Spanish adventure

PULL up a stool at Lou’s, a wine bar that opened six weeks ago, sandwiched between a fluff-and-fold laundromat and a pawn shop near the corner of Melrose and Vine, and Lou Amdur can tell you all about Spanish wines. Rich Garnachas from Priorato and bracing Albariños from Rías Baixas? His customers ask for these wines by name. Is that surprising?

Not any more. The wine intelligentsia who frequent Lou’s, bargain hunters at Trader Joe’s, diners who want to try something fun by the glass at restaurants such as Sona, Spago, Providence and Jar— all are members of L.A.’s growing fan club for Spanish wines. Labels that few had heard of a year ago now are on wine lists all around town. And not just the better-known Riojas and Ribera del Dueros that have long had cachet; wines from emerging regions are developing avid fans too. A year ago, the customers at Mission Wines in South Pasadena discovered the Spanish wine section, says owner Chris Meeske. Now, “I can’t keep the wines in stock. They are selling like crazy.” The wines fill a need left vacant by California winemakers, he says. “People need interesting wines they can drink every day. And there are no wines like that from California.”

The values are extraordinary, says Rajat Parr, wine director for Michael Mina’s restaurant group. At Mina’s new Stonehill Tavern at the St. Regis Resort Monarch Beach, the Tres Picos Garnacha offered for $12 a glass costs just $10 a bottle at local wine stores. How to justify that kind of markup? “People don’t mind paying that for a glass of wine this good,” he says.

Orange County diners, Parr points out, are devoted to California wine. So he knew he was taking a risk when he cut back on local favorites to stock 50 Spanish wines. But, he says, “Spain has dialed it in. These wines are just right for the American palate. Lots of intense fruit.” The Albariños, Garnachas and Tempranillos will have to be hand-sold at first, Parr says. Then he predicts he’ll have trouble keeping them in stock.

Already, Spain has eclipsed Australian and Chilean wines on restaurant wine lists as the inexpensive alternative to California wines, say sommeliers. “They taste totally different than California wines, but they have that same intensity and structure,” says Parr. And they cost half as much for the same quality. “No place in the world makes better value wines today than Spain,” he says.

A vine revival

A revolution has swept Spain’s wine industry. It started in the 1980s when a few independent winemakers started making ambitious wines. American wine lovers discovered them, and soon their popularity grew. Now vintners in every corner of Spain are dusting off old vineyards, overhauling wineries and cleaning up their acts in a bid to appeal to American wine drinkers. Suddenly, a seemingly limitless assortment of $10 and under bottles are for sale everywhere.

Spanish wine sales in the United States rose 14.6% between 2004 and 2005, rising from 3.8 million cases worth $183 million to 4.3 million cases worth $209 million. Spanish wine sales in the U.S. started climbing in 1999 after a decade in which sales stagnated at around $75 million a year.

It’s all happening so fast that, unlike with every other wine region in the world, there are few experts focused on Spain. Only one wine writer, John Radford from Britain, has published a guide to Spanish wine that even attempts to be current and all-encompassing.

“It will take another decade or two before Spain sorts through this revolution,” says Doug Frost, an American Master of Wine who wrote the brief “The Far from Ordinary Spanish Wine Buying Guide,” recently published by Wines From Spain, the Spanish wine industry’s marketing arm. Until then, Spain will be a game where smart consumers keep up with the emerging regions and avoid getting snookered by the rising prices for wine from the more established regions.

La Mancha and Calatayud were bulk wine regions that are now producing attractive, friendly red wines from Tempranillo and Garnacha grapes, respectively. Campo de Borja, a southern bit of the Navarra region below Rioja, is making intense and fruity Garnachas. In the Rías Baixas zone in Galicia, the northwest corner of the country, crisp, fresh Albariño is king. And in Rueda, fruity, structured white wines made from Verdejo grapes rule.

Spain was ripe for this revolution. With more vines than any other country in the world — 3 million acres compared with France’s 2.3 million acres and the U.S.’ 1 million acres — the country has a plentiful supply of grapes. But since the Spanish Civil War, vintners had farmed the fruit with little care, using it almost exclusively for nondescript jug wines. If it was growing on a difficult to harvest hillside, they often let the grapes rot on the vines.

The abundance of vines dates back to Gen. Francisco Franco’s failed agricultural policies in the 1950s. Spain’s infamous military dictator, who ruled from 1939 until his death in 1975, subsidized the planting of “permanent” crops such as olive trees and grape vines that could be managed by state-sponsored cooperatives.

