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How to Turn Vinegar into Wine!
November 19th, 2008
Usually when we think of a wine tasting like vinegar, it’s a bad thing. You open the bottle, the smell attacks your nose and you know immediately that the wine has gone bad. F(lickr photo by Markyboy81)
In fact, I think it’s safe to say that it is always a bad thing when it comes to wine, and in general, vinegar is not something that we associate with the idea of a delicious and refreshing beverage. Well, apparently we should think again! It seems that vinegar has been consumed by the glass all over the world for quite a long time. According to an article in the New York Times Design & Living Winter Magazine entitled “Dropping Acid” Romans drank acetified wine diluted with water on a habitual basis and called it posca. Additionally, vinegar has been used as a curative beverage in Asia and Europe for centuries. In the Colonies, and later the United States of America, the tradition of drinking flavored vinegar (known as shrub) for pleasure was brought over from England, and continued well into this century.
You might ask what I am doing talking about vinegar on a wine blog, but the connection between the two is closer than you might think. For one, both the production of vinegar and the production of wine can be traced back to Ancient Egypt and Biblical times. Vinegar, like wine, is the result of a natural fermentation process. The difference is that vinegar is made when wine, cider, beer, fermented fruit juice, or other liquids containing alcohol oxidizes – hence that smell in our wine bottles when they have been open too long or not correctly sealed. Vinegars can also be made from just about every fruit or grain that you can think of, and are commonly made from wine, which helps to explain why quite a few wineries in Spain are now producing their own brands of vinegars. While these vinegars consist almost exclusively of those meant to be used on salads or to complement other dishes, rather than sipped with a straw, merging these processes seems to be an excellent way to take advantage of excess grapes or wine that is not quite up to standards to sell on its own. Thought about in these terms, it suddenly sounds like also a very environmentally responsible thing for a winery to do.
So what are these shrubs that, according to the New York Times article, are coming back into style? Well, vinegar can be divided into three basic categories. Pure vinegars are made from ripe fruit that is crushed, fermented and then acetified. Additive vinegars are the more mass produced kinds, where concentrated flavorings and sweeteners are added to bulk vinegar. And finally, compound vinegars are made from fruit that is soaked in either wine or cider vinegar and then boiled to make a shrub (also called a gastrique in France). These fruit filled vinegars are usually served mixed with either water or soda water for a fizzy and refreshing kick, and are even being used as ingredients in cocktails. While I am in no way suggesting that a shrub is a substitute or even a comparison to a nice glass of wine, I could definitely see it as a complement; and as a natural fruit-based fermented drink, it can only make our industry stronger.
To make your own, soak any fresh fruit in a good quality apple-cider or wine vinegar for a week. Then add sugar, boil for an hour, strain, and put in a bottle. Drink straight, mix with water or soda, or add a drop to your cooking to infuse it with flavor. Enjoy (followed by a nice glass of wine)!
(recipe thanks to the New York Times)
Cheers,
Adrienne Smith
Cool Autumn Breezes Carry in Spanish Wine Fairs
November 13th, 2008
´Tis the season of wine wine wine. Every fall, the world of wine fairs comes alive as winemakers eagerly wait for the opportunity to present their new vintages to the public. Just to clarify this a bit, this means that they present the wines that the winery is releasing for sale and consumption that year. While some of these wines may be the young vintages from the previous year’s grape harvest, others include the roble, crianza and reserva wines that the winemakers have deemed ready for consumption (although some of them might still improve with age of course). It is for this reason that these presentations usually include an array of wines with different vintages. Here in Madrid, autumn has come to mean a time when my mailbox is constantly brimming with invitations to attend events hosted by different Denominación de Origenes, distributors, or other groups. Often this consists of affiliated wineries from a particular region presenting their wines at the same time. These events are a great way to taste and compare a lot of regional wines in one go, and to really get a feel for a particular area and its grapes. I’m not going to pretend that it’s also not a great opportunity to take a virtual trip around Spain’s wine producing regions, and get a firsthand glimpse at what the big wines of the year are going to be.
