabadas, chorizo, morcilla (black pudding) and pancetta – so simple, so full of flavour. This was matched with Solanes Cims de Porrera 2005 from Priorat, a blend of Cariñena, Garnacha, Cab Sauv, Merlot and Syrah aged in French oak. Grown on slate soils, it had a savory, almost herbal nose and a signature smooth mouthfeel with a spicy, peppery, meaty, Rhône-like red-fruited palate.

Now to the apogee: roasted shoulder of suckling Segovia lamb with herbs, mushrooms and green peas paired with Classic Cims de Porrera from Priorat, made from 100% old vines Cariñena and aged in new French oak. The wine was a sensational match for the lamb, which had been slow cooked for 12 hours and fell off the bone. It was the most tender, succulent and flavoursome lamb I've ever tasted - a culinary triumph. The whole table was seriously impressed. The wine wasn't bad either! It had a nose of morello cherries, raspberries, spice and pepper, with a smooth, velvety, round palate and a vanilla-sweet finish.

After the unforgettable lamb, I had to somehow find room for cheese, and the eagerly-anticipated Finca Garbet 2004. Made from a tiny 7 hectare estate, only 3,200 bottles are produced each year. The second 100% Samsó of the night, from 50-year-old vines, it was heady, full-bodied and opulent with a nose of blackcurrants, mint, licquorice and eucalypt. Smooth, velvety, fresh and long, there were hints of rosemary, game, chocolate and coffee on the palate, with a toasty lavender finish.

Having written delicious beside every wine, I got to thinking about the thread that weaved them all together – freshness. They all were all fruit-driven with good acidity and well integrated tannins, but it was their freshness that distinguished them, and while some weighed in at 14.5% abv, their freshness gave them balance and lift. I came along with no expectations and left completely converted. With wines of such quality, depth and complexity, surely Emporda won't remain Spain's best kept secret for much longer.