Spain 2018: Full steam ahead!

“Refreshed” in more ways than one as, contrasting the northern reaches of Europe, 2018 is by no means a “solaire” vintage in Spain. Where some struggled, particularly in Galicia and Rioja, because of mildew in spring and early summer, then showers during the harvest which brought with them unwelcome botrytis and necessitated work on the sorting table, others, like Sara Perez at Mas Martinet describe 2018 as a “new inflection point in the history of Priorat”. Alvaro Palacios agrees. “The vineyards were re-born. We had plentiful rain in the winter to build up water reserves, an even spring and a warm but not excessively hot summer. The wines combine beautiful richness of fruit with a clear sense of energy and freshness.” Barrel tastings in Priorat indicate that 2018 will go down as a truly outstanding vintage for the region. Alcohols are lower and the wines stimulating and mineral without wanting for presence or depth.

Sara Perez stands atop Els Escurcons, the highest vineyard in Priorat.

Catalonia – “Independence of Catalan country – we are and will be.”

In Bierzo, back in January this year, Raul Perez asserted; “it’s early days but we are seeing the makings of a clear, bright and classical vintage with a style and freshness that I love to see. Mencia can be a rustic variety but this year, after six weeks on the skins [a short period for Perez], we had round, sweet tannins and good tension in the wines.” Hot days and cool nights in Bierzo helped to stave off pressures and allowed harvest to take place over a relatively wide picking window. Ribeira Sacra, on the other hand, struggled to control mildew and botrytis in the run up to the harvest and volume was lost on the sorting table. Early tastings suggest though that what has been produced is of crunchy, succulent fruit and high, Atlantic acidity. In wider Galicia, including Rias Baixas and Valdeorras, a good August and early September saved the harvest, enabling the production of classically styled, invigorating white wines. Picking began in the main before scattered showers arrived in mid-September and 2018 is in general a return to normal yields after 2017.

Quality in Rioja is more heterogenous and the overall feeling appears, at least in part, to depend on the style of wine produced. Senorio de Hermanos Pecina, in the foothills of the San Vincente de la Sonsierra, is an estate that, despite only being established as recently as the mid-1990s, is a bastion of delicious, traditional style Rioja. According to Mikel Martinez, “2018 was not especially difficult. More Atlantic perhaps but in keeping with old, classical vintages.” For them, long aging in American oak barrels with regular racking is de rigeur. With time, the wines develop satisfyingly balsamic, herbal and spicy coffee, tawny Riojan notes which help to smooth the edges of a given vintage, leaning more toward comfort and classicism. Martinez added that a preponderance of old vines and sites with good drainage helped to alleviate their worries. Others, meanwhile, said that 2018 was a very difficult year in the vineyard, and that regular rain throughout Spring, patches in July and again in September actually necessitated two green harvests to control yields and thin the canopies to encourage aeration. Conversely, there are many who, following a painfully small crop in 2017, were tempted to take a higher, perhaps even excessive, crop. In those cases, the wines feel light in the mid-palate and lack the concentration and complexity to support what is normally a fairly robust period of oak aging in Rioja. Whether down to personal preference or classification requirements, there is still a general reliance on oak and extraction to disguise some of the shortcomings present in much of basic Rioja. This is not always successful.

Arturo de Miguel of Artuke, is a young pioneering producer on the vanguard of a new, exciting movement in Rioja. His small cellar is located in the village of Banos de Ebro in Rioja Alavesa and it is here that Arturo and his brother Kike (the name Artuke is a combination of the two), produce some of the region’s most distinctively pure Tempranillo expressions. A member of a newly created group of similarly minded producers called “Rioja ‘n’ Roll”, the Artuke philosophy is more worldly and terroir driven than most of their peers, following a Burgundian model of classification along regional, village and single vineyard lines, renouncing the idea that maturation and concentration should define quality. Believing that the established Riojan practice of extending aging and blending across sites and villages to be outdated and short-sighted, Arturo is taking things back and working from the ground up. “Come with me”, he said, almost curtly, when I arrived at their winery for the first time. “You’ve seen hundreds of cellars. They are all the same. I’ve got vineyards to show you and you need to get your hands in the dirt. It’s the only way you’ll understand what we do.” He speaks with measure and confidence. Standing in the Finca Los Locos [Farm of the Madmen] in Banos at 550m, feeling the chalk and the gravel between one’s fingertips, the dry earth and the wild garrigue aromas in the air, it’s not hard to see why the wine has bags of character. We climbed to Paso Las Manas, a younger vineyard at 720m altitude, where the soil is rocky with clay underlying. Here the vines are staked individually, anchoring the wines against the cooling wind. Harvest can take place here a full month later than in the lower lying sites. The sense of energy in the finished wine, with wild blue fruit and persistent stony notes on the finish put paid to the idea that only old vines reflect terroir. Finally, we arrived at one of their two “Grand Cru” single vineyards: La Condenada [the damned]. Here, old vines are the name of the game as they approach a hundred years old. The site is located at 520m altitude in the home village of Banos de Ebro and topographically it is reasonably flat, rather than sloped; deep roots drawing nutrients from the iron-rich sandstone. If 2017 was a difficult vintage, then I can’t wait to see this in a top year. Artuke have only been bottling this as a single site since 2015 but the 2017 is imbued with the most majestic, rich fruit, controlled by the finest tannins and floral, mineral and chiselled character. Sadly, production is limited to around 1,000 bottles per year.

