For my fiance’s birthday recently she, I and her brother headed back to Poble Sec to dine at Mano Rota, a restaurant that doesn’t subscribe to a particular label or style, instead producing courses of various themes and flavours from around the world courtesy of Bernat Bermudo and Christian Nindl.
Our first impressions upon entering Mano Rota (mano rota is an expression in Spanish that translates as ‘broken hand’, and means to do something excpetionally well) were overwhelmingly positive. The room is cool, beautifully presented with some artwork you’d love to have in your own dining room up on the walls, and the waiter who greeted us was super friendly, as were the other two staff who served us our food and wine throughout the evening.
We drank Komokrabas 2016 (two bottles), a lovely Albariño from Barbaanza e Iria and water. To eat we selected from the main/small dish menu six dishes, all to share. These were, in rough order: gyoza fricando, octopus with shisho and edamame, peking chicken wraps, suckling pig tacos, suckling lamb curry and beef onglets. I’m not a food writer so descriptions of edible stuff aren’t my cup of tea, but to summarise, everything was delicious and I made sure I snapped up anything that looked like it was going spare, and could happily have eaten a bit more. Oh, and dessert! Cheesecake with berries and chocolate crumble and chocolate mousse. Divine.
After Xemei, which we instantly called our best dining experience in Barcelona, we thought we would be hard-pressed to find somewhere to knock it off top spot, but Mano Rota did just that. We will definitely be returning there (and Xemei, to be honest) before we head back to the UK.
Blend and Bottled: A Wine Course. Weeks Four and Five.
Last night we concluded our five-week beginner’s wine course with an exam and blind tasting.
I didn’t get a chance to write about week four in detail, however we covered New World Wines, their rules (if any), regions, styles and appelations and took home some literature to read in more detail. This was followed by another smell test using the essence bottles, which went worse than the first time (for me) and then concluded with a tasting.
We tried a classic New Zealand Sauvignon Blanc and a Chenin Blanc from South Africa, both of which were the nicest whites I’d had so far, and an Australian Yellowtail, which I felt just tasted manufactured - something we read about as being a trait of Australian wine. Most of the time I guess they give the consumer what they want, however if that is the case here, something needs to give when it comes to wants and needs.
The reds were a traditional Pinotage (a mix of Pinot Noir and Cinsault) from South Africa and a Carmenere from Chile. Both of these were nice enough, but not really what I look for in a red wine.
So, onto last night and the last class.
Last week everyone was asked to bring a bottle with the label hidden, so we could conduct a blind tasting. All we decided was who was bringing red and who white or sparkling, so there was an even split. We were also asked to bring some food we thought would complement the wine.
The class began with a 35 question quiz - 32 multiple choice questions and three open-ended. I scored 30/35, one behind the winner with 31. I wasn’t too worried about the ones I got wrong, and will certainly remember the correct answers from now on.
Then we dove straight into the wine tasting, and I’ll do my best to remember as much about all eight bottles as I can.
To get us started was a sparkling wine kindly brought back from Italy from Franciacorta DOCG. My first Italian sparkling wine from Italy that wasn’t Prosecco, and it was lovely. This was followed by a South African white - a Sauvignon Blanc/Chardonnay blend, an Alta Alella biodynamic white and lastly a Catalan white but from where I can’t quite remember. I do remember the label though, so I will update when I next see it.
Onto the reds, and first we had a... Well, here I am struggling. There was a strong Tempranillo from Ribera del Duero, a Priorat, a Bordeaux and mine, ‘Retirement@65′ from South African winery BlankBottle.
This was a hit due to the bottle, the label and that it was from South Africa mostly, so I was proud that I’d brought a bottle everyone enjoyed for one reason or another. It did also taste very nice as well, so I will certainly look at acquiring more bottles in the future.
We ate cheese, meats, bread and even sushi along with the wines, in what was a lovely feast to end the course. My fellow classmates were all lovely and it was great fun getting to know them, and hopefully some of our paths will cross again in the future. Our teacher was excellent and is in the process of setting up a Spanish wine course over a weekend in May which I will be sure to attend.
Overall this course has been superb as an introduction to wine, something I’ve looked forward to going to for the last five Wednesdays and I see it as the first step on a hopefully long, certainly interesting journey in the world of wine.
On Saturday the girlfriend and I treated ourselves to a nice meal at a place I’ve long wanted to dine at, Xemei, in the Poble Sec barrio of Barcelona.
