RSS FeedI’ve spoken before about my enjoyment of La Bodega de Alicia’s tastings. When I got a call from Pieter Whaley, who is going such great guns exporting the wines of Bodegas Piqueras (DO Almansa) that he is now hardly ever in town, saying that he was around and why not join him there, I jumped on a nearby Valenbisi and pedalled straight round.
Recent tastings I’ve been to at Alicia’s have been of distinctively personal projects — one (Edetària) I wrote about, and the other (Bodegas Canopy) I meant to but didn’t, though I really liked the wines and the sound of the bodega set up by three mates in the little-known Denominación de Origen Méntrida.
L'Equilibrista Blanco label
This one was a different sort of project, called Uvas Felices (“Happy Grapes”) under the aegis of Barcelona wine emporium Vila Viniteca. The idea is to produce wine to their specifications in bodegas dotted around Spain (Catalunya, Rioja, Yecla, Cava, Rueda, Rías Baixas, Ribera del Duero and Vinos de Madrid), to make wines that are true to the particular regions and their flagship grape varieties. It sounds like a sort of Iberian version of the “flying winemaker” approach, along the lines of Telmo Rodríguez, who has been describing himself as Spain’s “driving winemaker” for years.
The conventional debate here is whether winemaking expertise tends to a “one-size-fits-all” formula at the expense of winemaking individuality and the benefits of intimate and longstanding local knowledge. Maybe this dichotomy superimposed itself on my brain in the tasting, but I couldn’t help feeling that the three “L’Equilibrista” wines (the DO Catalunya line from Uvas Felices) that we tasted were well-made, but perhaps lacking a genuinely distinctive personality or genuinely fairground exuberance.
The L’Equilibrista Blanc 2010 is 100% xarel·lo, best known as one of the three main Cava grapes (along with Parellada and Macabeo). This grape generally offers quite high acidity, but as a longstanding fan of Marqués de Alella’s Pansa Blanca (the local name for the Xarel·lo), which was one of the wines we had at our wedding, I know that this acidity can coexist with lovely fruit to provide a really delightful wine. In the L’Equilibrista, a few months in oak added a touch of creaminess to go with the fruit. It was a nicely made white from an interetsing grape variety. However, at over 15 euros, it costs more than double the Marqués de Alella. I’m not sure I wouldn’t rather have two bottles of the latter than one of the former.
L'Equilibrista Garnatxa
The second wine was L’Equilibrista Garnatxa, the premium wine of the range, which Maxi Bao — the enviably self-confident presenter of the tasting and eminent 2005 Nariz de Oro (Golden Nose sommelier of the year award) — explained was due to its greater elegance and structure being liable to be drowned out by the more rugged L’Equilibrista red. Despite being served a touch too cold, the nose was full of ripe strawberries and raspberries, with interesting woodland aromas of sage and perhaps a hint of eucalyptus. Perhaps the serving temperature overemphasized the tannins, but it did seem that the wine would benefit from a while longer in bottle. Again, the “special” price of over 22 euros offered at the tasting struck me as ambitious. On checking, I see that it is actually sold at €15.50 at Vila Viniteca itself. I’m not quite sure what the story is there — were we being taken for mugs or is there some inconsistency of pricing?
The third wine, L’Equilibrista 2009 red (a blend of Syrah, Cariñena and Garnacha) was chewy and powerful both in terms of aromas and in the mouth. Certainly, the aromas were of darker fruits, and there was a more scattergun spiciness. Again, the wine seemed to have everything in the right place, but it was difficult for me to really warm to it.
L'Equilibrista Tinto label (detail)
The circus theme of the label and names — apart from the high-wire acts on theL’Equilibrista, the Uvas Felices range includes El Hombre Bala (The Human Bullet) and La Mujer Cañón (The Cannon Woman) — doesn’t quite seem reflected in a playfulness of the wines. As yet, These three wines seem more of a cerebral project than a really relaxed or confidently acrobatic act. However, there is a lot to be said for the idea behind the undertaking, and I will be on the lookout for the other wines in the Uvas Felices troupe, and be ready when these flying winemakers amaze us without a safety net.