Without a sense of ownership in what they produced, the cooperatives operated like state-run wine factories. Neglected dry-farmed vineyards struggled to survive. In regions such as Priorato and Bierzo, there were vineyards located in “gravity defying areas that were simply too [difficult] to rip out and replant,” says Eric Solomon, one of a few American importers who discovered Spanish wine early.

It was Jorge Ordoñez, a Spanish expatriate living in Boston, who first tapped the potential of those old Spanish vineyards. Growing up in the town of Málaga in southern Spain, Ordoñez learned the wine business from his father, a gourmet food and wine distributor. After marrying his college sweetheart and moving to the States, the junior Ordoñez set up a Spanish wine import company and started teaching Spanish vintners how to make wine the California way.

‘Quality control’

“SPAIN was very poor,” says Ordoñez. “It took us forever to recover from the Spanish Civil War in the 1930s.” The prize vineyards were there — high altitude, dry farmed, old-vine vineyards. “The problem was quality control,” he says. “There was no sophistication with wine.”

As economic reforms led to an increase in privatization, independent vintners began to reject the collective approach to making wine. Ordoñez pushed these small vintners to modernize their wineries with stainless steel fermenters and to move toward more hygienic operations. “I’m adamant about quality control,” he says. “No bacteria.” If a winery complied with his recommendations and he could count on the wine being stable, he’d import it to America.

“I hate funky wines because they are short-lived,” says Ordoñez. “I hate oxidized wines that have been improperly stored. They’re cooked. I try to control as much of the process at the wineries as I can.”

It wasn’t until 1990 that Ordoñez had wines that sold well in the U.S.: the Garnachas and Tempranillos from Bodegas Borsao in Campo de Borja. As his portfolio of wineries grew, Ordoñez took over marketing, packaging the wines with names such as “Wrongo Dongo” and “Mano a Mano.” The first year, he sold 1,200 cases of Spanish wine. After eight years, he had enough business to hire his first employee. Now he sells more than half a million cases a year of Spanish wine in the United States.

Ordoñez was the icebreaker, says Solomon, who, along with Beaune Imports and Classical Wines of Spain, followed him. “Spain considered itself a third-world country. There was a malaise, a sense of ‘we’re not worthy of sharing the stage with the rest of the fine wine world,’ ” Solomon says.

Solomon was an importer singularly focused on French wine 12 years ago when he tasted the Spanish wine that would change his life. It was Daphne Glorian’s Clos Erasmus from Priorato. He liked it so much he married the winemaker and started searching for other wines as delicious as his wife’s. In the last six years, the volume of Spanish wine Solomon imports into the U.S. has grown fifteenfold, he says. “The economy in Spain now is booming,” says Solomon. “It’s no longer the place to go when you have no money. For growers to make a living, to do the quality work that still needs to be done, the prices have to go up.”

The success of the inexpensive Spanish wines flowing out of the country isn’t lost on longer-established Spanish wine entrepreneurs. Price inflation is sweeping through celebrated regions such as Rioja and Ribera del Duero, where prices can exceed $100 for the most sought-after bottles, as well as through newcomer Priorato. The promises of instant riches is inspiring overzealous young vintners to chase critical accolades with heavily extracted wines that taste like California wannabes.

“Some Spanish vintners are too eager to cash in on their newfound popularity,” says Parr, “jacking up prices to astronomical levels.”

Balancing that inflation is the wine from up-and-coming regions such as La Mancha and Navarra. Still trying to get their foot in the door with American consumers, they have to keep prices below $10 a bottle. An ocean of inexpensive Spanish wine has yet to reach America, says Fran Kysela, an importer who last year in the U.S. sold 50,000 cases of $6 wines from Calatayud. “The market is quick to respond to these wines.”

Steady transformation

OF course, not all of Spain’s inexpensive wines are worth drinking: The less-than-appealing ones can be funky, jammy or oxidized. “It’s been a quiet revolution,” says Solomon. “But the sleeping giant is waking up. The floodgates are now open. It’s not just us little guys ferreting out small producers making better wines,” he says.

There now are a host of undemanding importers betting that these days anything with a Spanish label will sell. And more significantly, the behemoth wine companies — Constellation Brands and E. & J. Gallo Winery — have arrived in Spain, says Solomon. They are competing to be the first to create the Spanish equivalent of Australia’s Yellow Tail: a simple, bulk wine with easy to drink fruity flavors.