It is also the season for even bigger and often more general wine fairs. Iberwine was celebrated this year in Miami from the 25-27th of October. Featuring wines from Spain, Portugal, and Iberoamérica, this year’s edition of Iberwine was focused on creating awareness in the United States about wines from these participating countries. Other Spanish wine events are often arranged by official governmentally affiliated organizations such as Wines from Spain and the Spanish Foreign Trade Agency, who work tirelessly to promote Spanish wines outside of the country. This year these two groups helped organize Spanish wine exhibitions on the 14th and 15th of October in Hong Kong and Taiwan respectively, in which 27 Spanish bodegas participated.
On the other side of the other pond in New York, the New York City Wine and Food Festival took place from 9-12th of October, and consisted of numerous events that allowed visitors to learn more about and of course taste a variety of Spanish wines. The aforementioned organizations sponsored a seminar led by the Spanish chefs Ferran Adrià and José Andrés, during which visitors had the opportunity to taste Spanish wines from the D.O.´s Cava, Rueda, Ribera del Duero, Toro, Rías Baixas, Rioja and Priorato. While most of the smaller regional wine events are geared towards industry professionals such as sommeliers and restaurant owners, invitations can usually be obtained by contacting the organizations directly. The larger fairs are usually open to the public for a nominal fee, but then you can taste wine to your heart’s content.
Happy Fall!
Adrienne Smith
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Election Day Food and Wine Pairing
November 4th, 2008
It’s Election Day in the USA and it’s just about all I can do to keep my nerves in check and get through the day before waiting out the long night here in Spain to see the results. To keep busy, I have decided to occupy my time with planning a menu for the long night, and of course, deciding which wines to serve with it. That’s the one luxury of watching the American elections from Spain. While I may have decided to make up a menu of all American food, I can’t help but consider this just another great excuse to drink some of Spain’s fantastic red wines! So the challenge is: pair Abadia Retuerta’s delicious red wines with traditional American Election Day food; a challenge that I am obviously delighted to accept. Photo from hjl
The first thing I realized is that I have no idea what people in the States traditionally eat on Election Day, I mean, it’s not like Thanksgiving or Superbowl Sunday even. I really thought that there would be some culinary traditions, but surprisingly, the only thing that my research into the topic turned up were some “play on the candidate’s names” dishes, and the fact that there seem to be a lot of restaurants in the United States giving out assorted free food and beverages today. Faced with the facts, I decided to create my own menu taking into account traditional or popular dishes generally associated with the North, South, East and West regions of the country.
Starting with the West (or actually the Southwest), I settled on nachos, smothered in black beans, avocado slices, cheddar cheese, a dollop of crème fraiche (the closest thing to sour cream there is here) and smoky chipotle chili flakes. I think it’s important to have good and somewhat filling finger food that will tide people over for a while before sitting down to a late dinner. The best wine pairing for the nachos is undoubtedly Rívola, a wine that is both expressive and refreshing with an ample amount of fruit, but that also possesses lightly smoky notes that I think will complement the smoky chipotle and the round flavor of the beans.
Once seated, the East coast will start off the menu with oyster stew, a savory and hearty soup that I think will go perfectly with Abadía Retuerta´s Selección Especial. The wine has a smooth and velvety entrance that, much like the seasoning in the soup, becomes more and more aromatic and expressive on the palate, revealing a much greater complexity. To get over the long midnight stretch until the votes start rolling in, the meal will continue with that bastion of the South, fried chicken! While I find this to be a slightly harder dish to pair as it is just so, simple really; I actually think it will go well with Cuvée Palomar which is both a very complex and aromatic wine, but one that I also really love for its fruit forwardness on the palate. Although its robustness may slightly dominate the fried chicken, I actually think that the dish’s flavors are so honest and straightforward that it can more than stand on its own.
