You don’t always need to be small to be beautiful.

You don’t always need to be small to be beautiful. 
Why do people with more money than sense ( which incidentally is something that I aspire to) sometimes pay thousands of pounds for a single bottle of wine? One of the main reasons is scarcity. If there are only a few hundred bottles of something then wealthy people can pay ridiculous prices to own one of them. This is all very well but are there wines that are real classics that are produced in large enough quantities for us mere mortals? One of the best places to find the answer is Rioja where producers such as Muga and Rioja Alta make large volumes of absolutely consistent genuine quality. My absolute favourite is a company called called CVNE (Pronounced Coonay) - Compania Vinicola del Norte de Espana or roughly translated as The North Spanish Wine Company. So far so glamourous.  A few years back ( well, almost 20 if I was being honest) I worked for their British agent and have loved their wines ever since to the extent that more often than not, any godchildren, nieces or nephews that we acquire get a bottle on arriving into the world as they ( hopefully the wine and the children) age beautifully. CVNE make upwards to 10 million bottles per year but you’d be hard pressed to find a dud amongst them. 






My first introduction to them was driving up to their winery in Haro which looks a lot like a Victorian workhouse. It was all a bit dusty and was showing signs of wear and tear but when they put out a range of wines going back to the 1960’s then I realised that this really was a very special wine maker. The reason that they can produce such large quantities of great wine is that they are blenders as much as grape growers and this allows them to build long term relationships over many generations with the best vineyards. They also age their young wines in oak barrels which sort of gives them a head start to maturity.
Where can I buy them?
The best place is Majestic Wine Warehouse - All prices are if you buy six or more mixed bottles

The Crianza 2012 is on offer at the moment at a bargain £6.99. I would be hard pushed to think of any red wine that’s given me and Mrs Grape more consistent drinking pleasure over the years.  CVNE Reserva is £9.99 and the very special Imperial Reserva from the Rioja Alta region is £20.00. They also produce a single vineyard wine made by a lovely man called Jesus Madrazo called Contino which you can buy from Waitrose Cellar at £25.00. In the wine business we always talk about the price/quality ratio and in these terms, the wines are really great value. 

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Born to be Wild.

Image
Born to be wild. In life, we all like to have a bit of control over things. That reassuring feeling that everything will go to plan and while nothing is ever guaranteed, you expect things to turn out well. In the winemaking world, this is what happens when you make your wine with a commercial cultured yeast. The vast majority of wine is now made using strains that are pretty predictable and will do the job quickly without too much risk. This being the case, why did we decide last year to go back to the wild side and let our grapes ferment with the natural yeasts to be found in the vineyard? The answer is that there is research that suggests that no two  vineyards have the same finger print and so you are tasting the unique product of our environment. The process was pretty nerve wracking. A commercial strain does its job in a week or two but our indigenous Somerset yeasts were still slowly working away until after Christmas. The results? We couldn’t be happier. We think...
Read more

Glasses.

Image
I’m writing this in the continuous long Sunday afternoon that is the week in-between Christmas and New Year. The intake of food and drink at Higher Plot and at various relative’s abodes has been prodigious and the urge to write an article about further indulgence isn’t as strong as it could be. We don’t feel too guilty about taking advantage of the Slackmus period partly because the end of the holidays means getting our big coats on for the start of winter pruning and also, I’ve just read an article about the alcohol intake of one of the greats of the wine trade 90 year old Michael Broadbent’ His son wrote - "Though my parents were in the wine business they aren't big drinkers. Champagne for breakfast because orange juice is so boring without Champagne. Then nothing until lunch, except perhaps you'd be given Madeira because their coffee was so bad. But otherwise nothing except for a Bloody Mary. They'd then have white and red wine with lunch and Port after, but ...
Read more

1988 Priorat

Image
Last night I was drinking a great bottle of Masia Barril 1988 Priorato with some friends who had come to stay. I must have bought it some time in the early 1990's from the Moreno shop in Paddington. Still completely fresh with lots of Garnacha character.  One of them lived there at the time and said that it was great until Robert Parker discovered the wines and then it all went downhill. I think that the reality is that a group of well funded producers made a concerted and orchestrated attempt to be "discovered" and recognised as makers of the most expensive wines in Spain. The likes of Clos Mogador and Alvarro Palacios are excellent in a modern style meets exceptional vine stock kind of way but ,you can't help but think that being the most expensive was the motivation and the marketing tool. I've met Palacios and liked him (and his wines) a great deal and he always had a clear sight of what his message was going to be. He was completely un abashe...
Read more