11/19/2009

Rioja Resident and Ex-Pat Americano Tom Perry on WineFuture-Rioja 2009 & Spanish Wine Crisis Observations (Nine)

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Tom Perry, American-born, long-time Rioja resident, wine industry veteran and expert on wine marketing.

Don Geraldo,

Yes, I was able to attend, thanks to a complimentary invitation from Marqués de Riscal, whose finace director Fernando Salamero was my boss for 15 years while I was the director of the Rioja Exporters' Association.

I'd be glad to answer your questions, but first my views on the conference.

I especially enjoyed the presentations about social media (Ryan Opaz, Gary Vaynerchuck and Jeremy Benson), Miguel Torres' talk about climate change and what Torres is doing about it, Tim Hanni's presentation about taste perceptions and Nicola Jenkin's talk about packaging.

However, as I mentioned in a comment to Catavino, a lot was left unsaid.

I personally feel that an important issue for the future of wine is overcoming the major hurdles small and many medium-sized wineries have to overcome just to find a route to market. We can talk about empowering consumers all day but if consumers can't buy certain products because of

the increasing concentration of distributors (USA)
the increased power of supermarkets and the demise of traditional retailers (UK)
the impossibility to sell wine through the internet between countries in the European Union
the difficulties small US wineries face to sell directly to consumers in different states (although this is improving)

these brands are handicapped.

In Europe, traditional wine producing countries face decreasing per capita consumption of wine and a lack of interest on the part of young consumers. There was a lot of talk about being able to connect with consumers but nothing was said about strategies to interest young consumers from Spain, France and Italy to wine.

I think there should have been more emphasis on these real issues facing our industry.

Parker tasting:

I attended it and also helped Alberto Gil with his interview with RP on the 13th. There were 20 wines in the tasting (18 garnachas and two Riojas) as you know, and I was very pleasantly surprised by the 7 Châteauneuf-du-Papes. All of them were really elegant, not overoaked and overripe and showed both the place they were from and the characteristics of the variety.(BTW, the châteauneufs in the RP tasting were all unoaked.)

The 1945 Riscal was superb. I also liked the Clos Erasmus from Priorat (not at all inky and inscrutable), Espectacle from Montsant,the Clarendon Hills Old Vines and the Killakanoon from Australia. I thought the Contador wasn't ready to drink yet and the Aquilón and Atteca Armas (both from Jorge Ordóñez) were too "fruit-bomby" for my taste.

In the interview (I'll try to send you a link from LA RIOJA), RP defended himself from his detractors by saying that he had an eclectic palate and that he was displeased with two of the wines in the tasting because they were overoaked!

He said that his strategy up to now was to invite the most representative importers of Spanish wines for lunch. RP paid for the lunch and the importers did a tasting of their products. He mentioned that Jay Miller would be visiting Spain frequently in the future.

He came across as a passionate, sincere guy.

http://www.larioja.com/20091114/rioja-region/volvere-rioja-pero-hare-20091114.html

http://www.larioja.com/20091114/rioja-region/mondovino-logro-personas-interesantes-20091114.html

Spanish Wine Crisis observations:

With regard to the wine crisis in Spain, most of the problem has to do with young people's lack of interest in wine. I think the trade has made it too complicated for most people.

We have to educate young people about wine in an easy, non-technical way; get them to appreciate it for its taste and accompaniment to a good meal with friends, and if they're interested in learning more, they can (once the trade makes it possible to learn about it - in Logroño there's only one serious tasting a month - and there's only room for 50 people!)

One of the great failings of the Spanish wine trade is allowing lambrusco to be the wine of choice of young people. It's cheap, uncomplicated and women love it (it's an easy choice for a guy to make when he invites his girlfriend out to dinner). Why haven't we come up with a Spanish product? Kalimotxo and tinto de verano are fine, but hard to brand. It shows you what poor marketers we are!

The second problem, at least for Rioja, is the economic crisis in general, which is hurting restaurants, Rioja's main sales channel here.

Un abrazo,

Tom

About Gerry Dawes

Gerry Dawes was awarded Spain's prestigious Premio Nacional de Gastronomía (National Gastronomy Award) in 2003. He writes and speaks frequently on Spanish wine and gastronomy and leads gastronomy, wine and cultural tours to Spain. He was a finalist for the 2001 James Beard Foundation's Journalism Award for Best Magazine Writing on Wine, won The Cava Institute's First Prize for Journalism for his article on cava in 2004, was awarded the CineGourLand “Cinéfilos y Gourmets” (Cinephiles & Gourmets) prize in 2009 in Getxo (Vizcaya) and received the 2009 Association of Food Journalists Second Prize for Best Food Feature in a Magazine for his Food Arts article, a retrospective piece about Catalan star chef, Ferran Adrià.

". . .That we were the first to introduce American readers to Ferran Adrià in 1997 and have ever since continued to bring you a blow-by-blow narrative of Spain's riveting ferment is chiefly due to our Spanish correspondent, Gerry "Mr. Spain" Dawes, the messianic wine and food journalist raised in Southern Illinois and possessor of a self-accumulated doctorate in the Spanish table. Gerry once again brings us up to the very minute. . ." - - Michael & Ariane Batterberry, Editor-in-Chief/Publisher and Founding Editor/Publisher, Food Arts, October 2009.

Mr. Dawes is currently working on a reality television

series on wine, gastronomy, culture and travel in Spain.

Experience Spain With Gerry Dawes: Culinary Trips to Spain & Travel Consulting on Spain

Gerry Dawes can be reached at gerrydawes@aol.com; Alternate e-mail (use only if your e-mail to AOL is rejected): gerrydawes@hotmail.com

Personal Photographic Memories of the Chefs, Presenters & Staff at the Culinary Institute of America Worlds of Flavor Conference 2009

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Biographies courtesy of CIA-WOF

Photographs and comments in red by Gerry Dawes

Norman Van Aken is known as “the founding father of New World Cuisine.” He is the only Floridian inducted into the James Beard “Who’s Who.” His restaurant, Norman’s, was deemed Best Restaurant in Florida by The New York Times and was also nominated by the James Beard Foundation as The Best Restaurant in America in its first year of eligibility. Chef Van Aken was hailed as a “culinary genius” by Johnson and Wales University and given an honorary doctorate. In 2006 he was honored as one of the Founders of the New American Cuisine, alongside Alice Waters, Paul Prudhomme, and Mark Miller at Spain’s International Summit of Gastronomy Madrid Fusion event.

My friend, the legendary "Boss" behind the Maestro of New World Fusion Cuisine,

Bobby Chinn is the owner and chef of the highly acclaimed Restaurant Bobby Chinn in Hanoi, Vietnam. Bobby is a French-trained, New Zealand-born, former San Francisco-based chef of Egyptian and Chinese heritage who brings a world of influences to his kitchen. During his first visit to Vietnam a decade ago, Chinn saw the un-mined potential for culinary growth in a country where tourism was still in its infancy. His menus are always market-driven, inspired by the freshest seasonally available ingredients and exclusively organic produce. Chinn now has two cooking shows on Discovery Travel & Living, and he is the author of the best selling cook book Wild, Wild East: Recipes & Stories from Vietnam. Photo by Gerry Dawes©2009.

Paul Bartolotta, Ristorante di Mare, Wynn Las Vegas, one of the great seafood experts in America. He flies in tons of seafood every week. Here he is shown preparing a sea bass covered with sea salt flavored with fennel, anise, strips of lemon and orange. What an aroma! In addition, he made may day with a tasting of Dublin Bay prawns. My kind of guy! Photos by Gerry Dawes©2009.