I used to pass Xemei all the time when I lived around the corner from it, and it just looked like an amazing place to eat, the name (xemei means twins - the owners Stefano and Max - in Venetian), the building, the decor, plus when I looked it up online, the reviews were indeed of the raving sort.
We rocked up at 8.45pm and were seated by Stefano in a pretty homely dining area adorned with maps, artwork and many empty bottles of wine. When we walked in it was quiet but by the time the menus had been brought to us the place was filling up nicely, 9pm onwards being when the party starts.
There’s something about Stefano I found really impressive. He was sincere, polite, appreciative, had answers for our questions and really helped subtly guide our menu choices, and indeed our meal. We split two starters and two mains, so cutlery and crockery were provided accordingly and ensured nothing was a faff, and after prompting him we would like a bottle of Italian red wine he suggested a light-bodied Dosset Rosso from Langhe, made with Dolcetto. It complemented our dishes beautifully, though I’m pretty sure it would have taken something pretty terrible to take away from their food...
Ah, the food. I don’t normally write about food, but I’m still thinking about this meal nearly a week later. To start we had burrata with tomatoes which was like eating your favourite pillow except your pillow is made of cheese and you want to eat it every day for the rest of your life. This was followed by eight scallops, each resting on their own seashell and tasted as good as they looked.
Our mains were beef cheek with mushrooms and pasta - I don’t like mushrooms but the sauce was so rich and delicious I neither noticed at first nor minded when I did - and then octopus served with potatoes, aubergine and another heavenly sauce.
We didn’t take long to decide we needed/wanted/craved dessert, in the way that no matter how full we were, we needed to see what they would conjure up. We kept it simple, cheesecake and chocolate cake, and we were not disappointed in the slightest. Consider our lofty expecations met - the cheesecake felt like a parmesan cloud and the chocolate cake was just absorbed by your tongue in the most ephereal manner.
Two measures of limoncello and a chat later we positively glided out of the door after what was my favourite restuarant experience since I moved to Barcelona over five years ago.
This week we stayed at home. That is to say, we looked at Spain and Italy. This is the week I had most been looking forward to because a) I want to specialise in Spanish wines and b) I wanted to get a better overview of Italy which is a bigger country, in wine terms, than I had realised.
I have drunk wine from the majority of regions in Spain (which has the most planted area in the world in wine terms, though is often behind France or Italy in terms of production) but it is always good to see a map and go through the regions in more detail, looking at common grape varieties and their names and the wines they favour.
I learned that in Rías Baixas there is high humidity, so they hang grapes up high using pergolas, allowing air to circulate around them while lessening the chance of them being afflicted by frost.
Rioja, one of the two DOCa’s along with Priorat, has three sub-zones - Rioja Alta and Rioja Alavesa, where the wines are generally better, and Rioja Baja. For red wines the most common grape variety is Tempranillo, followed by Garnacha. They are often blended in Rioja as they produce a better wine together than by themselves. For whites the Macabeu (in Rioja called Viura) grape is favoured by the majority.
In Ribera del Duero the Tempranillo graped, here called Tinto Fino or Tinto País, is used as a mono-cepage. Only red wines are produced under the DO Ribera del Duero label.
Priorat has two main grape varieties: Garnatxa (Catalan for Garnacha) and Cariñena. Llicorella is the name for the poor volcanic soil here which, combined with the sunny and dry climate, produces aromatic grapes with great complexity. Due to the black slate surface the vines are over-exposed to heat which is reflected back onto the vines at night, equalling full-bodied reds. As the grapes can only be picked manually as well, prices are higher for these wines.
On to Italy, and the only home of such grape varieties as Nebbiolo, Sangiovese, Albana, Trebbiano, Verdicchio and Vernaccia.
In the north, Piemonte produces mainly strong reds good for ageing. DOCGs Barolo and Barbaresco rule the roost here, producing exemplary wines using Nebbiolo. Bide your time (at least ten years) and you’ll be rewarded in kind.
DOCG Asti is also here, where they make sweet dessert wines using Muscat.
The same is true of Sicily and Sardinia. In the west is Tuscany, including Chianti, which produces fresh, aromatic wines thanks to the sun, hills and sea climate.
Veneto is where we can find DOC Prosecco. Prosecco used to be the name of the grape here too, but after Prosecco’s boom in popularity the grape was grown elsewhere and marketed as Prosecco, so in 2009 the name of the grape was changed to Glera to avoid confusion (and sub-standard Prosecco).
