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I packed sunscreen and short-sleeved shirts for Semana Santa in Andalusia. In the event, rain poured solidly down all week, breaking the worrying drought, but putting a dampener on the Easter Week processions. Actually, we were pretty lucky as the heavier rains seemed to just miss us on our travels. And when we did coincide it was an excuse to hunker down and explore the wines of the region beyond sherry. No reflection on sherry itself, which we had plenty of, and which is somehow made even more delicious down here by the fact that everyone around you in every bar is drinking it as the most natural thing in the world.
But Andalusia has been experiencing something of a boom in the production of regular non-fortified wines. There are a good few “Vino de la Tierra” designations in the region (you can find a full list at apoloybaco.com) , and we started off the week in Granada with some wines from “Vino de la Tierra Norte de Granada”. Apparently this “indicación geográfica” has now become “Vino de la Tierra Altiplano de Sierra Nevada”, but the previous name was on the bottles that we saw.
In Granada we had to dig out the local wines, as the restaurants seemed keener to offer us riojas and the like. However, we enjoyed the freshness and fruit of the Muntaña Syrah 2006 at Enostrum restaurant and tapas bar on our first evening. They gave us a glass of this and a glass of the more heavy-duty Méndez Moya Cabernet Sauvignon 2008, to see which suited our mood beter. Inevitably, my wife and I disagreed amicably, but I won on this occasion, and the Muntaña syrah was deemed a success with the light supper that was pretty much all that was left to eat late on a Saturday night at this lunch-oriented place.
As it happened, we were able to make amends by ordering the Méndez Moya Cabernet at lunch the next day at San Nicolás. This was the one restaurant that I had booked, as I wanted to share with my wife the spectacular view of the Alhambra with the snow-capped Sierra Nevada in the background that I had enjoyed while lunching entirely alone when in Granada on business a few years ago. So, I booked a table in the same upstairs room and we walked up through the Albaicín quarter to the San Nicolás mirador. On arrival, I realised that I had in fact not booked the same restaurant. I had originally eaten at Las Estrellas de San Nicolás right by the mirador, but reserved the rather grander San Nicolás itself just down the road.
Nevertheless, San Nicolás put us at a table with a similar view of the mountains and the Alhambra. The waiter recommended the Méndez Moya as the right regional wine to go with the six courses in the menú degustación, and so we made up for not having chosen it the evening before. I’m not sure that Cabernet Sauvignon is generally a multi-purpose grape that goes as well with fish courses as meat, but we were so delighted with the view and with being on holiday, and the waiter seemed confident. This irganic wine did indeed have enough substance to justify the meal we were ambarking on, while managing a balance of fruit and complexity to be a worthwhile companion throughout the plethora of courses. I wouldn’t have though of looking in this part of Spain for an organic 100% Cabernet Sauvignon, but it is an indication of the imaginative ambition that is often too be found in these new and relatively unheralded wine localities.
After that it was sherry all the way for a few days in Seville (though not quite, I almost forgot the delightful bottle of Mencal — Chardonnay, Sauvignon Blanc, Verdejo, Moscatel, Torrontés — that we enjoyed in Las Golondrinas in Triana), Jeréz itself and Cadiz — with a brief detour via Montilla-Moriles in Cordoba — till we came to the final stop on our trip, Ronda. Apart from the beauty of the twon, it was a joy to have local wines thrust at us wherever we ventured. I do feel that Valencia and many other places could follow Ronda’s example, and make a real point of offering local wines, be it for sale, by the glass or whatever.
On arrival, our little hotel had a Bodegas de Ronda leaflet on the counter for us to take. The first place we popped into on calle Nueva (I can’t remember the name, but it was a new-looking open plan wine bar behind big glass windows with small high tables, on the right as you head to the main street) only offered Ronda wines, and was delighted to open bottles and pour away. Here we had a glass each of Lagarejo Joven 2008 made with Tempranillo, Cabernet Sauvignon and Cabernet Franc) from Bodegas Viloria, the tasty and I think also organic TSMC 2007 (named after its components Tempranillo, Cabernet Sauvignon, Merlot, Syrah), Morillas Roble (Tempranillo, Cabernet Sauvignon, Syrah, Merlot and Petit Verdot) from Bodega Los Villalones, and Niño León from Bodegas Conrad. We enjoyed the wines and our chatty host’s infectious enthusiasm. We’d probably had enough, but there was a very crowded and youthful bar just down the road on the other side, Tragtapas, where we had an OK Nuevo 2011 from Chinchilla. But this place was in full Saturday night young people on the prowl mode, and the focus was not on the wine. We sloped off.
The next day at excellent and hearty lunch at Sal y Pimienta in Ronda, I had an older Lagarejo, from 2006. It was almost suspiciously well-priced, but when it came it was maybe just a tiny bit past its best, but that hint of oxidation went well with my rabo de toro and put me in good shape for the long journey home.
We only really scratched the surface of what Andalusia offers in wine terms. There is lots of interesting wine being produced, but on our trip, only Ronda was really pushing its wines. In Granada they were available if you looked a bit, but elsewhere there didn’t seem to be much interest in promoting local wines. For us, Ronda’s enthusiasm really added value to our stay there, and made us want to look out for more wines from the area. There may be a lesson there for Valencia region wines, and others.
