Vintage Overview: Spain En Primeur - The latest releases...

A buying trip to Spain can involve an enormous amount of driving. Covering off Rueda, Ribera del Duero and Rioja en route from Madrid to Bilbao you get a real sense of the vastness of the Spanish countryside. Huge sweeping vistas greet you as you crest a cleft in a hill, on almost empty roads with arid dry rocky outcrops and fields of yellow wheat gently swaying in the midday sun.

It is a big country and the third largest wine producing country in the world, which is a tough stat to swallow when on home soil wine consumption is at an all-time low. Anecdotally we were told that in fifteen years average per capita consumption has dropped from around 45 lt/annum to only 9 lt/annum, a fact many attribute to fashion amongst the younger generation, as much as the burgeoning current economic crisis.

Well more fool them. And more for us. It really is no surprise that Spanish wines find great favour abroad. They provide value sound options to consumers at just about every price point, from entry level everyday wines right up to the very upper echelons of worldwide production.

Owing to the diversity of wine Spain has to offer, our En Primeur release comprises a variety of vintages. From 2012 we have the extraordinary Ossian, a wine that marries minerality and richness to superb effect. Coming from vines ranging from 140 – 265 years old, surely some of the oldest wine producing vines on the planet, it’s a wine of nobility and intellect that transcends the appellation of Rueda.

In 2011, most notably we have the two new releases from Aalto, fast becoming one of Ribera del Duero’s and indeed Spain’s hottest properties. In Aalto and Aalto PS 2011 Mariano Garcia and Javier Zaccagnini have crafted two utterly seductive wines that combine richness and generosity with silk textured freshness.  It’s a highly compelling combination.

Further north in Senorio de San Vicente in Rioja the Eguren family poured a selection of wines for us which once again proved just what a class act this estate is across every level of production. Worth especially looking out for are the 2010 Riojas which will go down as classics. At lunch they kindly poured a 1994 San Vicente Rioja which was so gloriously youthful, sweet, precise and refined it stopped this buyer in his tracks and was an amazing argument for sticking these wines away, tempting as they are when young.

Also from 2010 we have the amazing wines of Mas Martinet – 2010 being a vintage every bit as serious in Priorat as it is in Rioja. As well as her best ever Martinet Bru, Sarah Perez’ three highly individual crus offer power combined with spellbinding delicacy and vibrancy. They are truly not to be missed.

All in all there is a lot to be excited by in this Spanish release. We very much look forward to seeing you at the tasting on the 2^nd September.

'Click here to view the 2013 En Primeur offer'

Aalto 2007 and Ossian 2009

Aalto is the impressive collaboration between former head of the Ribera DO Javier Zaccagnini and Vega Sicilia's winemaker of 20 plus years, Mariano Garcia. It is the result of blending the best parcels from 7 different communes in Ribera del Duero, vine age a minimum of 40 years old. Not only does each commune have its own unique terroir, be it sand limestone or clay soils but just as importantly, if not even more so, each commune tends to have its own very unique clones of the Tinto Fino grape that make totally different wines to eachother.

Ribera has had a wet,cool Spring and early summer, the landscape looks so lush, green and floral, such a difference to the desert I visited this time last year. I am here to see the restless Javier Zaccagnini and taste his 2007, to be released in September this year. It was a very extreme year, really dry but cool aswell, no bad thing for this usually rather hot climate. It did mean a great deal of work in the vineyards to ensure proper maturation of the grapes, but ripen they did. There is no PS in 2007, it has all gone into the main Aalto blend, which is as a result incredibly complete silky and complex, with a very moreish and refreshing acidity so typical of this cool vintage. 2007 might not have the blockbuster richness of a 2005 but the balance, refinement and drinkability will make for a very serious bottle that can be approached early or after several years bottle age and it should work tremendously well with food.

We then head south to Ossian in the southern zone of Rueda. I used to call this one of my favourite whites outside of Burgundy, now i just call it one of my favourite whites. 2007 and 2008 were phenomenal vintages, cooler years perfectly suited to the style of wine made here. 2009, though a richer vintage, clearly betrays the benefits of Ismael's (pictured in one of his 250 year old vineyards) and Javier's experiences since their first Rueda vintage in 2005. The continuing refinements and improvements they have made has resulted in a sublime, silky, long and concentrated wine. The scary thing is they are still learning. No where else in the world does the each barrel of the same wine taste so different (according to the vineyard plot it comes from) and they are still trying to understand why. The wine is 100% anicent vines Verdejo yet the barrels range in flavour and style from Riesling, to Chardonnay and Chenin Blanc depending on the plot you taste. This makes for an unforgettable and incredibly harmonious blend.

Follow me to the Rhone next week, where I will be casting and eye on the 2009s.