Finca Los Locos in Banos de Ebro, Rioja Alavesa

An afternoon with Arturo is a quite life-affirming experience, and it’s easy to see why he sees Rioja as an unbelievable hotbed of opportunity. A cursory look at the array of plots at varying altitudes, exposures, vine age, soil types and micro-climates driving through the vineyards suggests that it really is just there for the taking. At this point though, the region is still dominated by big brands and co-operatives for whom brand Rioja means substantial volumes at low prices. Unsurprisingly, Artuke, a total outlier in the region, were staunchly committed to harvesting only grapes of the best possible health in 2018, even if that meant reducing yields. “We must keep the closest possible eye on our vineyards. We have some of the best terroirs for winemaking in the world, but it means nothing if we don’t grow the right grapes to express those vineyards. Our approach is different. We work organically, ferment in stainless steel and concrete, macerate for just 7 days on the skins so as to extract gently before transferring to large oak barrels; purely French and all used wherever possible. Malolactic fermentation takes place in wood and we add no sulphur until it is over. We adopt a static and reductive style of fermentation and maturation. Time in oak is just twelve to sixteen months on average.”

“Is this the new modern?” I asked. “Well, yes and no. It was only after phylloxera, from the early part of the twentieth century onwards that people in this region started using American oak. It changed the profile and reputation of Riojan wines, but if you came to my village in Banos de Ebros and tasted our wines... the 225L barrels were not established. We had cement and wooden butts. It’s the big companies that changed the landscape. Who’s to say that we’re doing isn’t the real traditional?”

Back to the 2018 vintage though, and in the end, despite variances in style and technique, as long as the requisite work was put in, the 2018s in Rioja appear to have fine boned tannins, cleansing acidity and moderate alcohols. The white wines are fabulous, and growing in significance domestically, even if they are still largely underappreciated in export markets. The reds are delicious, vibrant and fruity, if not necessarily the most profoundly ageworthy. Artadi, famous for having stepped out of the DO Rioja appellation entirely and commanding incredibly high prices, believe that “2018 is in general a fruity vintage and more on the elegant spectrum than the deep complexity of 2016.” Lopez de Heredia, where it seems that time has stood still for a hundred years, are very happy with the quality of the harvest. “Coming after 2017 we were pleased to have a bigger, more normal crop on our hands and be able to produce all of our wines.” In their case though, it will be a long time before we see the fruits of their labour. Nevertheless, history suggests that this is an estate set to make a mighty fine success of it.

Moving south, Ribera del Duero has recovered from a devastating, frost-bitten 2017 crop with normal yields, fresh acidities and substantial, clear fruit profiles. The vintage suits Tempranillo nicely, as the wines have a freshness that moderates the, at times, intrusive levels of alcohol and extraction, even in the upper echelons of Ribera wine production. Mariano Garcia, winemaker at Bodegas Aalto and formerly Vega Sicilia, celebrated his fiftieth harvest in Ribera in 2018 – an extraordinary achievement and worthy of huge celebration. This year, 2019, marks twenty years of Aalto under the stewardship of Garcia, and a recent vertical tasting at the winery proved that even the straight Aalto label has fabulous aging potential. Both 2000 and 2005 are hitting their stride, while 2010 still bristles with energy and latent potential.

Bodegas Aalto celebrate twenty years in Ribera del Duero with a vertical tasting for their importers worldwide.

Vineyards surrounding Aalto at sunset, Ribera del Duero.

In the Sierra de Gredos, the beautiful mountain range west of Madrid, Javier Garcia, the thoughtful and reflective winemaker at 4 Monos, is immensely upbeat about the 2018s. “In Gredos we were not affected by mildew. There was a brief concern about botrytis during the harvest but in the end we had cool nights and hot days, fantastic for acidity and concentration; a fast but unproblematic harvest.” Here, the 2018s are endowed with more structure and complexity than the 2017s and they are set for a long and happy life ahead.

Old bush vine Garnacha in Cadalso de los Vidrios, Gredos, planted on decomposed Granite.

We look forward to following these, and all the other 2018s, on their journey over the years to come.

Mark Dearing