Mai Pham is the chef/owner of Lemon Grass Restaurant and Lemon Grass Asian Grill and Noodle Bar in Sacramento, and at the Sacramento International Airport - the first Vietnamese Thai concept located inside an airport in the U.S. She is the author of Pleasures of the Vietnamese Table, The Best of Vietnamese and Thai Cooking, and the just released The Flavors of Asia. A food columnist for The San Francisco Chronicle and host of the Food Network special My Country, My Kitchen: Vietnam, Chef Pham is the winner of the IACP Bert Greene Award for distinguished journalism. A frequent guest instructor at the CIA, Chef Pham consults with colleges and universities (she recently launched Star Ginger at UC Berkeley) and is the creator of Lemon Grass Kitchen, a line of Asian soups and sauces for foodservice. Her new retail collection was recently launched at Whole Foods and other grocery chains. Chef Pham is a member of the CIA¹s Asian Cuisines Advisory Council. Photo by Gerry Dawes©2009.

Two Girls From Brooklyn in the Kitchens of CIA-Greystone. Joyce Goldstein & Paul Wolfert.
Google them if you do not know these two legendary cook-authors.

Maricel Presilla is a culinary historian, author, and chef specializing in the cuisines of Latin America and Spain. Ms. Presilla is the co-owner and chef of Zafra and Cucharamama, two Latin American restaurants in Hoboken, NJ. She has been nominated for Best Chef, Mid-Atlantic Region by the James Beard Foundation in 2007, 2008, and 2009. Her outdoor cooking, inspired by the street and comfort foods of Latin America, was featured in a 26-page spread in Gourmet in June 2009, the first time the magazine has dedicated so much space to a menu story covered in real time without props or stylists involved. Ms. Presilla is the author of The New Taste of Chocolate: A Cultural and Natural History of Cacao with Recipes (Ten Speed Press, 2009) and a Latin American cookbook for W.W. Norton that explores the cuisines of 20 Latin American countries (forthcoming). In November 2009, she will open Ultramarinos, a food store and cooking atelier in Hoboken specializing in Spanish and Latin American foods and ingredients such as cacao and chocolate. She divides her time between her New Jersey restaurants, Miami, and Latin America. Photo by Gerry Dawes©2009.

Ana Celia Batista Santos from Zanzibar Restaurant in Salvador Bahia, Brazil.

Cooking up an African inspired dish in the CIA-kitchens during Worlds of Flavor.

Ana Celia Batista Santos is chef-owner of Zanzíbar, a bar and restaurant that specializes in African and Afro-Brazilian cuisine. Chef Santos was born and raised in Salvador, Bahia, a region in northeast Brazil known for great culinary diversity, especially African-influenced cuisines. She began cooking at an early age by helping her aunt, the head cook, at the Bahia Hotel. Before opening Zanzibar, Chef Santos cooked for 10 years at the Afro-Brazilian restaurant Casa Do Benin, where she developed her well-known cuisine that adapts African flavors to the tastes of the Bahian diner. Zanzibar opened in 1976 and quickly became a popular hangout for local bohemians, poets, and musicians like Caetano Veloso and Gilberto Gil, who have mentioned the restaurant in their songs. Through her cooking, Chef Santos presents great Afro-Bahian cookery with lots of flavors and rhythm.

((More to come, including a slide show.))

Mr. Dawes is currently working on a reality television

series on wine, gastronomy, culture and travel in Spain.

Experience Spain With Gerry Dawes: Culinary Trips to Spain & Travel Consulting on Spain

Gerry Dawes can be reached at gerrydawes@aol.com; Alternate e-mail (use only if your e-mail to AOL is rejected): gerrydawes@gmail.com

Make My Day: Charlie Olken, Editor/Publisher of Connoisseurs’ Guide: " Give me Gerry Dawes on Spanish wines."

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Charlie Olken, Editor/Publisher of Connoisseurs’ Guide

Today, Charlie Oken, the Editor/Publisher of Connoisseurs' Guide (to California Wines) made my day when I saw the comment he wrote on Steve Heimoff's blog post, Joe Roberts is right about bullsh*t unreliable wine judge studies:
"It seems to me that we have long ago identified these massive tastings as exercises in marketing and not in wine criticism. How does a Gold Medal, earned in a competition in which the best candidates typically do not enter anyhow because they have nothing to prove mean more than a description and score from a respected critic who has demonstrated over time to understand the topic being covered. Give me Schildknecht on Riesling. Give me Gerry Dawes on Spanish wines. Give me the Decanter panel on claret. Despite his too high points, give me Parker on Rhones."

I know, I know, it's not the Nobel Prize, but it is no faint praise from one of the most respected wine critics in the business, one who has been at it for over thirty years.

The comment was especially welcome after an Anonymous poster sought to leave a scurrilous, hatchet-job message on one of my posts, basically telling me that I was no longer welcome in Spain.

Thank you, Charlie, thank you very much.

Mr. Dawes is currently working on a reality television

series on wine, gastronomy, culture and travel in Spain.

World Wine Crisis Report (Eight): From Wineaccess.com "Understanding the Crisis in Napa: Part 1"

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(Although this is a pitch by wineaccess.com, an internet wine marketing company, to sell some fledgling Napa estate wines, this article has some good, pertinent information on the roots of the wine crisis in Napa Valley.)

Understanding the Crisis in Napa: Part 1

It's impossible to deny the appeal of the Napa Valley. Close to six million wine drinkers work their way up Route 29 each year, hopping from one glittery tasting room to the next. That flow of traffic -- generating massive direct-sale opportunities -- coupled with a worldwide love affair with high-end, highly scored boutique brands, fueled unprecedented price escalation in Napa.

Few of the boutique Napa Valley wineries grow grapes. Most buy fruit. As bottle prices escalated, particularly in direct sales, margins exploded. Suddenly, grape growers of the most coveted vineyards could pick their customers. Grape prices soared, and growers were able to lock in their clients to long-term grape contracts. Those contracts are part of the root of the crisis.

But for the purposes of this portion of the story, we've chosen to focus on a different part of the market: the fairly new, estate-bottled wineries. These estates, many as small as 10 acres, spent lots on land, then spent much more ripping up the land and planting. Some began by simply growing and selling grapes before bottling wine on their own. Some went directly into bottling under their own brand. They built business models (most of which have turned out to be Excel Spreadsheet Fiction) based on what was going on up and down the Silverado Trail. They spent fortunes on French barrels (as the dollar dropped precipitously), hired consulting winemakers, and prepared for the gravy train.

To really taste the crisis, we've created a sampler made up of three of the most inspired releases from these new, small estates. There's Tim Milos's brilliantly rich and elegant Rubissow Cabernet Sauvignon from Mount Veeder, the Crane Brothers' "perfect blend" (the best of the best from this pristine vineyard) called Brodatious, and the delicious, opulent Maple Lane Cabernet from their vineyard between St. Helena and Calistoga. Two bottles each of these tiny-production Napa gems, sold for less than 50 cents on the dollar! Here's why.

Almost uniformly, the wineries above, and dozens of others up and down the valley, were faced with a stark new reality. Just as the winegrowers were ready to launch their brands, the wholesalers clammed up. $50 bottles that had been flying out of wholesale warehouses backed up. Rather than taking on new suppliers, wholesalers were cajoling existing suppliers, explaining how the market was on its ear, why prices had to come down. For the new guys on the block, the wholesale market fell apart in just a few months at the tail end of 2008.

As to direct sales, traffic slowed on Route 29. Other wineries with more mature programs stepped up their direct-marketing budgets. These new wineries weren't positioned for the direct game; their mailing lists were small, their direct-marketing prowess immature. The phones that would have been ringing off the hook 18 months before were silent. Wine was backing up in the warehouse and grapes -- well, grapes just keep growing, year after year.

What will happen to these businesses? Some will close. But the family-owned and -operated businesses will scramble, figure out how to survive. The vineyards are excellent, the wine is already very good and as the vines mature, it too could be excellent. They tighten their belts, and they look for ways to get wine-sophisticated consumers to taste their wine. Many now are contacting WineAccess. --wineaccess.com

Dr. Wilkinson's Hot Springs Mud Baths, Calistoga, Napa Valley.

