Sunday, March 21, 2010
Finca Loranque Winery
In Bargas, a municipality located approximately 15 km from Toledo (Spain), is Finca Loranque Winery, beside the Guadarrama river and a sandy-clay, among olive trees are farm lands, which although extensive, only spend about 42 ha. the cultivation of the vine.
Reaching this eighteenth century building, former home of field work and built with the architecture of Toledo then, is a bit risky, since the path is bordering fields and even crossing the river, but it's worth a little adventure , especially after a rainy winter like this, to see how the rivers return to normal. On the morning of Friday 19 March was an adventure for us because we had no appointment and we knew that the cellar had a special day with lunch included upon request.
Upon arrival you discover as planting vines on trellises, sits on a fertile sandy-clay, so you can think of high production of grapes and therefore of poor quality, but the tour will explain why this does not so. We were received politely, along with 15 others, which seems to be had arranged visit, and began the visit with the comment that green pruning is performed to leave only half of clusters on the plant to produce such a result of more quality and soak the ground for imposing feature of his character. On the farm we were surprised by the lack of a receiving hopper grape, but told us that the harvest is done by hand and placed in boxes of 15 kg. maximum, and then moves to a selection table which is dumped in clusters that do not meet an expected quality.
It is vinified using the filling of stainless steel tanks by gravity, entering the whole fruit in them, there is a cold maceration for a few days after control of alcoholic fermentation, which is followed by pumping the liquid until it takes the color and It wants fruit flavor. The leftover skins are pressed to mix with grape juice and then flower and get the wine.
In another building is the bottling room and storage bottles to finish developing their upbringing as well as the store of bottles and packed ready for departure to the consumer.
In the end we conducted a tasting room in a modern designed for that purpose, which we tested 4 of their wines. The first was a Lacruz Tempranillo-Syrah maroon with a bright, clean, with primary aromas of fresh fruit, a touch of acidity typical of a young wine, and short aftertaste. Subsequently, the range Lacruz least expected the single-varietal Cabernet Sauvignon, a wine also very clean and bright, more expressive on the nose, powerful, smoothly evoking wood and a long aftertaste of ripe fruit and persistent, to me the most elegant wine of those tested, in this series.
The remaining two we tasted were Finca Loranque Syrah-Tempranillo wine aged 12 months, a fruity wine with hints of wood, very round and polished in the mouth and aftertaste mixed with citrus, toast and licorice. We ended the tasting with a Finca Loranque Syrah 2007, a high expression came with a brilliant garnet red (all the wines had a clear color and brightness spectacular), glyceric, aromas on the nose evoking ripe black fruit and roasted coffee, candy ... with good attack on the palate, silky, soft palate and a long aftertaste reminiscent of licorice and roasted.
In general, wines of modern transport, guided perhaps seeking a foreign market quickly, that are easy to drink, but in turn that fruit and evoke the image of wine is clean and in return glyceric wines for tough La Mancha to the domestic consumer is often seen regularly. Tell them put their trust under the name of Vinos de la Tierra de Castilla and that its production is around 100,000 liters., Well below the productions in the area and looking particularly for a wine tastes is not easy to nationals.
Tell them we could not stay for dinner (we had no reservation) and is a good experience to visit this winery.
Sunday, March 7, 2010
Visiting Vera de Estenas Cellar (Utiel)
With the truce in this harsh winter we are having and a timid sun that appeared for no more than 30 minutes, we decided to put toward Utiel feet, about 85 km from Valencia city, to try to visit the cellar that produces Vera Estenas, Casa Don Angel or Martinez Bermell among others.
The winery is located in the municipality of Utiel and is accessed from the A-3 road and the old N-III road from exit 281, the Finca La Cabezuela, an extension of vineyards in the house in the middle and on top of a hill-type 'Château'.
The winery is located in the municipality of Utiel and is accessed from the A-3 road and the old N-III road from exit 281, the Finca La Cabezuela, an extension of vineyards in the house in the middle and on top of a hill-type 'Château'.
The farm has different soil types with clay composition in the lower zone, and the more we ascend in the field becomes more calcareous and stony. On arrival we were attended Felix Martinez, manager of the cellar, and who very kindly showed us the charms of this wine, very familiar and traditional.
The Malbec grape, originally from southwestern France, is perfectly suited to this arena, as we said Felix, and although associated with large Argentine wines, which is the most widely grown variety, it seems that in our land can be adapted perfectly, as in once was the Syrah. The wine made from this variety, on this farm is host to the DO Utiel-Requena, but not not go to a wine to try, today will notice a small bottle with a stew of Valencia to the marriage to appreciate this wine that we can bring to the traditional food of Valencia.
The rest of the visit was to tour the winery where they are deposits of maceration and fermentation, barrel room, the warehouse and the old house. The house is in the early twentieth century, with a house surrounded by a beautiful garden, in slope, where the spring should give a spectacular color and aromas. Accessed by stairs and iron porch after a modernist, entered the house, ceramic floors and walls, we saw the entry and stay, we visited the ancient cellar.
The old cellar is a place where they have used the old underground tanks for storing bottles of all this working winery, is especially beautiful and allows the wines rest in an atmosphere of gloom and constant temperature, ideal for studying the evolution of them.
The visit ended with a stay in a room where all the vintage sets compiled, decorative trim and a stunning collection of spirits that hold a special attraction for a tasting room.
The visit ended with a stay in a room where all the vintage sets compiled, decorative trim and a stunning collection of spirits that hold a special attraction for a tasting room.
We tasted Vera de Estenas 2006 Crianza, a red wine with more than 2 years aging between barrel and bottle, 4 varieties such as Cabernet, Merlot, Tempranillo and Bobal, a wine with a cherry red color (no good light to describe best color), to stop drink flavors reminiscent of ripe grapes, to evoke the hectic cup oak, ripe berries and some toasted note. Flavor a good step, but expressive tannins turn mild aftertaste of roasted vanilla and cedar. An excellent wine and successful.
After saying goodbye to Felix and part of his family who accompanied us on the visit because the direction of San Antonio (Requena) to enjoy a not inconsiderable sausage based dish of the area irrigated by a red tempranillo in the area that the landlord advised us and we delighted in eating, a day of cold weather truce but for what we advertised for this coming week.
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