DOCG Chianti, made from Sangiovese plus others, is located in Tuscany. Also in Tuscany is a wine I know well, DOCG Brunello di Montalcino. Brunello is the local name for Sangiovese, and it is a mono-cepage here.
Regarding the Italian wine legislation, some big producers don’t agree with the rules on, for example, which grapes are permitted. They make wines anyway, and in Tuscany these wines are known as Super Tuscans. Tignanello, Solaia, Ornellaia and Sassicaia are all Super Tuscans.
There was a bit more on sherry and other things, but I decided to try and keep this as short as possible. Finally posting this on the morning of the fourth day of the course, so tonight we step forward into New World wines.
On Wednesday we went to France in what I found a wonderfully simple and concise overview of a complex country.
We were talked through Bordeaux, Burgundy, Alsace, Loire and Rhône, and despite having heard of these regions, their most famous appellations and wines before, I was grateful to learn certain facts which helped consolidate information about the regions, while being memorable and very useful moving forward.
Favourites included:
Classification of the left bank (below the Garonne) and right bank (above the Dordogne) in Bordeaux, and that Cabernet Sauvignon dominates the left, while Merlot is the majority in the right.
All wines in Bordeaux are an assemblage, or more simply, blends. So on the left Cab Sav is the main grape, with Merlot most commonly used to give the wine softness and body, while on the right Merlot is usually blended with Cabernet Franc and/or a little Petit Verdot.
In Burgundy, all wines are varietal, or mono-cepage. Chardonnay is mainly used for white, and Pinot Noir for red. Chardonnay is a versatile grape, and in Burgundy it adapts to the soil. Vintages in Burgundy can vary year-on-year due to their mono-cepage rule as, unlike in Bordeaux, winemakers cannot use other grapes to “fix” bad hauls of a single grape.
Alsace is very sunny and produces mainly white wine using Riesling and Gewurztraminer especially. Riesling from Alsace is a dry wine.
The Loire valley is one of the most elongated wine regions in Europe, and as such has huge differences in climate and soil, as the sea has more of an impact nearer the coast but this diminishes further inland, obviously. It produces red, white, rosé and sparkling wine. Reds are mainly Cabernet Franc and Pinot Noir, while whites are typically Chenin Blanc, Sauvignon Blanc and Muscadet.
Orléanais in Loire is known as ‘The Kingdom of the Sauvignon Blanc’ and is home to Sancerre and Pouilly-Fumé.
The Rhône is split into northern and southern parts. Northern Rhône has strong winds from the mistral so the vines must be planted deeper, though the mountain is used to shield them. The vines grow on steep slopes by the river, so cultivating them is time-consuming and labour-intensive, resulting in expensive prices.
Most Rhône wines (80%) come from the southern part. In Rhône 23 grape varieties are planted. In the north it is mostly Syrah, but in the south all 23 are. Wines from the south can include up to 13 different grapes, but Grenache is the most important in these blends.
After this theory we moved tested our smell recognition using some vials of popular smells. I only picked out two or three from the nine, however it was a useful exercise in naming and associating isolated smells, and also learning what certain things actually smell like. This made life a bit easier when it came to the wine tasting, which went better than last week for me, and I felt much more confident expressing my opinion.
We tasted, in order, a Chablis, a Viognier, a Riesling, a Cote du Rhône, a right bank Bordeaux and a sweet wine from Cadillac, in the Entre-Deux-Mers region. The Riesling was interesting and I am keen to try more of that style, while the Cote du Rhône and Bordeaux grew on me after an initial dislike. The Cadillac was a little too sweet for me, though we were recommended to try one of the cheeses with it, and this did offset the sweetness nicely.
Overall it was a successful evening and having gone over the theory this morning I am looking forward to next week as we dive into Spain and Italy. Spain has been my home for the last five years and in the future it is the country I would like to specialise in, so I am particularly looking forward to this class.
Tonight I will go to my second of five weekly classes of a beginner’s wine course at a modern studio in the Born area of Barcelona.
There are nine students on the course which spreads itself across five topics: an introductory class, France (tonight), Spain and Italy next week, the New World the week after and food pairings to finish. Each class is half theory and half wine tasting, the part I am most looking forward to...