And there’s a drawback to that thinking. “A certain homogeneity” has emerged in the rush to make wine that appeals to the expanding American wine market, Parr says. Bringing Spanish wineries up to acceptable health standards with modern technology and oak barrel fermentation got rid of the oxidized and funky smells and flavors associated with rustic wines. It also left the wines tasting a lot less, well, Spanish.

Most people don’t know the wines, most have never heard of these regions, but they can taste the quality, says Jar’s wine director Bob Silverstein. He recently started dedicating 10% of the restaurant’s wine list to Spanish wines. “I had to make room for them,” he says. “The quality was there.”

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(INFOBOX BELOW)

A primer on grapes and places

Emerging regions

Bierzo. Fruit from the signature Mencía vines from this region in northwest Tierra de Castilla go into reds that are terrific food wines, with more finesse than power.

Campo de Borja. An emerging area south of Rioja, where the old-vine Garnacha vineyards climb the slopes of Sierra del Moncayo.

Cariñena. South of Campo de Borja, Cariñena is the birthplace of a namesake grape variety, though Garnacha is the dominant grape.

Calatayud. East of Cariñena, Calatayud’s high-altitude, old-vine Garnacha is just starting to show up in wines for export.

Empordá-Costa Brava. This coastal zone of Catalunya has newly planted Tempranillo, Cabernet and Chardonnay vineyards. The signature wine is a rosado (rosé) made from Garnacha and Cariñena grapes.

Jumilla. A hot, high-altitude region southwest of Valencia known for bulk wine, Jumilla now is making modern wine with its old-vine Monastrell grapes.

La Mancha. South of Madrid, the flat, inland region is hot in the summer, freezing in the winter, and dry all the time. White Airéns and Tempranillos predominate.

Navarra. Near the French border, west of Catalunya, the region is known for Garnacha, much of which is made into rosados. Tempranillo production is rising.

Priorato. An area of Catalunya known for a wide elevation span (328 to 2,297 feet) and slate and quartzite soils; artisanal winemakers have planted Cabernet Sauvignon, but Garnacha and Cariñena still predominate.

Rías Baixas. This low-land, coastal region in Galicia, bordering Portugal, is known for its fresh, light Albariños.

Rueda. A Castilian region known for its white wines — Sauvignon Blanc, Verdejo and blends of the two — as well as Tempranillo.

Tierra de Castilla. The historic heartland of Castilian Spain includes the wine zones Ribera del Duero, Rueda, Toro and Bierzo.

Toro. Located within Tierra de Castilla, the region is known for its intense Tempranillos. Garnachas and Cabernets also are grown in the high-elevation vineyards.

Valencia. The region surrounding the Mediterranean town of Valencia encompasses the Alicante, Valencia and Utiel-Requena zones, which grow a wide variety of grapes.

Grape varieties

Albariño. A white wine grape native to Galicia known for producing wines with fresh peachy flavors, but it can also produce wines with the potential to gain complexity with age.

Garnacha. A grape widely grown throughout Spain’s northern regions, it adds spicy, cherry flavors to traditional Rioja red wines. Known in France as Grenache.

Macabeo. Also known as Viura, this white wine grape used in Spain’s sparkling cavas is the main white wine of Rioja and Navarra.

Mencía. A red wine grape that grows on hillside slopes and terraces in Bierzo, it’s often blended with Garnacha to make an early-drinking wine.

Tempranillo. The predominant red wine grape throughout Spain, it makes long-lasting, fragrant, fruity wines. It’s the backbone of traditional Riojas.

Verdejo. A white grape considered one of Spain’s best; it makes aromatic wines with character.

— Corie Brown

Sources: “The New Spain: A Complete Guide to Contemporary Spanish Wine” by John Radford, 2004; “The Wines of Spain” by Julian Jeffs, 1999

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THE Times tasting panel met recently for a blind tasting of Spanish wines widely available at Los Angeles area retailers for $13 and less. Joining me on the panel were Food editor Leslie Brenner, Food columnist Russ Parsons and Randy Kemner, owner of the Wine Country in Signal Hill. The good news is there were plenty of simple but pleasing wines in this value category, as well as some surprisingly delightful wines that cost as little as $4.

Our favorite white wine among the Albariños, Verdejos and regional blends was the 2003 Protocolo, which retails for about $6. The best of the reds, which included Garnachas, Tempranillos and blends, was the 2003 Las Rocas de San Alejandro, an old-vines Garnacha that sells for about $10.

Wines are listed in order of the panel’s preference.

