Want to move to Spain and plant some Zinfandel vines?
Not going to happen.
Wine production in the bullfighting capital of the world is highly regulated. Highly. The grapes one can grow are dictated by regional history. The number of vines, the spaces between them, the number of bottles one can produce, and the minimum and maximum acidity and alcohol content are all formally decreed.
Because “wine is an expression of the land,” Spaniards refer to their vino by region, not by grape. Prepare yourself for a blank stare if you ask for a glass of tempranillo at an authentic tapas joint.
Madrid outskirts. Cave. Cool. Very… cool.
Boyfriend loves wine tasting almost as much as he loves collecting. He arranged a Madrid-countryside tour for us that was part history lesson, part booze fest. In the chilly city morning, we crawled into the back seat of a new-age station wagon driven by Jaime — our serious, curly-haired guide. A fellow American woman visiting a local friend rode shotgun, and an incredibly sweet South-American couple nabbed the middle seats after claiming to be hard of hearing.
Yours-truly also has semi-functioning ears, so didn’t catch much of what was said in transit. However, thanks to my Spanish proficiency, listening twice to every tour tidbit meant a cementing of fact after fact.
Because much of Spain is so arid, it comes in 3rd on the world production scale, just behind the more productive climates of France and Italy. We toured “La Mancha” – Arabic for “dry land” – allegedly the largest wine region in the world.
The sibling rivalry between Spain and its French neighbors was obvious on many occasions. One winery was proud that it used American Oak barrels.
“Not only do the French,” the vintner said, “refuse to sell anything but second-hand barrels — using the new and best oak for themselves, but they want €800 to 900 a barrel, whereas American Oak is a more reasonable €350.”
Our tour guide boasted that Spanish wine sells very well in Switzerland, since the Swiss allegedly don’t like the French. Also a hot controversy — the French, to achieve a desired alcohol content, legally add sugar during fermentation. Spain is vying for legislation that would require the sugar be derived from grapes. (Surely the fact that Spain is the biggest exporter of grape juice is entirely unrelated.)
The proud stash of *American* Oak.
Not only is Spain trying to get rid of its extra, unfermented grape juice, it also has festivals to get rid of last year’s wine. Arrive in Spain at the right time of year, and you can be completely doused in leftovers that historically plummeted in value as soon as the newest batch of vino came out. A far cry from the well-known wine-aging practice, the thought was,
“Who is going to drink old wine when new wine is fresh off the vine?”
And it isn’t just last year’s vino causing Spaniards to turn up their noses: many are starting to shun wine in general. Beer is taking center stage: it’s cheaper, more consistent batch to batch, and can be enjoyed in much larger volumes without utterly destroying your capacity to function. While Spain is also the 3rd largest when it comes to consumption rate, they drink less than two bottles of wine per person per month. Not exactly the imbibing level one imagines in the land of tempranillo.
Wine country as it struggles through growing pains to become something new.
One has to wonder if the shocking amount of regulation plays a role in the dwindling industry. Each region has a club that certifies wineries. A production quota is allotted. Once a winery fulfills its allotment, all remaining bottles must be sold as table wine. The label of the latter is not allowed to declare vineyard, grape or even year.
Because of the lagging demand, the EU is now paying vineyard owners to pull out their vines and plant other crops currently in vogue. The catch, according to our guide, is that grape experts are not wheat or barley experts in just the way that dentists are not cardiologists. As such, the system is being played. Grape farmers are planting their new crops. However, rather than spend the cash and labor required to raise and harvest, risking the multitude of failures that could strike anyone – but especially a novice – they simply let it rot in the ground and keep the funding.
It’s not the first time the powers that be have sort of shot themselves in the foot. At the height of the Spanish empire, the concept of big, open public spaces was popularized by the French. In order to keep up with the Joneses, churches and convents were demolished by the dozens. The silver lining? (Well, for dudes, at least). There was now a public place – “paseo de prado” – where it was acceptable to talk directly to women.