And not just because we get to drink wine. My nose/palette need a lot of work. I love the theory side of things, but feel that through constant reading on the subject I am picking up more and more every day. The physical side of things I struggle a lot more with - distinguishing smells and tastes, some of which I’ve just not experienced before.
The theory side so far has proved interesting, fleshing out what I already know. Little things, like the purpose of pruning, or a way of remember what full-bodied means, or where acidity comes from and is found, have all complemented what I know so far, and now I am looking forward to a deeper dive into the vats of grapes that await.
As far as the consumption side of things goes, I believe we will be practising our smelling with some vials and blind smelling, which, despite my half-blocked nose, I hope will prove thoroughly useful. Discussing our thoughts and ideas with others is also useful, however you just need to resist the temptation to nod and agree with what someone else says.
Overall I am confident the course is going to act as a thorough introduction to the world of wine, and a stable platform to build upon.
The Level 4 Wine Award, a diploma run by the Wine and Spirits Education Trust, is something I would like to complete. Here is a look at some of its most esteemed alumni, and a strong case for doing the qualification.
On a day trip to York at the weekend we visited the very cool wine bar, Pairings.
Ahead of the trip I checked out their wine menu and was delighted to see a couple of Catalan regions represented, a white wine from Alella and a red from Montsant, one of my favourite regions.
We arrived to a very busy restaurant around 1pm and were seated at a row of high chairs opposite the bar, visible in the walled mirrors. The staff were friendly, welcoming and accommodating, attitudes maintained throughout our stay.
When it came to food and drink, the five of us shared three platters (Yorkshire, fish and Spanish, all lovely) and chose our own wine. The wine list was divided up nicely, the reds being separated into Soft & Fruity, Spiced & Complex and Bold & Powerful. I opted first for a Spiced & Complex Sangiovese from Rometta and finished with a Bold & Powerful Petite Sirah from the Bogle Vineyards of California.
Both were the cheapest in their category but boy did they represent it well, and I would (and will aim to) seek out a bottle of both in the future. Sangiovese in particular is a grape I am eager to try more of, as well as its Italian brother Nebbiolo.
I noticed advertised some interesting tasting nights that Pairings holds, for example a Chilean night, and if we were to move to York/Yorkshire then Pairings is somewhere we would definitely look at returning to, most likely weekly.
Over the weekend I was finally able to sit down and watch Sour Grapes, a documentary about fine wine, auction houses and a counterfeiter, Rudy Kurniawan.
Released in 2016 it tells, through Rudy’s friends and associates, auctioneers and victims of Rudy and archive footage of the man himself, the story of the fine wine price boom in the early-to-mid 2000s that Rudy, or Dr Conti as he was known thanks to his love of Domaine de la Romanée Conti, significantly helped fuel.
I found the documentary thought-provoking in a variety of different manners:
First of all, I am still struggling to get my head around the way in which particular people talk about wine. Not so much the words, but the way in which they are said. Fair enough you can smell pepper and burnt wood or whatever, but how one person can turn to another and say, “Mmm, I’m really getting that pepper, are you? Mmm...” just irks me. My favourite part of the whole thing centres around some banker who was riding around drinking wine in the back of a taxi trying to impress a woman with a glass of Rudy’s red he was adamant was sensational, only to be immediately denounced and embarrassed by an expert on that particular (fake) bottle.
On the flip side of this, I found Bill Koch’s storyline relatively moving. Despite being a billionaire with an unreal wine cellar behind a hidden door, it seemed like he had a genuine love of collecting wine (among other things) and that his particular episode with Rudy’s wines killed off most of, if not all, of his enthusiasm for it. Fair enough he could buy any and every wine he wanted, but to see someone’s spirits for any hobby become dampened is a sad sight indeed.
Another interesting insight into just how wines are faked, and the warning signs to look for, from discrepancies with the ageing of labels to simple spelling mistakes. I also found that for someone so seemingly intelligent, Rudy floundered when it came to researching the wines he was faking, and a bit more care on his part may have seen his sham last longer.
Overall, fake wines or not, and with a concrete love of wine or not (those who consider themselves friends, or old friends of Rudy’s do paint him as having a very real knowledge of wines and an excellent palette), I believe that money was the true driver behind his collecting and selling and his malpractice drove up prices and put certain wines out of the reach of those who have a much more romantic, long-lasting and soulful love of wine than as an investment or status symbol. This is not to decry, however, those who can spend big on big names and big bottles, as knowledge and learning do not go hand in hand with a hefty bank balance, but there is something about an older man sifting through three decades of wine labels from a region he has collected out of nostalgia I connect with much more than some investment broker necking wine he’s just blown this year’s bonus on in the back of a cab.
