Rioja is made for food and sharing

Dec 21 2007 by Helen Savage, The Journal

WINE tastings can be great fun, but I love being able to take my time and enjoy a fine wine accompanied by good food.

A leading Spanish wine maker told me a couple of months ago that if folk in his part of the world see someone drinking wine alone in a bar before lunch they think that the poor soul must be ill. You just don’t do such things in Rioja. Wine is meant to be part of a meal, and it’s for sharing.

And so it was no surprise that the fine wines of the leading Rioja estate, Bodegas Valdemar, were shown to their best advantage matched with food prepared by top chef Terry Laybourne at a special ‘wine-maker’ dinner at Jesmond Dene House.

It was hosted by Carmen Martinez de Osaba, who has family roots deep in Rioja, although she was born and brought up in California. She has worked for Bodegas Valdemar for the last five or six years as export manager.

Carmen’s enthusiasm for her work bubbles over, unforced and warm. These are qualities she clearly admires in the Martinez Bujanda family who employ her. Carlos and Anna are the fifth generation involved in making fine wine, following their father, Jesus, who built the present winery in 1982.

We began by talking about the tricky 2007 vintage. “It turned out to be fabulous,” Carmen reported, “especially as it promised to be so uneven. It will probably be classified officially as ‘excellent’.” As Rioja is much in demand on the export market as well as in Spain, this is good news indeed.

What sells particularly well? “In Spain, the big wine is Crianza and our young, very fruity wines sell well,” Carmen replies. “But the US is going crazy for rosé. Our Gran Reserva goes very well in Asia.”

Valdemar export 65% of all that they make, and sell to around 60 countries.

Crianza literally means ‘well-bred’, and Rioja wine law decrees that a red Crianza wine should have spent at least 12 months in small oak barrels before being sold – which must not be before the third year after harvest. A Reserva may not be released until its fourth year and a Gran Reserva must mature at least 24 months in barrel plus another three years in bottle before release.

Increasingly, I warm to the younger, less obviously oaky wines, but despite often far longer in wood that the minimum requirement, I was pleasantly surprised by the vivid fruit of all the Valdemar range. “Gonzalo Ortiz, our winemaker, is always testing out different oaks,” Carmen explains, “and we were the first winery in Spain to ferment our white wine in small French oak barrels (rather than the traditional American oak that Gonzalo still prefers for his red wines).”

The white, from the often unpromising Viura grape, is picked from a 42-year-old vineyard. Its intense lemony fruit with a hint of candied peel was brilliant with a butternut squash risotto.

Another near perfect match was the lovely sweet, rich, spicy morello cherry fruit of the Conde de Valdemar Reserva 2002 (my wine of the week) with a salad of wood pigeon with beetroot.

The Conde de Valdemar Gran Reserva 1998 was delicious, silky and with more than a hint of chocolate and coffee, but a shade too rich and soft for some magnificently-cooked lamb.

My favourite wine, a 1999 Garnacha Reserva, full of sweetly ripe peppery fruit stood up very well to local cheese.

The tiniest of criticisms aside, there’s no doubt I enjoyed each wine more because of the setting and their partnership with fine food. It was just as it should be – and can also be at home, even if you haven’t got Terry Laybourne to cook for you.

Wine of the Week

Conde de Valdemar Reserva 2002, Oddbins, £10.99

Lovely deep ruby red with the smell of sweetly ripe red fruits, especially morello cherries, with a little spice (vanilla). Soft, rich and satisfying with a spicy aftertaste. If you still haven’t chosen a red for Christmas, try this.