(A lot of wineries around the world may have to open wine spas, because somebody is going to take a bath in all the unsold. I have an idea; they should rachet up the alcohol even further, so they can offer hot springs wine baths. We know there is a worldwide wine crisis, but does anyone see a connection between dropping consumer demand and high prices, wine made with a load of high-priced French oak as a flavoring agent and alcohol levels so high that the wines can be used to flambeé a dish and are practically guaranteed to turn off women and people with a sensible palate? Text & photo by Gerry Dawes©2009.)

Mr. Dawes is currently working on a reality television

series on wine, gastronomy, culture and travel in Spain.

Experience Spain With Gerry Dawes: Culinary Trips to Spain & Travel Consulting on Spain

Gerry Dawes can be reached at gerrydawes@aol.com; Alternate e-mail (use only if your e-mail to AOL is rejected): gerrydawes@gmail.com

Modernized Traditional Food: Spain’s Innovative Vangaurdia Cuisine vs. Traditional Down-Home Cooking

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Culinary Institute of America

Worlds of Flavor Spain Website

Spain’s Innovative Vangaurdia Cuisine

vs. Traditional Down-Home Cooking

(Click for full article.)

CIA Student Chef finishing a Paco Roncero's sensational "Nido de Huevo Carbonara"

(Nest of Egg Carbonara) dish with liquid nitrogen at the Worlds of Flavor marketplace.

Excerpt (article by Gerry Dawes)

"As to those who thought modern Spanish cuisine would destroy traditional cooking, perhaps they should consider this.

When Americans landed on the moon, it was an ultra modern outer space adventure at the time and culmination of years of brilliant forward-vision thinking, experimentation, innovation, evolution of techniques and modern technical skills.

That “one small step for man, one giant leap for mankind" did not mean that we all suddenly began to experience space flight, plan vacation homes on the moon, nor eat a steady diet of Astronaut tube food, though all the innovation associated with space missions did impact our lives.

The same goes for the Spanish cocina de vangaurdia movement and Ferran Adrià’s rocket ride into culinary space. They may have taken us to a moon-walking style of gastronomy, but they didn’t destroy traditional Spanish cooking, rather Adrià and his fellow gastronauts provided the inspiration that enriched and enabled Spain’s cocina tradicional to evolve to its current stage, which is the best it has ever been in its history.

Patatas al ali oli con huevas de arenque (Potatoes ali-oli with herring roe) at

In my forty years of traveling in Spain, I have never tasted better tradition-based food than I am eating in Spain these days."

Mr. Dawes is currently working on a reality television

series on wine, gastronomy, culture and travel in Spain.

11/18/2009

Wine Crisis Report (Seven): Consumer Demand Blunts Crisis, A Bright Spot According to Robert Whitley of Winereviewonline.com

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Consumer Demand Blunts Crisis

By Robert Whitley

Nov 4, 2009

Seems hardly a day goes by that I don’t encounter another tale of misery and financial pain in the wine industry. The pain is real, and I suspect it will get worse before it gets better.
Vineyard values, winery values, grape prices, even the price of an ordinary bottle of Cabernet rode the dotcom bubble and housing bubble to unsustainable levels. There is a reluctance to accept the new reality: Few wine-related assets are worth now what they were a year ago. The pain I observe most is the anguish of falling prices set against the hopeless struggle to maintain unrealistic price points.

Robert Whitley, http://winereviewonline.com in the Douro, Portugal.

I’m so over it. Time to move on. While it’s true the ground shifted underneath the wine industry, the world didn’t come to an end. Everyday people continue to drink wine, and some recent numbers point to a robust recovery. Winebusiness.com reports, for example, that domestic wine sales rose seven percent in October, the second consecutive month they’ve seen an increase. And the October sales figures were four percent greater than those from the same period one year ago.

The sky is not falling. Americans who’ve taken their lumps in the financial and real estate markets haven’t abandoned their love affair with wine. They are merely being careful and buying smarter.

So as we barrel toward Thanksgiving, I thought it would be appropriate to take a step back and consider the positives rather than dwell on the negatives.

Read the rest of the article, Consumer Demand Blunts Crisis, here.

From winereviewonline.com.

About Gerry Dawes

Gerry Dawes was awarded Spain's prestigious Premio Nacional de Gastronomía (National Gastronomy Award) in 2003. He writes and speaks frequently on Spanish wine and gastronomy and leads gastronomy, wine and cultural tours to Spain. He was a finalist for the 2001 James Beard Foundation's Journalism Award for Best Magazine Writing on Wine, won The Cava Institute's First Prize for Journalism for his article on cava in 2004, was awarded the CineGourLand “Cinéfilos y Gourmets” (Cinephiles & Gourmets) prize in 2009 in Getxo (Vizcaya) and received the 2009 Association of Food Journalists Second Prize for Best Food Feature in a Magazine for his Food Arts article, a retrospective piece about Catalan star chef, Ferran Adrià.

". . .That we were the first to introduce American readers to Ferran Adrià in 1997 and have ever since continued to bring you a blow-by-blow narrative of Spain's riveting ferment is chiefly due to our Spanish correspondent, Gerry "Mr. Spain" Dawes, the messianic wine and food journalist raised in Southern Illinois and possessor of a self-accumulated doctorate in the Spanish table. Gerry once again brings us up to the very minute. . ." - - Michael & Ariane Batterberry, Editor-in-Chief/Publisher and Founding Editor/Publisher, Food Arts, October 2009.

Mr. Dawes is currently working on a reality television

series on wine, gastronomy, culture and travel in Spain.

World Wine Crisis Report (Six): Australia's Wine Glut--Austraila has a surplus on 100 million cases of wine

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Australia's wine glut

From a post on The Curious Capitalist

Posted by Justin Fox Wednesday, November 11, 2009 at 9:54 pm

3 Comments • Trackback (0) • Related Topics: Wall Street, australia, wine

The Wine Economist reports that Australia's overproduction of wine has reached a crisis point:

Australia has an accumulated surplus of 100 million cases of wine that will double in the next two years if current trends continue, according to the report. The annual surplus is huge – equal to all UK export sales and there is no clear prospect of finding additional demand, either domestic or foreign, to fill this gap. ...

In fact, wine exports have fallen by 8 million cases or more than 20 percent in the last two years, according to the statement, with the largest declines in the high value wines that Aussie winemakers hoped would be their future.

Inexpensive and bulk wine sales have grown, but at prices that are unsustainably low.

Mr. Dawes is currently working on a reality television
series on wine, gastronomy, culture and travel in Spain.

Experience Spain With Gerry Dawes: Culinary Trips to Spain & Travel Consulting on Spain
Gerry Dawes can be reached at gerrydawes@aol.com; Alternate e-mail (use only if your e-mail to AOL is rejected): gerrydawes@gmail.com

11/17/2009

Vinogallego.com: Article on my Ribeira Sacra - Donde Godello y Mencía encuentran la gloria piece

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Ribeira Sacra - Donde Godello y Mencía encuentran la gloria

(article in Spanish on Vinogallego.com)

Ribeira Sacra: Where Godello and Mencía are bound for glory by Gerry Dawes (Wine News, Fall 2009)

Ribeira Sacra Tasting Notes with Photographs

Ribeira Sacra: The Perfect Lunch with Almalarga Godello at O Grelo Restaurant

About Gerry Dawes

Gerry Dawes was awarded Spain's prestigious Premio Nacional de Gastronomía (National Gastronomy Award) in 2003. He writes and speaks frequently on Spanish wine and gastronomy and leads gastronomy, wine and cultural tours to Spain. He was a finalist for the 2001 James Beard Foundation's Journalism Award for Best Magazine Writing on Wine, won The Cava Institute's First Prize for Journalism for his article on cava in 2004, was awarded the CineGourLand “Cinéfilos y Gourmets” (Cinephiles & Gourmets) prize in 2009 in Getxo (Vizcaya) and received the 2009 Association of Food Journalists Second Prize for Best Food Feature in a Magazine for his Food Arts article, a retrospective piece about Catalan star chef, Ferran Adrià.