This re-iterated one final stance my future brother-in-law shared with me: wine, however expensive, cheap, new or old, is a drink that is supposed to be opened, shared, talked about and reminisced over, not just sitting in a cellar waiting for a day or occasion that may never come - and, indeed, sometimes opening a particular bottle of wine is the occasion. It has made me reconsider my personal stance and desire to collect, and while I do always wish to have a certain amount of wine on hand, and I will buy bottles purely for their labels sometimes, always, that I can take a leaf out of Mont Bar’s book and use the empty bottles as decoration, talking points and most of all a visual memory and reminder of great wines drunk with friends and family, new and old, something it is impossible to put a price on and sell at auction.
It is fitting that for an animal so loud, a Screaming Eagle is heard of but rarely seen, in the wild at least.
Napa Valley’s most elusive bird of prey does well to hide from its own predators, concealing itself in small, limited numbers and with a mating call only recognised by a select and selected few.
Between 5000 and 9000 Screaming Eagles take flight each year, available only to pre-arranged partners with the means to facilitate a relationship. Should they not make the cut, there are a slew of others waiting to step into their shoes. A Screaming Eagle will set you back about $3000, if not more.
So, where did it all begin? The cult of the Screaming Eagle was started by one woman: Jean Phillips. Having left her job as an estate agent, in 1986 she bought a 57 acre vineyard of mixed varietals in Oakland, California. 56 acres were sold off to various Napa wineries, leaving one solitary acre of solely Cabernet Sauvignon. Phillips used these 80 vines to produce here own wine, which it transpired was of an exceptionally high quality. Her 1992 vintage was released in 1995 to critical acclaim, and its reputation has soared ever since.
Two decades after retaining that one acre of 80 vines, Jean Phillips sold Screaming Eagle to billionaire Stan Kroenke for an undisclosed amount thought to be in the region of $30-40 million. Not a bad return on investment, I imagine.
Kroenke, showing a better aptitude for progress and development with wine than with Arsenal, one of the sports teams he owns, has replanted the vineyards, modernised the estate and hired some of the best people in the business to oversee production. All of which should, in the not too distant future, the Screaming Eagle’s mating call is heard both more regularly and by more ears. I, for one, would love to know what it sounds like.
Last year my fiancee and I visited two Catalonian vineyards either side of the Montserrat mountain range. The first, Finca Ca n'Estella, is a beautiful country estate in the Penedés region owned by the Rabetllat i Vidal family. Delfí Rabetllat bought the estate in 1964 and then in 1992 Mercè Rabetllat and her husband Jaume Vidal took over. Now, the third generation of the family are in charge. It produces wine under the label Clot dels Oms and cavas under the family name.
The estate itself is beautiful - the colours of the flowers in the spacious courtyard contrast strikingly with the building's white walls, especially in the sun, while inside new technology lies in accordance with the winemakers' original blueprint. It is quaint, modern, charming and functional, all the while keeping tradition and family values at the forefront of the business.
The house was active during the Spanish Civil War, when it acted as a safe house for rebels (whichever end of the washing line the clothes hung told them if it was safe to approach or not) and there is still the hole in the staircase just big enough to poke a rifle through and aim it at the front door...
History aside, our tour was fantastic - welcoming, engaging and the wines, cavas and tapas we sampled were all first-rate. It was a shame to have to leave, but our second venue awaited...
This one, Oller del Mas, lies in a different region: Pla de Bages. The stunning vineyards surround a castle dating back to the 10th century which is the centrepiece of the winery. The Oller family have over 1000 years of history there but are not stuck in the past, having the honour of producing the first Catalan wine, their Petit Bernat, to be carbon footprint certified. It was also here I learned that roses are planted next to their vines because there is a disease which affects both vines and roses but it shows earlier in the latter, therefore the roses can be used to ‘save’ the vines if the disease strikes.
Once again, the wines and the local cheeses they were paired with here were wonderful, and it was of no surprise we purchased a few bottles to take away with us.
These are just two of the many winemakers in Catalonia and their unique stories, methods and cultures easily stir up a desire to learn more about the other vineyards strewn across the region, hopefully continuing in the coming weeks with a trip to one of my favourite regions here, Montsant.
