David Sampedro in his Cortijo Vineyard
Still in Rioja Alavesa, we met up and coming winemaker David Sampedro, winemaker for several projects including a few of his own, thoughas we said no longer part of the Exopto winery. He has a number of interesting personal highlights, the most curious the fact that he is one of about 150 souls on something one might refer to as a list of Basque enemies of the state. Apparently his stance on a unified Spain was not to the liking of some of the locals and, in fact, he had spent a period of time under the protection of the Spanish government we are told. He was assigned bodyguards to guard him against Basque terrorists and the government only relented when David signed some sort of document relieving them of responsibility. Sometimes reality is stranger than fiction.
The plan for the afternoon was to have a picnic at the Basque “Stonehedge” and, of course, taste the wine in the vineyard. There are three stones, large, heavy, and clearly not from the area perched, in an unnatural manner with no logical explanation as to how they got there. Local legend has it that a witch was buried there. Good stuff.
The first thing we did with David was take the bus up into the foehn and see first hand how different it was up on top of the mountains than it was down below. We noticed as we increased elevation, the hillsides got greener and vines ceased to be in view at all. From the hilltop we could pretty much see most of Rioja, and he pointed out the various climate elements and visible topographical aspects that made each of the three different Riojas unique. Being from Alavesa, though, that was his central theme.
Afterwards we came down the mountain and headed for the vineyard. However Mother Nature was growing increasingly more stern as time passed. As we arrived at the vineyard site, there was a catering truck (of a fashion) and the beginnings of a tapas table being set up as the bus pulled up. As we disembarked, however, it started to rain. There was some discussion among the group leaders as to whether or not it was raining hard enough to interfere with the all-important tasting in the vineyard. But as the discussion proceeded the deluge resolved the argument convincingly.
Fronton anyone?
Always on their toes, the group headed to an athletic venue in David’s home town (village) of Elvillar. The proceeding was moved to the town’s fronton court. Did we mention David was also the mayor of Elvillar? Fronton is the game we know as Jai Alai and it apparently orginated with the Basques. It is similar to handball but played with a leather glove rather than the racquets seen in other versions. While it poured outside, sometimes deafeningly accentuated by the tin roof, we tasted David’s new Bodegas Phi wines and were treated to a fabulous array of rustically styled Basque tapas. Occasionally some of the local children would peer into the windows of the court and try and engage in a conversation with us. Probably don’t see a lot of tour busses here in Elvillar we’d gather. As dusk settled and the rain eased, we hopped back to the bus and up the hill to walk
David’s Cortijo vineyards with an amazing view back to his hometown of Elvillar. This picture show’s David’s organic vineyard and his neighbor’s traditionaly farmed vineyard. Can you tell which is which?
David organic vineyard on the right, on the left...somebody else's.
Back on the bus and off to yet another Fronton Court in another town where we tasted David’s Cortijo wines and Calma from Bodegas Don Sancho Londoño and his wines of Bodegas Indiano (Brozal Blanco and El Brozal).The Cortijo wines have a simple cottage on the label which is an inside jab at French Chateaus with very impressive edifices on their labels. We spent the evening eating and drinking at the Fronton Court. The brave tried their (bare) hands at Fronton while the rest of us engaged in a friendly tapas creating competition, dividing into teams and completing the assignments from the catering chef of the event.
View of Elvillar from Cortijo Vineyard
Our particular tapa assignment involved two things we, even as people who cook a bit and been to many types of restaurants, had never worked with or eaten before… horse meat and ‘bronzed’ nuts. The horse meat was lean and a little pungent in this preparation but picked up nicely by an oil based dressing and chopped garlic flowers.
The ‘bronzed’ nuts looked exactly like nuts that had been sprayed with metallic paint which was visually distinct in the presentation though, sorry to admit, with all of the commotion, we didn’t really get any insight into the ‘bronzing’. We didn’t really pick up the distinct flavor of the bronzing with all of the other ingredients in the mix..
While it was all very cultural immersion and interesting, however, e never lost sight of what we re there to do which was critically evaluate the wines of the portfolio. On this day, again seeing primarily 2007s in cold, noisy, drafty venues with food and handballs whizzing around, we didn’t find much to discuss from a buying perspective. It was certainly a very full day and quite interesting from an experience perspective. That night we stayed in Laguardia, having been treated to a bit of a lightening show on the drive.