". . .That we were the first to introduce American readers to Ferran Adrià in 1997 and have ever since continued to bring you a blow-by-blow narrative of Spain's riveting ferment is chiefly due to our Spanish correspondent, Gerry "Mr. Spain" Dawes, the messianic wine and food journalist raised in Southern Illinois and possessor of a self-accumulated doctorate in the Spanish table. Gerry once again brings us up to the very minute. . ." - - Michael & Ariane Batterberry, Editor-in-Chief/Publisher and Founding Editor/Publisher, Food Arts, October 2009.

Mr. Dawes is currently working on a reality television

series on wine, gastronomy, culture and travel in Spain.

11/16/2009

Chicago's Star Food Writer Dennis Wheaton on Spain's Cocina de Vanguardia, Grant Achatz, Thomas Keller

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Dear Gerry,

"I’ve just had the pleasure of reading your article "Spain’s Chemical Reaction" in the latest Food Arts. Clearly, a lot of good work went into it. Your thesis of the "significant waning of Spain’s vaunted cocina de vanguardia and a corresponding rise in interest in traditional cooking, now modernized, better than ever, and usually less expensive for chefs to produce and diners to enjoy" seems spot-on compared to my experience in Chicago.

Grant Achatz at Madrid Fusión 2009.

That’s not to say that chefs like Grant Achatz have gotten off the experimental bandwagon. Susan and I had dinner at Alinea recently and were still awed by all the manipulations on the plate, bacon hanging on a wire like a circus act, foams, emulsions, gels, freeze-dried foods, granular tricks, etc, as well as his use of aromas to enhance the experience, such as burning dried fall oak leaves on a branch holding pheasant, apple puree, and roasted shallot somehow skewered on the branch, or putting young tomato vines in a central bowl of boiling water to add aroma to a plate of heirloom tomatoes done a zillion different ways with olive oil snow, fig gel, pumpernickel grains, and more manipulations. What struck me was how damn good Achatz’s food still tastes after all the folderol, but how difficult it was to grasp all that was on the plate. Even the waiters’ careful descriptions failed to cover all that was there or was going on. After about 16 courses–culminating in a bizarre course in which a chef came out and literally spread a complex dessert of blueberry syrup, maplewood consomme in shimmering balls to break (extracted from maple branches, not maple syrup), maple sugar shortbread crumbs, tobacco-infused cream, and much more, all spread directly on a silicon mat laid on the table so the whole thing looked like a big tabletop fingerpainting–we were not only awed and how it looked and how good it tasted, but exhausted.

This is clearly not don’t-give-it-a-thought comfort dining for hard times [See CIA-Worlds of Flavor Conference 2009: Frontiers of Flavor, World Street Food, World Comfort Food]. But what I’m also seeing is touches of vanguard cuisine showing up in more accessible restaurants, sometimes deftly, sometimes awkwardly–like all the bad borrowings from Japanese cuisine so prevalent a few years ago in Western restaurants. As far as I’m concerned, foam should be retired from the stage for a long while, if not permanently. (See Chicago Tribune's Ten Worst Dining Trends of the Decade.-GD)

What has clearly come to the "vanguard" in Chicago as well as New York and other places, is the headlong rush to localism and naturally raised foods–house made charcuterie and many other uses of everything from the pig butchered on premises but the squeal as well as great local market seasonal vegetables simply and minimally treated in the kitchen–that harks back to Alice Waters more than Ferran Adria. In that vein, I was really impressed by your discussion of the Spanish controversy over the use of industrial additives in making avant guarde cuisine. It does fly in the face of the return to naturalism and purity in foods." -- Dennis R. Wheaton, Food Writer (Chicago Magazine, The New York Times and other publications.)

Ferran Adrià at Madrid Fusión 2009.
Photo by Gerry Dawes©2009.

Check out Dennis Wheaton's excellent article on Grant Achatz of Alinea and Thomas Keller of The French Laundry Chicagomag.com from June 2008.

Once upon a time, an unknown young chef toiled away in the most renowned kitchen in the country. Is it a classic story of the student surpassing the master?

Thomas Keller at Madrid Fusión 2009.

Of course, this passage caught my eye:

"Another fine dish, jamón ibérico with soft cubes of griddled acorn flan, made me smile: Hard acorns are what Spanish pigs eat to give jamón ibérico its unparalleled nutty flavor. This is just the kind of playful deconstruction that Achatz has patented at Alinea. Of course, at The French Laundry, it's an in-joke that few diners will get; at Alinea, they would explain it to you."

Jamón Ibérico, the real thing, with a glass of rosado in Spain.
Photo by Gerry Dawes©2009.

Dennis Wheaton is the Dining Critic for Chicago Magazine and has contributed many articles to other publications, including The New York Times.

About Gerry Dawes

Gerry Dawes was awarded Spain's prestigious Premio Nacional de Gastronomía (National Gastronomy Award) in 2003. He writes and speaks frequently on Spanish wine and gastronomy and leads gastronomy, wine and cultural tours to Spain. He was a finalist for the 2001 James Beard Foundation's Journalism Award for Best Magazine Writing on Wine, won The Cava Institute's First Prize for Journalism for his article on cava in 2004, was awarded the CineGourLand “Cinéfilos y Gourmets” (Cinephiles & Gourmets) prize in 2009 in Getxo (Vizcaya) and received the 2009 Association of Food Journalists Second Prize for Best Food Feature in a Magazine for his Food Arts article, a retrospective piece about Catalan star chef, Ferran Adrià.

". . .That we were the first to introduce American readers to Ferran Adrià in 1997 and have ever since continued to bring you a blow-by-blow narrative of Spain's riveting ferment is chiefly due to our Spanish correspondent, Gerry "Mr. Spain" Dawes, the messianic wine and food journalist raised in Southern Illinois and possessor of a self-accumulated doctorate in the Spanish table. Gerry once again brings us up to the very minute. . ." - - Michael & Ariane Batterberry, Editor-in-Chief/Publisher and Founding Editor/Publisher, Food Arts, October 2009.

Mr. Dawes is currently working on a reality television

series on wine, gastronomy, culture and travel in Spain.

11/15/2009

On Betrayal of Confidence and Threats to Journalists: An Open Letter to Kevin Zraly, Technical Director of the Recently Concluded WineFuture-Rioja 2009

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Kevin Zraly, Technical Director
WineFuture-Rioja 2009

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Background to my open letter to Kevin Zraly:

The following are my notes on the telephone conversation on August 31, 2009 with Kevin Zraly about what has become known as Campogate, the Pancho Campo WineFuture-Rioja 2009 Affair:

(I assumed that the telephone conversation I had with Zraly was in strictest confidence, but apparently it was not, and I gave him ample opportunities via e-mail and telephone messages (see below) to convince me that I am mistaken, so I no longer feel bound by such confidence, therefore I am reproducing the gist of our telephone conversation from some very careful notes that I took.)

After telling Kevin Zraly that I was calling because a distinguished mutual writer friend had told me that the information (See Expanded Background to the Pancho Campo-Kevin Zraly-Robert Parker Wine Futures Rioja Affair 2009) that had come to me about the Pancho Campo affair was something that he should know, I said:

“I was sitting here thinking 'I know Kevin and I think he would be interested in knowing this stuff."

(I was hoping that I might get some more information about the Campo affair, which I was investigating as a journalist, but Zraly said he knew nothing about it, so I forwarded a third-party e-mail to him with information about the Interpol warrant seeking Campo's arrest while we were having the phone conversation.)

Kevin Zraly (after reading the e-mail while we were still on the phone): “Absolutely, this is big shit, you know. I don’t hang around with the criminal type.”

