Our next stop after Santander was Valladolid, a city that is midway between Rueda and Ribera del Duero, two of Spains wine regions, known as Denominación de Origen (DO). Rueda is known for whites (mostly Verdejo) and Ribera del Duero is known for Temparnillo (like Rioja). Unlike Rioja, Ribera del Duero is more expensive, even though their wines may not be quite as well known internationally.
I learned the hard way that, unlike Rioja (where there were tasting rooms much like Napa/Sonoma) you pretty much can’t show up at ANY winery in either location without a reservation. They work on appointments only (my excuse is I’ve overloaded on the planning, but that won’t happen again). Fortunately I made a couple quick calls and one opportune e-mail and we were able to get into two great places, one in each DO.
Our first stop was in Rueda, just outside the little town of La Seca, at a winery called Reina de Castilla. Our tasting room friend was Oscar Armenteros, the Commercial Director for the winery, who spoke excellent English (he was the only one…English is somewhat rare in these parts).
We tried three Verdejo’s, with each wine coming from increasingly aged vineyards. The three were aged 15-20 years, 20-35 years, and more than 35 years old. My favorite was the oldest wine, but Kim liked the 2nd one, so we ended up buying a bottle of that (Happy Wife, Happy Life). I think it was 8 euros. Ouch!
Interesting to note that they use synthetic corks on these wines since they are not meant to be aged, but they also have some screwcap wines that we saw in the winery. Oscar told us that this was due to marketing, since the Spanish hate screwcaps, but those from northern Europe like them. Go figure. I will say I’ve not seen a screwcap wine in a single restaurant here.
They also make a wine that seems strictly geared towards getting sorority girls drunk (screwcaps make the wine more easily accessible).
This is a slightly fizzy Verdejo with blue food coloring. The frog is supposed to be the potential Prince in the neighboring fraternity that becomes a Prince when the drunk sorority girl sloppily kisses him (ok, that’s my take, not the wineries, but I don’t think I’m far off. Blue food coloring in wine?)
Now keep in mind that Rueda is 35 minutes south of Valladolid, and most of the wineries of Ribera del Duero are 40 minutes to an hour east of Valladolid. If I were to do this again, I’d stay in Aranda de Duero (and I’d plan about 6 tastings over 2 days).
As for Valladolid, it’s pretty much just a non-descript big city in Spain. Not a lot of personality. It had a huge park that was pretty cool because I have not seen that many peacocks in one place in my life! We must have seen 200 of them!
They even had chickens! Everybody knows I’m a sucker for chickens. The female peacocks (actually called a peahen, which is why she is near the chicken…right?) are just so boring….wonder how they taste?
We did hit an Irish pub in town….after we had Chinese for lunch. We like to mix it up!
The town is definitely lit up for Christmas
You can even walk into the huge Christmas tree lights!
So we headed out of Valladolid the next morning and visited Abadia Retuerta, a beautiful winery that is actualy not part of the Ribera del Duero DO.
When the DO was originally set up, each City in the area could opt in or out. The city this winery is associated with opted out, as they had no wineries at the time. In 1996, when the winery first started, the DO told them “no, too bad, so sad”. The winery soon started piling up awards, and the DO changed their tune, but by that time the winery was easily selling all of their wine without the designation, so their response to the DO was “why pay you?”. I like it when the tables get turned on the big boys!
The first part of the tour was hopping into a 4 wheel drive vehicle. Fernando was our driver and tour guide. He spoke excellent English, and knew the winery details like the back of his hand.
First he took us to the historic abbey, which was the original use of the land, founded at the end of the 12th century. The abbey has been turned into a hotel and has a Michelin Star restaurant. Maybe this is the spot for us next time around? The restaurant setting is gorgeous. This is where the monks ate their meals, but I don’t think the food then would have been up to Michelin standards. Maybe “Oliver” standards?
Then Fernando took us on an extensive tour of the vineyards. Truly beautiful place, despite the winter conditions. He once happened upon two police officers napping at this spot. Nice place for a nap!
There was one section of the vineyard that they didn’t pull the fruit from because it didn’t meet their expectations. A pretty good sign. A lot of wineries will take any fruit that they can get!
The winery spared no expense. The difference from Rioja wineries was stark. In Rioja, the wineries don’t sort fruit….they just dump it all in the destemmer and then the tank. This place has a huge sorting table with 8 people sorting. The destemmer then dumps the fruit into these vats (stainless steel item in top middle of below photo) that are lifted by cranes that dump directly into the fermentation tanks. They also use the cranes/vats during fermentation to dump the wine on top of the must (4 times a day). Very cool operation.
They also have a beautiful barrel room. These barrels are in a system that allows them to rack the wines (removing sediment from the barrels) without ever having to pump the wine. For a wine geek like me this was very cool. I will save the details for my fellow wine geek friends.
We tasted 3 of their wines and they were all quite good, but their Syrah was truly excellent! It was also truly expensive at 75 euros. Ribera del Duero is not the same as Rueda or Rioja!
We did pick up two bottles from their Winemaker’s Collection since they were only 30 euros each, and Fernando advised they were as good as if not better than the higher priced wines. They are in the car…so we shall see soon!