Showing posts with label innovator. Show all posts
Showing posts with label innovator. Show all posts
Sunday, October 3, 2010
Harvest festival in Chozas Carrascal
On Saturday, the first of the month of October, in San Antonio de Requena, 70 km from Valencia, there was a nice event at the winery Chozas Carrascal. It was the 1st Harvest Festival winery made it with great success and brought together a group of friends around a glass of wine in the beautiful estate of the hosts, which provided a good picture to the event.
López-Peidró family turned to the present, covering, and large doses of affection in explaining their project and the successes that each day, are getting into the wine world as competitive and yet so interesting and exciting.
Arrival at the winery came with a warm welcome from both Maria José, mother and daughter, who accompanied us to the area where he was Xesco, agronomist for the cellar, and Julian Lopez, our host. There, under the shade of large pine trees with a wonderful view of the farm, was being warmly welcomed the attendees with a few glasses of cava that the winery produces, as well as a dose of culture through tasting different varieties of grapes. I have to make an observation, is that this fabulous cava limited production has gained much in the last acknowledged Peñín tasting, one of the best values occurring in Requena.
We continue our tour through the estate to return to the main building where guests were shown the fabulous facilities, I recommend my previous post about them to enjoy them like we did, later moving to an outdoor patio where we are still waiting some of the surprises of the morning. In this case we did a tasting of grape must. First and fermented grape must, now, a white Chardonnay grapes, wine, in the absence of stabilizing and filtering, will serve as the basis for this wonderful cava that had just taken for the welcome.
We also tasted a raw juice, unfermented still Syrah grape, sweet and yet very dense, which delighted the sweet tooth and that odd boy, as the case of my son, made him feel he had also thought about them, this nectar is one of the varieties within one of the 'coupages' of the winery, it becomes a scent and flavor that magnifies some of the winery's flagship wine.
And after visiting the pit, the exhibition area and shop, plus go through the always pleasant aromas of aging room, filled with barrels of the best coopers, and spent the fabulous Mediterranean garden where the surprise and warmth were to confirm what we expected, the ideal end to this event well done and perfect.
In fact it was enjoying a wonderful sunny day of autumn with a lot of wine lovers and friends, entertained by the pleasant sound of the band Comic delighted us with a relaxing tune and original songs also taste the finished other wines from the cellar, and commented on by Xesco around a table full of delicious dishes typical of Requena, invited to disconnect from the intense workables days past to focus all your senses at the moment.
The wine tasted Las Tres, a great white that grows with intensity over consumption, the eight red varieties with great aromas and sensations in Las Ocho, and the expected the Cabernet F 2008, a wine that has been punctuated by Peñín with 94 points in his final list, very different from the previous vintage, with great minerality, more Atlantic, more seductive nose, with a palette of aromas of undergrowth more pronounced than before and with a touch of tannin perhaps more notably, that the 2007 version.
And as the culmination of a sweet tasting special Garnacha and is limited to 800 liters in total, not cloying in the mouth and tries to convey more feelings fruit, despite being a wine called 'dessert'.
We ended up with a present from the cellar, which was the memory of the visit and the special day. We also had the opportunity to purchase products directly from each of the participants best enjoyed, taking in the memory in mind that these wines and cava and lived in company shares from the dream of this family will remain in our way much longer.
Sunday, August 1, 2010
Chozas Carrascal, wines at the forefront
Finally came the day I could arrange to visit Chozas Carrascal, after that the dates coincide, it was worth visiting this beautiful place and avant-garde as he has shown us our host, Julian Lopez.
Today we felt a sense of profound symbiosis between tradition, culture, modernity, excellent wines and a person in love with his work, which has given us a clock stop on our day to really feel good about ourselves .
The winery is nestled in a sea of vineyards in San Antonio, a district of Requena, in a valley where the AVE train circulate close to joining Valencia with Madrid, but falls short of the 40 ha. vineyard surrounding the house, type 'château' which forms the property has a spectacular location and allows the distance between the vineyards and wineries are flown between 5 or 10 minutes, to be important in the process of harvesting for the grapes do not suffer any break before entering the warehouse.
The visit began by exploring the surrounding area of the house, Alex has been with us a summiller of Barcelona who was visiting and was as surprised as us, while we waited in the cool porch, I watched the beautiful garden Mediterranean and garden variety of strains that are on the outside, which are a sampling of innovative varieties planted in this area producing wines from the cellar. The pool looked inviting us to swim, but we began the visit and have not felt the heat of the morning.
Upon entering the house we found the right taste and decor into the hall and the large living room with a table of spectacular dimensions as well as its thickness and is made of the same trunk in one piece. From there we have come to visit the rest of the cave, going through what we then delight as tasting room.
The rest of the winery is built with concrete blocks designed, painted its walls, giving it a really welcoming and does not denote the sobriety that we can transmit this material. We visited the store of products made and aged in bottle, then go to the fermentation room and elaborations.
In this room I was struck by the presence of concrete tanks that inside there was no kind of cover, where fermenting varieties separately, apart from the stainless steel vats and, according to Julian told us micro-oxygenation occurs through the pores of the concrete, and chilled plate by controlling the fermentation temperature. Very curious to see in this store so modern. We have seen the outside of this room with the press and the thresher, which they use instead of the stemmer so that the grain of the grape does not suffer any damage before reaching the reservoirs.
We have also seen the two lines of bottled wine and cava, and later move to the aging room of cava, watching the bottles and resting horizontal flip machines and some cages with bottles. From there we moved to the wine aging room, with about 200 barrels of 225 liters., all French oak, through which pass the winery sells wines matured or aged in wood. We also visited some ancient deposits that the house had once and serve as a aging room of the winery produces wines to study its evolution.
The visit has brought us to the tasting room and wine exhibition where Julian has surprised us a wonderful beginning to taste the cava, Chardonnay and Macabeo, discreet aroma with tropical fruit on the nose, the mouth we felt rich and volume, a cava-to-eat meats including elaborate.
White wine Las Tres were as follows, made with Chardonnay, Sauvignon Blanc and Macabeo and two varieties fermented in barrel, in principle, has served quite cold, I guess about 6 °, approximately, which is felt as a syrup peach, oily and rich, while subtle and fresh on the palate and has changed then in the cup, after having changed the temperature as we exchanged views on it. The change has stepped up its aromas and flavors with more structure in the mouth and turning to remember more aromatic citrus and white flowers with a light vanilla aftertaste.
The Cabernet Franc is the red varietal in the cellar, which has evoked more feelings. A wine very mineral, powerful fruit with a bang on the nose and very soothing, a different wine from a variety almost unknown in these zone, giving them a real treat for the senses and is highly recommended to look good with your guests an elegant wine that does not displease the most discerning palates.
Finally we tasted a sweet wine Moscatel de Grano Menudo, which is made in France, where the family also has a winery, and also is a cheerful and pleasant elixir reminiscent of freshly peeled citrus fruits such as tangerines.
The winery produces other wines com Las dos Ces, white and red wines with good value for money, rosé Las Cuatro with very special characteristics and the red Las Ocho, a complex wine to develop and difficult to define the ' blend 'of eight varieties but encouraged to drink by their rounded and smooth tannin.
Finally a nice Saturday morning in summer where we have enjoyed and learned that in Utiel-Requena wines are good, which can be both innovative and traditional work and effort that becomes a reward for the senses and that we We felt at home because of the attention and closeness that Julian has given us during his company's warehouse.
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