Kevin Zraly: “For me, I can take it (WineFuture Rioja 2009) or leave it. I can just go with the flow, but it is important that you sent this (info about the Campo affair). I appreciate it.”

Kevin Zraly (later in the conversation): "Again, I do appreciate it (your letting me know the information about Pancho Campo)."

(After talking about going around to world with Robin Kelley O’Conner [another speaker at WineFutures-Rioja 2009] to wine regions in "25 countries" [other reports say 15] to update the 25th Anniversary version of his Windows on the World Complete Wine Course book [a book for which I received acknowledgement for my help in updating the Spanish chapter in an earlier edition], Zraly complained about the alcohol and overwrought style of the wines in Chile, Argentina, Australia, and South Africa. [Dare I say "Parkerista" style?-GD])

Then Zraly said, “It is not just Spain, not just California.”

(Note: These statements seem to be in direct contrast with the interview with Zraly published on The Wine Academy's WineFuture-Rioja 2009 pages; see question #11. )

Kevin Zraly: “To be honest with you, Gerry, I am disillusioned with the whole (wine) thing. I am disillusioned with everything, everything. I'm glad I did everything (in wine) when I did, but moving on, I am not inspired.”

(There was more conversation about wine, but most of it does not really relate to the point. However, during the conversation, he told me that his wife, Ana Fabiano, had signed a contract with the Consejo Regulador of La Rioja to promote Rioja wines in the United States. I subsequently found out only recently that Ana Fabiano appears on a Pancho Campo Wine Academy videotape endorsing his wine courses in the United States.)

Kevin Zraly: “If you hear of anything else that is going down, please, please, please let me know. I can’t tell you how much I appreciate your thinking about me.”

* * * * *

On October 1, after the information about an Interpol warrant for the arrest of Pancho Campo had come to light in the Jim Budd/Adam Lechmere Decanter.com article and had caused a brouhaha for the month of September in Spain, Pancho Campo, under heavy pressure from within La Rioja, resigned as "Director" of WineFuture Rioja 2009.

Campo also issued a statement saying he had "resigned" as President of The Wine Academy of Spain, a private company founded by him and members of his family. Campo named his brother-in-law, Rony Bacqué, as President of The Wine Academy of Spain. Campo's wife, Melissa, an American, is also active in the Wine Academy.

In early October, Kevin Zraly was named "Technical Director" of WineFuture Rioja 2009 to succeed Pancho Campo in running that event, even though Campo's Wine Academy of Spain was still in charge of the event and still stood to profit from it. It is clearly stated on The Wine Academy website that the WineFuture Rioja 2009 is the propiedad (property) of The Wine Academy and the event is thus a private enterprise, from which the Wine Academy stood to gain a substantial amount of money. The event was supported in part by private sponsors, but with a substantial commitment of public funds and facilities from the government of La Rioja and full support and some funding from the Consejo Regulador (Regulatory Council) of La Rioja.

Many, including journalists, winemakers and political figures in La Rioja, believe that Kevin Zraly, who lives two hours northwest of New York City and does not speak Spanish, was a "straw man," a figurehead who allowed Pancho Campo and his Wine Academy to continue to direct the conference behind the scenes.

As noted earlier, Kevin Zraly's wife, Ana Fabiano, early in 2009 signed a contract with the Rioja Regulatory Council--composed of a coalition of grape growers and wineries--to promote the wines of La Rioja in the United States.

The interview excerpt below was posted on the Wine Academy of Spain's website, on October 14, 2009, after Zraly's being named to direct WineFuture-Rioja 2009 and after additional information on the Campo case had been published did nothing to dissuade the Zraly as "straw man" belief among skeptics.

From The Wine Academy of Spain Interview with Kevin Zraly,

Technical Director of WineFuture-Rioja 2009*

(*Interview dated Oct. 14, 2009.)

Wine Academy Question 14. Which [sic] is the outcome you expect from Winefuture-Rioja?

Kevin Zraly: "That there will be more WineFutures! Pancho Campo has done a tremendous job in bringing all segments of the market together to discuss how we can all move forward in the distribution of wines throughout the world. The logistics of putting a first time event like this together were enormous and I congratulate Pancho and his team for having the foresight and energy to organize this event."

* * * * *
Open Letter to Kevin Zraly From Gerry Dawes

Preface to the letter:

Kevin Zraly, you are a man I have known for more than thirty years and have had a cordial relationship with over that period. You are the man for whom I quit my first job in the wine business because my company refused to keep my word of honor to you when you were Wine Director and Sommelier at Windows on the World.

At your request several years ago I also revised pro bono the chapter on Spanish wines for your book, The Windows on the World Wine Course Book--see the frontespiece for my signature, the "payment" you give as acknowledgment for each expert's contributions to the book.

On October 9, 2009, I sent a version of the following letter to your e-mail address and received no answer, so I re-sent it on October 12, Columbus Day. You had a Windows On The World Wine School class scheduled for the evening of October 12, so I waited another day, hoping that you would have a chance to respond to my queries.

On October 14, I made two phone calls, one to your cell phone, where I left a message, another to your office, where I left another message with Michelle, the woman who answered the phone.
To date, I have received no answer to any of these attempts to reach you for comment. Therefore, I decided, as a last resort to write on open letter to you in hopes of getting some answers to questions that have been on my mind for more than two months.

What follows is a letter that includes my account of what transpired between you and me in relation to the Pancho Campo - WineFuture-Rioja 2009 affair, including the notes of my August 31, 2009 telephone conversation with you (see above).

Dear Kevin,

First off, no one doubts your credentials, nor do I. You are a giant in the wine industry and in the wine education field. You have helped organize some of the top wine events in the United States, including The Wine Spectator's Wine Experience and you have partnered with Robert M. Parker, Jr. to found a wine education program.

But, I have some serious questions--as a journalist, and personally because recent events that relate directly to me--about your actions in light of the information that has come out over the past two months or so about what is being called "CampoGate" or the "Pancho Campo Affair" surrounding the WineFutures-Rioja 2009 Affair held on November 12 & 13 in la Rioja.

The following was published on Decanter magazine writer Jim Budd's blog. It is part of a time line on the Pancho Campo case.
"Following publication (of the first Decanter article on Sept. 4 about the Pancho Campo affair), PC [Pancho Campo] phones me and tells me that his lawyers have warned an unnamed American journalist who has been investigating this story."

After my more than 30 minute phone conversation with you on August 31, two days later (on Sept. 2), before the publication of the Decanter article on Sept. 4, I was threatened with various actions from someone claiming to be Pancho Campo's lawyer in a phone call from Spain, plus he said he was coming to New York the following week and wanted to meet with me to arrive at "an amicable compromise." He also sent an e-mail to the third party address from whence came the e-mail that I forwarded to you from that same e-mail address during the course of our telephone conversation.

The e-mail I sent to you contained a translation of the information about Pancho Campo and the Interpol arrest warrant internet link that I had received from several reliable sources, including journalists, in Europe.

I forwarded only four similar e-mails about the Campo affair from that e-mail address, three to trusted people who were either investigating the affair as journalists or who had contributed information, the fourth to you.

As you may know by now and can certainly check on Jim Budd's site (see above), almost every detail in the e-mail you received, except a couple of more precise dates since confirmed, have proved to be correct and have proved to not be "falsedades" as claimed by Alfonso Martínez, Campo's lawyer, when he called to threaten me on September 2, 2009 at 6:35 p.m. (00:35 Spanish time, a strange hour for a lawyer to be working).

During that phone call, Martínez told me in Spanish that Pancho Campo was "muy, muy, muy enfadado con usted, "very, very, very angry with you." He also said, "We have e-mails with your name on them (he probably did not) that contain many "falsedades" (as I said, most of those claimed to be "false" have been proved true)."

Martínez also warned me, "We don't want to have to go the American Embassy or to the Spanish Embassy with this, nor do we want to get into litigation, but we want you to stop sending those e-mails. I will be in New York next week and I would like to sit down with you and see if we can come to an acuerdo amistoso, (an amicable compromise)."

