Montes Alpha

           One of the great things about wine is the way it can transport you back to the past.

I had this experience recently when a friend and I shared a bottle of Bodegas Zugober’s Belezos Rioja Gran Reserva 2013. We pulled the cork on it, poured out a couple of glasses and had a sniff. It was such a pleasure that I almost started laughing, and it was supposedly a mediocre vintage!

It took me back almost three decades to my teenage years in the south of England. At the time I was a smoker – a minor act of rebellion, against nobody in particular – and I had a penchant for a brand of French cigarettes called Gitanes. The packaging was of unmatched brilliance, a long white box with a wispy image of a woman shrouded by smoke on the blue sleeve.

I asked my drinking partner, who had never indulged in the joy of smoking, if he detected the whiff of tobacco on the nose. My question was met with a rueful shake of the head. But to me it was overpowering. It was so good that I almost went for a walk around Edinburgh in search of this majestic French product, and I don’t even smoke anymore. I consoled myself by smelling a cigar for a couple of hours.

Sometime later, in a cupboard, I came across my old Little Black Journal of Wine, which many years ago travelled to the other side of the world with me. I would scrawl tasting notes in here while a student. I quickly tracked down the entry for what was once my favourite wine, the Montes Alpha Cabernet Sauvignon from Colchagua Valley in Chile.

I used to frequently buy this wine from my local supermarket in Tokyo, whose buyer clearly had impeccable taste. There was a specialist wine shop over the level crossing, but I was deterred by the fact that every single bottle came in cellophane wrap, gifting being a big thing in Japan. Also, they didn’t have the Montes Alpha. I would drink it out of a plastic mug in my minuscule apartment, and it tasted fabulous. (When I mentioned to a friend back home that I drank a Barbaresco from this cup, he was appalled).

My tasting note was thorough, reflecting the fact that I was studying for the WSET Diploma in my spare time. It was also prosaic: blackcurrant, mint, coffee, chocolate, herbaceous (green pepper). I reckon I was stretching things with the coffee and chocolate, and I was definitely way off when I wrote that there was high acidity, but I was pleased to see I hadn’t felt the urge to employ the dreaded term ‘complex’.

I remember feeling that I hadn’t quite done the wine justice, though, except by drinking a lot of it. There was another flavour, which I just couldn’t put my finger on. It would take another five years or so before I finally worked out what it was.

One spring afternoon my wife and I drove into the Scottish Borders to Abbotsford House, which was once the home of the legendary Scottish writer Sir Walter Scott. In the period since our previous visit, a café had been constructed. We sat upstairs and ordered a slice of blueberry cheesecake. I felt a little thrill as I tasted it, for it transported me back to that tiny flat down a narrow alley in Japan. This was the missing flavour, blueberry cheesecake!

I’ve had many bottles of the Montes Alpha Cabernet since returning to the U.K., but none have seemed to quite match the one I had in Tokyo, which was the 2013 vintage. Maybe it was a great year after all.

Published in The Wine Merchant, November 2024.

Letter of the Month in Decanter Magazine

 

La Rioja Alta

    

    We arrive in Haro at midnight, where, in true Spanish fashion, our host Francisco proposes a drink. A lone bar is open, and the silent streets and empty room suggest they might consider shutting early on a Monday. Most of us order a caña as George Michael plays on the speakers and an alsatian sniffs around and howls for attention. Despite the delicious cold beer, I decide against a tour of the deserted town and crash out in a huge room with oak beams on the ceiling. 

Tempranillo vines at La Rioja Alta S.A.

    

    The last time I went to Spain was four years ago, yet, as I wander around this famous wine town the next morning, waves of familiarity wash over me. A man's voice booms out from a café; a half-hidden figure leans out of a second floor window and beats a mat againt the wall; two nuns in black habits walk past a church; a woman stands on a street corner selling lottery tickets. There are old buildings with long cracks down the middle, and lovely views beyond the town over to hills and vines. 

    I came here for the wine, of course, and the sight of a row of trees shaped like gobelet vines turns my mind to the tasting ahead of us. We drive the short distance to my favourite Rioja producer, La Rioja Alta S.A., in the Barrio de la Estación. I ask Francisco, who is driving, which Rioja he likes the most, other than his employer's. 'Who asked this question?!', he jokes. 

    The wines are lined up for us in a crescent: eight reds and a solitary white - 'to cleanse the palate'. I'm not usually a big fan of whites, but the Lagar de Cervera Albariño is delicious, with peachy aromas redolent of Viognier. 

    Although I've had most of the reds many times before, it's a joy to drink them again. My favourites are the 2015 and 2016 vintages of Viña Ardanza. 'The Garnacha is the DNA of Ardanza', says Francisco. 'It brings spice, liquorice' to the wine. The Garnacha grapes are grown on vineyards covered in huge pebble stones, 50 miles away in the hotter Rioja Oriental zone, we learn. 'The winemaker calls it little Châteauneuf-du-Pape', says Francisco. 

Garnacha vines in Rioja Oriental

    

    We don't finish all the tasting samples, which feels almost like a crime considering the quality of the wines. (A member of the party later tells me he went round the table polishing off all the flagship Gran Reserva 890, however). 

    Over a lunch of Riojan vegetable stew and barbecued lamb cutlets, we drain the remainder of the 890, plus several more bottles of the Ardanza, including a velvety 2005 vintage. I ask in Spanish for more of the vegetable dish. 'His Spanish is good!' the waitress tells Francisco, filling me with pride. 

    This was my first trip abroad in over three years. I returned home tired but euphoric, with three goals: to go back to Spain; to drink lots of wines made by La Rioja Alta S.A.; to take up Spanish again. I can certainly achieve the first two objectives; we'll see about the third...