With only the left to North to contend with, I think I might have to round the meal off with a dessert of either chocolate chip cookies (which I’ve discovered were invented in Massachusetts in 1930), or if I want to go really far north, baked Alaska! As for the dessert pairing at least one thing is clear; whichever dessert I ultimately choose and in light of the long night ahead of us, there can be only one winning pair: coffee!
May the best pair win!
Adrienne Smith
2008 Harvest Has Begun!
October 22nd, 2008
No matter how long I have been out of school, I still think of this season as the start of a new semester and really, the beginning of the year. It’s fall; the leaves are crackling and soups are starting to sound better and better, and while I’m sure that winemakers and agriculturalists would argue that winemaking begins on the vine many months before the harvest, for me the harvest means the beginning of the year, the beginning of a cycle of wine making and tasting, and ultimately, drinking (not that we’ve ever stopped). So there you have it, another harvest has come and gone and although I am waiting for the latest results from our own harvest here at Abadía Retuerta, things both here and in the rest of Spain seem to be looking good. We started our harvest on October 15th, pretty much in keeping with the nationwide trend of later harvest dates this year, in comparison with last; but at the same time, more in line with traditional regional harvest dates.
The Ribera del Duero region is characterized by its extreme climate, and generally has one of the latest maturation dates in Spain. Among other things, this slow maturation process is responsible for the unique characteristics of the region’s wines. This year, we were blessed with a slightly more temperate, although sunny, summer, which meant that the grapes were able to slowly mature on the vines, thus allowing the tannins to mature, and the deep rich colors to develop.
I, for one, am looking forward to hearing more about the 2008 crop, and will give another update on our own progress soon!
Cheers,
Adrienne Smith
The Merging of Haute Architecture and Spanish Wine
October 15th, 2008
Besides the fact that they are both culturally significant, who would have thought that wine and architecture, of all things, would go so swimmingly together? It used to be that wineries were prized for their quaintness, their old-world charm, their jauntily capped winemaker snacking on crusty bread and fresh lumps of cheese, and not that it isn’t still an attractive image, but some of today’s Spanish winemakers seem to be virtually drunk with architecture (pun obviously intended). The fact is that some of Spain’s most illustrious architects are creating works of art across Spain that also happen to double as wineries, or at least as winery related installations.
One of the most well known examples of these architectural feats is the metal ribbons of the hotel at Marqués de Riscal, located in Elciego (La Rioja), and designed by Frank Gehry, the architect known for the similarly styled structure of the Guggenheim Museum in Bilbao. Another of the contemporary stars of Spanish architecture, Santiago Calatrava (known for the Milwaukee Art Museum, the Ciutat de les Arts i les Ciències in Valencia, and bridges in Seville, Venice and Israel, among others), has also wet his whistle in La Rioja, designing the curves of metal and wood that make up the Ysios Bodega, which opened in 2001. Rafael Moneo (who just finished the new wing of the Prado Museum in Madrid) created a stoic, but graceful and calming structure at Bodegas Julian Chivite in D.O. Navarra, in 2001, while Zaha Hadid created a tasting room for Bodega López Heredia. Actually, it almost seems that if you name any internationally famous architect, you would be hard pressed to find one that is NOT designing a winery in this country. To name a couple, Norman Foster designed a winery for Faustino and Richard Rogers for Protos, both in the Ribera del Duero region.
What does all this mean for the Spanish wine industry? While these trends can sometimes get a bit carried away, in general it’s nothing but good news for the wine business. Enotourism is developing into a major industry in Spain as wineries open their doors to visitors and make their excellent Spanish wines more and more available to wine buffs and travelers from all over the world. The added appeal for architectural buffs that might visit these installations, or even for or art enthusiasts that might visit the new Sculpture Museum at Abadía Retuerta, for example, only serves to increase the popularity and renown of Spanish wines. Whether it’s through world renowned architects creating new structures or painstakingly restoring old ones, as we are doing here at Abadía with the restoration and hotel project currently underway in our 12th century monastery; the union of wine with other forms of artistic expression does nothing if not increase its cultural significance and bring Spain more of the attention that it so richly deserves.
Cheers,
Adrienne Smith