Indeed, I have it from good sources that Campo, Martínez and others had done something similar to journalists in Spain during the period the Interpol information was emerging. According to these well-regarded sources, threats, veiled attempts at "enducements" and other methods such as pressure from highly placed people were used to try to suppress this story before several publications and blogs published it.

In addition to the "warning" issued to me by Pancho Campo's lawyer, Campo also offered a speaking engagement at another event to an English journalist (Jim Budd) who has reported on the case and he also put out a veiled suggestion of a payment of a preposterous amount to a Spanish journalist.

Now many of the facts are out about the Campo case and most of them are not really disputable. In fact, Campo himself has confirmed to various sources events and dates that have validated most of the material that I had prior to August 31 and those have even been published in multiple publications and on websites throughout the world, although Campo himself has given conflicting information about the dates on which a couple of events occurred and the circumstances, they have not been denied.

I think you can see how the journalists involved in these threats and coercion attempts found them particularly reprehensible. It reminded me of Watergate, where the crimes were less serious than the attempted cover-up by the Nixon White House.

The reason I am writing to you is to inform you that, using input from my own investigations and those of the four other journalists, two Spanish and two English, working on this story, along with blogger Manuel Camblor of laotrabotella.com, I am have been writing some reports of my own, including this report/open letter about the Campo affair, my dealings with you on the phone, the third party e-mail and the subsequent warnings to "an unnamed American journalist who has been investigating the story."
My questions to you are:

1) Did you or your wife, Ana Fabiano, who is doing promotions for Rioja wines in the U.S., provide the third party e-mail I sent you directly to Pancho Campo and, if not, did either of you provide that e-mail to anyone in the CRDO Rioja?

Or did either of you, provide the e-mail, again almost all of whose information has been proved correct--to anyone else who caused the e-mail to reach Pancho Campo and his lawyer, thus causing me, "an American journalist," to be "warned," which I see as being threatened and an attempted intimidation to supress a valid ongoing investigation?

2) Were you, as the Technical Director of WineFutures Rioja 2009, a (former?) partner of Robert Parker in a wine education program, husband of the person recently signed on to promote Rioja wines by the CRDO Rioja, a "straw man," a figurehead standing in for Pancho Campo, as some in La Rioja and elsewhere are strongly suggesting? Was Pancho Campo still pulling the strings for the event behind the scenes? (Since he actually was allowed to appear at WineFuture-Rioja 2009 after being forced to resign as director of the event, it certainly appears that he was still heavily involved in the event despite his "resignations.")

3) And lastly, as an author and sometime wine writer yourself, how do you feel about journalists being threatened by lawyers for passing private e-mails (in strictest confidence) and the reports of journalists being offered "enducements," however veiled, by Pancho Campo and/or members of his retinue?

Given the circumstances surrounding the Pancho Campo story and the political elements and intrigues going on in Spain, I feel that I must ask as a journalist and I think it is only fair that you be given a chance to respond. Your responses will be fairly incorporated into any of my future reports on this situation.

If I may paraphrase my very precise notes on your comments during our telephone conversation (below), Kevin, this whole episode has also made me “pretty disillusioned with the whole (wine) thing,” however, I am “inspired,” because at least a few journalists and quite a few bloggers have chosen to step forward to write about this incredible saga and have refused to be denied our freedom of speech, nor our ability to function as journalists.

Now, after sitting on this information concerning our telephone conversation for more than more than two months, it is my turn to write about it.

Regards, Gerry Dawes

About Gerry Dawes

Gerry Dawes was awarded Spain's prestigious Premio Nacional de Gastronomía (National Gastronomy Award) in 2003. He writes and speaks frequently on Spanish wine and gastronomy and leads gastronomy, wine and cultural tours to Spain. He was a finalist for the 2001 James Beard Foundation's Journalism Award for Best Magazine Writing on Wine, won The Cava Institute's First Prize for Journalism for his article on cava in 2004, was awarded the CineGourLand “Cinéfilos y Gourmets” (Cinephiles & Gourmets) prize in 2009 in Getxo (Vizcaya) and received the 2009 Association of Food Journalists Second Prize for Best Food Feature in a Magazine for his Food Arts article, a retrospective piece about Catalan star chef, Ferran Adrià.

". . .That we were the first to introduce American readers to Ferran Adrià in 1997 and have ever since continued to bring you a blow-by-blow narrative of Spain's riveting ferment is chiefly due to our Spanish correspondent, Gerry "Mr. Spain" Dawes, the messianic wine and food journalist raised in Southern Illinois and possessor of a self-accumulated doctorate in the Spanish table. Gerry once again brings us up to the very minute. . ." - - Michael & Ariane Batterberry, Editor-in-Chief/Publisher and Founding Editor/Publisher, Food Arts, October 2009.

Mr. Dawes is currently working on a reality television
series on wine, gastronomy, culture and travel in Spain.

Experience Spain With Gerry Dawes: Culinary Trips to Spain & Travel Consulting on Spain

Gerry Dawes can be reached at gerrydawes@aol.com; Alternate e-mail (use only if your e-mail to AOL is rejected): mailto:gerrydawes@gmail.com

11/10/2009

The Best Tapas Bar in Spain / Alicante: Lo Mejor de la Gastronomía Names La Taberna del Gourmet "The Best Bar in Spain"

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Geni Perramón San Román just informed me on Facebook that La Taberna del Gourmet, the Perramón-San Román restaurant that Geni runs in Alicante, was named "Lo Mejor Barra de España" (The Best [Tapas] Bar in Spain) at the Lo Mejor de la Gastronomía Conference that ends November 11 in Alicante.

The culinary genius in the kitchen of this incredible tapas restaurant-bar--which myself (and others) have thought for several years was the best tapas restaurant in all of Spain--is María José San Román, an award-winning chef, one of the best cooks in the country.

Michelin Two-Star, New York Times Three Star American Chef Terrance Brennan of Picholine, Artisanal Fromagerie, Bar Artisanal and Artisanal Seattle says, "La Taberna del Gourmet is the best Spanish tapas bar I have ever been in."

La Taberna del Gourmet (Taberna, Delicatessen & Wine Bar)

San Fernando 10, Alicante. 965-204-233.

María José San Román's superb, quality product-driven, taberna and wine bar, next door to Monastrell and one of the best traditional cuisine restaurants in La Comunitat Valenciana.

Somehow you must work María José's restaurants (she also owns Los Mejillones [The Mussels], a block away on the Esplanada de España) into your stay in Alicante, even if it is just some tapas at the bar at La Taberna del Gourmet, which is run by Geni Perramón, daughter of María José and El Portero "Pitu" Perramón.

My recommendation at La Taberna, which is also "Pitu"'s (legendary former goalkeeper for the Spanish national handball team) pride and joy, is to put yourself in the hands of Geni and ask her (drop my name) to do a tasting luncheon of stellar modernized traditional offerings.

Depending on the season, a "little" sampling luncheon may include such dishes as little Navarrese txistorra chorizos; a shared portion of arrós con magro y verduras (paella-like rice with pork and vegetables), maybe the best patatas bravas (saffron-infused) in Spain; splendid, supernal gambas rojas (legendary prawns from the Alicante coast); and unbeatable grilled sepionets (small cuttle fish).

(Double click to enlarge and go to Picasa and push F11 for a full screen slide show.)

Now that the preliminaries are out of the way, go on with white esparragos de Navarra with a vinagreta de solera de requena (aged vinegar); an ensalada méditerranea (arugula, goat cheese cubes, tomatoes and siurana olive oil); spectacularly good croquetas de chorizo Ibérico; equally spectacular alcachofa a vinagreta (artichokes); pan con tomate y anchoas (bread rubbed with tomate and topped with house-cured anchovies; a little escalivada montadito con foie (grilled vegetables on a toast round with foie gras); riñoncitos de lechazo (milk-fed lamb kidneys) and finish up with a bit of arrós caldoso con cigala y sepia en dados (a delicious soupy marinera rice with chunks of Dublin Bay prawns and sepia cuttle fish).