— Corie Brown

Whites

2003 Protocolo. A blend from Dominio de Eguren in Tierra de Castilla, imported by Jorge Ordoñez. A well-balanced, earthy wine with intriguing aromas of lemon and olive oil, a bit of complexity and a melony finish. At Liquid Wine & Spirits in Chatsworth, (818) 709-5019, and Mission Wines in South Pasadena, (626) 403-9463, about $6.

2004 Con Class. A white wine blend from Rueda, imported by Eric Solomon’s European Cellars. Sauvignon Blanc-like, with bracing acid, peach nectar and herbal flavors and aromas of fresh hay. Simple and pleasant. At Mel & Rose Wine and Spirits in West Hollywood, (323) 655-5557, and Wine Country in Signal Hill, (562) 597-8303, about $9.

2004 Rocaberdi. A blend (80% Macabeo, 20% Xarel-lo) from Catalonia, via Beaune Imports. A touch of oak dampens the tart grapefruit and peach aromas in this fun and likable blend. Nicely structured with crisp, bracing acids. At Wine Country, about $8.

2004 Naia. Imported by Jorge Ordoñez, this bracing Verdejo from Rueda offers citrus aromas and flavors of freshly cut grass and sweet lime. At Mel & Rose Wine and Spirits and Mission Wines, about $11.

2004 Floresta. A blend (55% Macabeo, 45% Chardonnay) from Empordá-Costa Brava, imported by Beaune Imports. Peach and apricot aromas, with pleasant creamy apricot and tangerine flavors. At Liquid Wine and Spirits and the Wine Country, about $10.

2004 Burgáns Albariño. From Rías Baixas, imported by Eric Solomon. Floral aromas, with a touch of turpentine, this wine has an off-putting vanilla- extract taste and an unpleasant finish. At Mel & Rose Wine and Spirits and Wine Country, about $10.

2004 Vionta Albariño. With off-putting milk-chocolate aromas, this wine was badly oxidized. At Wine Hotel in L.A., (323) 937-9463, about $13.

Reds

2003 Las Rocas de San Alejandro Viñas Viejas Garnacha. From old vines in Calatayud, imported by Eric Solomon. This wine, with its eucalyptus and herbal aromas and notes of tobacco and leather, has some character and complexity. At Mission Wines, about $10.

2004 Tres Picos Borsao Garnacha. From Campo de Borja, imported by Jorge Ordoñez. Sweet, smoky nose with flavors of black cherry and spices, this wine would pair well with charcuterie. At the Duke of Bourbon in Canoga Park, (818) 341-1234; Liquid Wine & Spirits; and Wine House in West L.A., (310) 479-3731, about $12.

2004 Mano a Mano. From La Mancha, imported by Jorge Ordoñez. This juicy Tempranillo has ripe berry and cassis aromas, black cherry flavors and a pleasant finish with some length. At Joan’s on Third in Los Angeles, (323) 655-2285, and Mission Wines, about $9.

2004 Abrazo del Toro. A blend (80% Garnacha, 20% Tempranillo) from Cariñena. A young, drinkable wine with charming cherry aromas. At Trader Joe’s stores, about $4.

2004 Wrongo Dongo. A blend from Jumilla, imported by Jorge Ordoñez. This one-note green peppery wine has off-aromas. At Mission Wines and Duke of Bourbon, about $7.

2004 La Nunciatura Tempranillo. From La Tierra de Castilla. Odd chocolate and grape aromas mar the simple, undistinguished flavors that follow. At Trader Joe’s, about $4.

2004 Coto de Hayas Garnacha Centenaria. From Campo de Borja. Sweet grapey aromas with an off-putting chemical note, a heavy dose of oak on the palate. Available at Mel & Rose Wine and Spirits and Wine House, about $11.

2004 Tikalo Albaliza. A pleasant yet undistinguished blend (65% Tempranillo, 35% Garnacha) from Tierra de Castilla, imported by Eric Solomon. Purple grape aromas with a funky leather flavor. At Wine House and Mel & Rose Wine and Spirits, about $6.

2001 Estola Reserva. The panel disagreed on this blend from Bodegas Ayuso in La Mancha , with curious licorice and menthol aromas. One panelist found it to be like an acceptable fruity jug wine; another called it “watery and bad at the same time.” At Trader Joe’s, about $5.

2003 Veroleón. A blend (70% Garnacha, 30% Merlot) from Navarra. The bottle we opened was so badly oxidized it was undrinkable. At Trader Joe’s, about $5.