The guy for whom the Philippines was named? This was his vacation home.
Celestial buildings took a beating again in the 1840s when the state needed money. The answer? Sell all religious properties! I’m not sure who owns King Philip’s royal palace about 50k (a one day horseback ride) from Madrid, but they did allow our little wine-tour group a bit of access. As we strolled across the grounds, I pondered the life of a man for whom an entire country is now named (the Philippines), and whose mother-tongue I can thank for being able to half-follow Tagalog (Filipino) conversations.
We remained several centuries in the past as we went from cellar to cellar — the most memorable of which was basically a 15th century, human-made cave. Even 600 years ago, Spain was hot. Refrigeration storage and transport weren’t even a gleam in anyone’s eye. The first job on any new homesteader’s to-do list was excavate a cellar. Not only was it a cool place to store food and escape the heat, it conveniently provided building materials (stones) for the house to come.
Must cork. As in a cork of must.
Amazing technology!
At another winery where their “barrels” are actually 116 year old clay urns that towered over my head, they still engage in the somewhat dated practice of removing sediment from champagne (yeah, yeah “sparkling wine” …whatever) by freezing the bottles upside down. This creates a “must cork” in the neck, which is released before the wine is topped up and sent to market. The vintner told a story she can now laugh about in hindsight: for a few years they battled a new health department regulation requiring them to switch from their clay urns to a “more sterile” stainless-steel environment. It took lots of heartache on the part of traditional wine makers before the folly of the new law became obvious. While the clay pots maintained perfect bacterial balance, the stainless-steel environment ruined several vintages and spelled economic disaster for some.
Another Spanish rejection of, what for many, is wine-growing common sense: trellises. Or rather, the lack thereof. Crossing Spain, from Madrid in the middle to Valencia on the east coast, gnarly thick vines rise to knee height before sprawling across bare ground.
Our guide said, “A better question than ‘Why aren’t the vines on trellises?’ might be ‘Why does anyone go to the serious labor and expense of trellising vines?’”
Well, the technology obviously makes vine care and labor easier. And in some places not having trellises would lead to trapped humidity and therefore insect and fungus infestations. Also, the grapes would risk lack of sun exposure for the all-important fruit. In Spain, however, labor is plentiful, the heat is dry, and the grapes long for less, not more, sun exposure.
I can’t say I remembered the end of our wine tour all that clearly.
But I do have a few other clear, affectionate memories of our remaining days in Madrid:
- The tiny, two person elevator that carried us to our 8th floor room at a micro-hotel. (Yeah, I did the stairs a few times. No big deal.)
-
Pork Lover’s WD.
the “Ham Museums” – proscuitto-based restaurants whose walls are covered in yummy legs of ham. Questioning curing length and inventory management led to disappointment: most the hams are fake! It’s like a diamond store with displays full of cubic zirconia!
- Morning runs through the somewhat frigid cobblestone streets to a gorgeous park overlooking the city. Also memorable: the horrible 15th-story fire I saw on my jog home one day.
- Micro-teatro! – an avant garde theater style: 15 minute shows for an audience of six in a room that wouldn’t quite fit a king-size mattress. Incredibly creative, and acting of a quality that even Boyfriend enjoyed, albeit understanding no Spanish.
Our plot: A government operative is sent back in time to murder Hitler, but arrives well before the budding artist has become an infamous monster. He can’t bring himself to put a bullet in an innocent youth embracing the wonders of life and incessantly scribbling impassioned poetry.
- Vermouth — the city’s afternoon aperitif.
- Tapas — bite-sized buffets delivered on demand.
- Park wandering with my main man, and eating tortilla (the potato-egg pie, not flour-corn disc) by the fountain.
- The Colosseum-esque bullfighting arena and attached museum detailing the local history of this sad “sport.”
Bellies full of wine, tapas, and tortilla, we boarded a bus for Valencia to await our ferry to island paradise. ♣
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