The wine: A Godello from Valdeorras.

Of course, a little dessert won't hurt, so try María José's bizcocho de tocino de cielo, borracho de lima, freson and helado de gengibre, a take off on the classic, normally sinfully rich, lighter in this version tocino de cielo (read eggs and sugar), with lime, strawberries and a ginger ice cream.

Or course, you don't have to do this whole-nine-yards-menu, which I am very honored to say is now called "El Menu de Gerry Dawes," you can tell Geni when to stop anytime.

Gerry with Geni and María José at La Taberna del Gourmet, July 2009 (Photo by Kay Killian Balun.)

(Also check out the video below in which María José appears.)

Mr. Dawes is currently working on a reality television

series on wine, gastronomy, culture and travel in Spain.

World Wine Crisis Series (Five): Roots of the Crisis in Spain, A Victor de la Serna Report in 2007 in Meininger's Wine Business International

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June 12, 2007

Spanish Eyes Seeing Red by Victor de la Serna
(For full article click on link. Italics and red highlighting are mine.--GD)

"For a long time, the received truth about Spain was that, despite having the world’s largest vineyard surface, its production was much smaller than that of France’s or Italy’s, due to much lower yields in a markedly drier climate. This has now changed spectacularly. The vineyard surface has shrunk since 1990 by about 100,000 hectares to just under 1.2 million, which is still far above that of France or Italy. More importantly, though, viticultural changes have increased yields exponentially, and production has crept much closer to French and Italian levels.

(Brilliant, comply with EU regulations and cut vineyard surface while increasing yields by switching to high-production clones.--GD)

During the drought years of 1994 and 1995, Spain produced, respectively, 20.995 and 20.876 million hectolitres, or about 16 hectolitres per hectare. Even in a more clement vintage such as 1996, which produced 32,675 hl, the average yield was just 24 hl/ha. But in 2006 production reached an estimated 43.448 million hl – no longer very far from the 50.000 million hl figures usually recorded by the French and the Italians – with average yields of 36 hl/ha.

The main reason for the increase in production has been the European Union-funded vineyard re-structuring scheme, started in 2000, of which Spain has been the main beneficiary. More than 140,000 ha have been replanted to date, generally to high production clones in trellised vineyards with drip irrigation, and yields of up to 100 hl/ha are not uncommon in these vineyards.

In 2004, the secretary of the Cava regulatory council, Gabriel Giró, raised the first protest against a “well-intentioned, but ill-advised” scheme that had contributed to a glut in grapes for the Spanish sparkling wine. In that year production had suddenly reached 360 million kg, 100 million kg above the average of the previous decade, due to the many new, high-yield vineyards just entering production. . .

. . . Against that backdrop, the continued reduction in consumption is even more devastating. The latest data by the Agriculture Ministry indicate that in 2006 the drop was the steepest in 16 years . . . The per capita consumption figure (in Spain) broke a new negative record. . . The figures are much lower than in the other major wine producing countries of Europe. Since 1987, when per capita consumption was 47 litres, consumption in Spain has almost halved. In both France and Portugal, Spain’s next-door neighbours, locals drink twice as much wine per capita as the Spaniards.

No serious research has yet been conducted on the causes of such a comparatively low rate of wine consumption in a traditional Mediterranean wine-producing nation, though Spanish authors have drawn comparisons with Greece, where wine’s flagging popularity is possibly caused by the dismal quality of wine produced over the past several decades. . .

(Has anyone done a study on whether the slavish production of copycat Parkerista-style wines with jammy, overripe fruit, low acid levels, high alcohol and enough new oak to build a chalet have anything to do with the turn-off in Spanish wine drinking habits? --Gerry Dawes.)

. . . While retail sales remained almost unchanged (–0.8%), this has translated into a precipitous drop of ontrade sales (–8.3% last year) as restaurant customers developed a fear of alcohol controls and the possible loss of their drivers’ licenses.

(So the wine industry, both in Spain and elsewhere, sees the impact of alcohol controls on the road and their answer is the keep wratching up alcohol levels in wines until many wines top 15% and they can't seem to grasp a relationship between high octane and falling sales!!!!--GD)

About Gerry Dawes

Gerry Dawes was awarded Spain's prestigious Premio Nacional de Gastronomía (National Gastronomy Award) in 2003. He writes and speaks frequently on Spanish wine and gastronomy and leads gastronomy, wine and cultural tours to Spain. He was a finalist for the 2001 James Beard Foundation's Journalism Award for Best Magazine Writing on Wine, won The Cava Institute's First Prize for Journalism for his article on cava in 2004, was awarded the CineGourLand prize in 2009 and received the Association of Food Journalists 2009 Second Prize for Best Food Feature in a Magazine for his Food Arts article, a retrospective piece about Catalan star chef, Ferran Adrià.

Mr. Dawes is currently working on a reality television

series on wine, gastronomy, culture and travel in Spain.

Experience Spain With Gerry Dawes: Culinary Trips to Spain & Travel Consulting on Spain

Gerry Dawes can be reached at gerrydawes@aol.com; Alternate e-mail (use only if your e-mail to AOL is rejected): gerrydawes@gmail.com

World Wine Crisis (Four): Articles in This Continuing Series

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Las ventas del vino de Rioja caen un 17% en Septiembre - Mercados del Vino y de la Distribución 10 Nov. 2009

Sales of Rioja wines down 17% in September, 21% in the Spanish national market; exports down 11% for the year.

(More to follow.)

About Gerry Dawe

Gerry Dawes was awarded Spain's prestigious Premio Nacional de Gastronomía (National Gastronomy Award) in 2003. He writes and speaks frequently on Spanish wine and gastronomy and leads gastronomy, wine and cultural tours to Spain. He was a finalist for the 2001 James Beard Foundation's Journalism Award for Best Magazine Writing on Wine, won The Cava Institute's First Prize for Journalism for his article on cava in 2004, was awarded the CineGourLand prize in 2009 and received the Association of Food Journalists 2009 Second Prize for Best Food Feature in a Magazine for his Food Arts article, a retrospective piece about Catalan star chef, Ferran Adrià.

Mr. Dawes is currently working on a reality television

series on wine, gastronomy, culture and travel in Spain.

11/09/2009

World Wine Crisis (Three): Jaime Goode's Blog "I would say that Winefuture is about the old wine industry".

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Very Interesting post about WineFuture-Rioja 2009 by Jamie Goode on his Blog

"The much talked-about 'Wine Future' conference is taking place in Spain later this week. I'm not going (although I probably would have gone had I been invited, even if it was out of morbid curiousity).

There's a glittering speaker list, and it will draw a significant crowd of important people, but I feel lukewarm to the whole idea.

I don't think the future of the wine industry will be determined top-down by the famous people who currently 'lead' the wine industry.

Instead, I think it will come from an under-the-radar movement of dedicated winegrowers who are prepared to understand the vineyards they work with and make interesting, authentic, characterful wines.

Very few of these winegrowers would be at all interested in a conference like this. They make wine not because they want to make money, but because they have to. These new great wines are made by people who see winegrowing as their vocation. Their focus starts in the vineyard and they work as naturally as possible. Typically, they prefer large oak to small, old oak to new, and concrete to stainless steel.

If I am allowed to be provocative, I would say that Winefuture is about the old wine industry. The new wine industry will emerge from the corpse of the old industry. The secret revolution is underway."

With answers from Jim Budd, my self and a wine grower named Fabius.

At 5:07 PM, Jim Budd said...
: Justin is quite right to highlight the questions that hang over Pancho Campo MW and his Wine Academy of Spain. For more than a month I have been asking him a series of question about his conviction for fraud in Dubai, how he got out before the trial and whether any of the money (640,000€) involved in the conviction was used to set up The Wine Academy of Spain. Campo left Dubai in 2003 and set up the Academy the same year. To date I have had no response to my questions. Pancho Campo was due to speak at the recent European Wine Bloggers Conference but failed to show. Avoiding answering legitimate questions? No-one appears to know whether The Wine Academy of Spain, the owner and organiser of WineFuture Rioja09 was funded, wholly or in part, on the proceeds of fraud. The distinguished speakers and sponsors appear not to care. Various posting can be found on Jim's Loire including this one: http://jimsloire.blogspot.com/2009/10/pancho-campo-mw-essence.html


At 5:28 PM, Gerry Dawes said...
: More frightening while this WF-Rioja 09 conference is going on (it reminds me of elephants coming home to the graveyard) is the questions of thousands of tons of grapes left on the ground this year, the growers in tractor brigades rolling into provincial capitals to protest low grape prices, Diageo's dumping of cru classe Bordeaux, Constellation's reported selling off of a 164-year old Australian vineyard where a complex of small apartments is planned, etc. This conference purports to enlighten attendees on how to "market" wines in this climate is really like Nero fiddling while Rome burns. And there are several potential performers in this affair auditioning for the role of Nero. (I also highly recommend that you watch the Zev Robinson trailer for his film, Bobal & Other Wine Stories, which is really a Grapes of Wrath saga about the struggles of Bobal grape growers in Utiel-Requena. [See the Zeb Robinson article on my blog for a link to the trailer.)


At 6:42 PM, Fabius said...

: As a (very) small producer of quality wines made from our own grapes grown in our own vineyard, what our great leaders say or do at WF is of absolutely no significance to us. The wine industry today is in a huge mess (of said leaders' own making, I might add) what with oversupply and falling consumption in most markets. Anyway, we are focussed on quality, terroir, etc and our niche market, even though tiny for the big boys, is enormous for us. We are passionate about what we do and are going to do it no matter what!!!

About the author

Gerry Dawes was awarded Spain's prestigious Premio Nacional de Gastronomía (National Gastronomy Award) in 2003. He writes and speaks frequently on Spanish wine and gastronomy and leads gastronomy, wine and cultural tours to Spain. He was a finalist for the 2001 James Beard Foundation's Journalism Award for Best Magazine Writing on Wine, won The Cava Institute's First Prize for Journalism for his article on cava in 2004, was awarded the CineGourLand prize in 2009 and received the Association of Food Journalists 2009 Second Prize for Best Food Feature in a Magazine for his Food Arts article, a retrospective piece about Catalan star chef, Ferran Adrià.

Mr. Dawes is currently working on a reality television

series on wine, gastronomy, culture and travel in Spain.

World Wine Crises Series (Two): US Bordeaux prices at risk of 'bloodbath', experts say - Stayed tuned for what is going on in Spain

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From an article by Suzanne Mustacich (AFP) November 8, 2009

"US importer Diageo Chateau & Estate Wines (DC&E), a subsidiary of the British drinks giant Diageo, has abandoned Bordeaux wine after 35 years, aggressively liquidating its warehouse stock on an already shaky market.

Speaking to AFP, a source within DC&E, who asked to remain anonymous, blamed "enormous stocks" of unsold Bordeaux for their exodus. "It's all about making money. The margins are getting thinner each year and Americans are trading down.""

Stayed tuned for emerging information on how the global wine crisis is affecting Spain, Spanish wines, Spanish bodegas and Spanish grape growers.

And have a look at this:

La Bobal Y Other Stories About Wine: A Film by Zev Robinson (With a modern-day Grapes of Wrath social commentary)

Mr. Dawes is currently working on a reality television

series on wine, gastronomy, culture and travel in Spain.

11/07/2009

Culinary Institute of America-Greystone (Napa Valley) 2009 Worlds of Flavor Conference November 12–14, 2009

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Sold Out!

12th Annual Worlds of Flavor

International Conference & Festival

Frontiers of Flavor:

World Street Food, World Comfort Food

Discovering the Fast Casual, Slow Savory, and "Big Value" Culinary Traditions

of Asia, the Mediterranean, and Latin America

Full Schedule of Events

This influential annual three-day forum on world cuisines is one of the American foodservice industry's premier events. Each November, the Worlds of Flavor Conference showcases the gold standards of world cuisines that are reshaping American menus.

The 12th Annual Worlds of Flavor Conference presented an in-depth exploration of two overlapping, hot culinary trends: world street food and world comfort food. Reflecting the intersection of recessionary budget and cost-cutting pressures, the continuing world cuisines juggernaut, and the ongoing embrace of a 24/7 culture of informal, casual food and dining, these concepts increasingly define how we as Americans now want to eat.

"Frontiers of Flavor: World Street Food, World Comfort Food," gathered top culinary talent from the Mediterranean, Asia, Latin America and the United States. Presenters included more than 60 culinary experts, from street food vendors, hawker chefs, tapas and meze specialists, and barbecue masters to fine dining chefs who have been inspired by world street foods and comfort foods, mothers of chefs, legends of live fire and claypot cooking, as well as cookbook authors, street food chroniclers, and more.

Highlighted regions and food cultures included Singapore, Malaysia, Thailand, Vietnam, Indonesia, Japan, India, Spain, Italy, Greece, Turkey, Morocco, Tunisia, Persia, Mexico, the Caribbean, Peru, Brazil, and culinary hot spots across the United States.

The three-day event was a sauce-slopping, noodle-slurping, chaat-sampling, kabob-nibbling, tamale-savoring, tapas-grazing epic tour of the best of world street food and world comfort food!

Spanish Tapas Wow California

Gerry Dawes moderated one general session, three panels on Spanish and Catalan Cuisine and appeared in the final general session as a commentator.

Profiles of the participants, photos and some recipes for the Spanish sections of the Worlds of Flavor Conference will follow.

Friday, November 13

10:30 AM General Session VI

What’s Next in Spain: Fast, Slow, and Casual Flavors
Introduction: Jim Poris
Moderator: Gerry Dawes
Presenters: Paco Roncero, Albert Asín, Daniel Olivella, Seamus Mullen
With a live video feed from the outdoor live fire kitchen previewing lunch with Mai Pham (Vietnamese food) and Suvir Saran (Indian food).

CIA-Greystone (Napa Valley) Worlds of Flavor Conference 2009 General Session VI:
What's Next in Spain: Fast, Slow and Casual Flavors.

Jim Poris (Sr. Editor, Food Arts),
Gerry Dawes (Food Arts, General Session Moderator),
Daniel Olivella (B-44 &amp Barlata);
Chef Paco Roncero (Casino de Madrid, Estado Puro; consultant, Hoteles NH),
Seamus Mullen (Chef-partner, Boqueria NYC & Boqueria Soho),
Javier Alonso (Paco Roncero's sous chef),
and Albert Asin (Pinotxo, La Boqueria, Barcelona).
Photo by Terrence McCarthy, TMC Photography©2009.

(For a full screen slide show, click on image in lower right corner, go to Picasa, click on slide show, then F11.)

Seminar IV A (2:45 PM—3:45 PM)

Williams Center for Flavor Discovery
The Spanish Kitchen, 2010: Casual Menus—and Compelling Flavor Dynamics— from Madrid to New York
Moderator: Gerry Dawes
Presenters: Paco Roncero, Seamus Mullen
Sponsored by Foods from Spain

Chef Paco Roncero, Chef Casino de Madrid, Chef-partner Estado Puro; consultant, Hoteles NH,
cooking at CIA-Worlds of Flavor. Photo by Gerry Dawes©2009.

Seamus Mullen, Chef-partner, Boqueria NYC & Boqueria Soho,

(Check out my friend, Chef Seamus Mullen of New York's Boqueria restaurants, in his reports on the Iron Chef competition, in which he was one of the final three chefs left (out of ten) competing for the title. I found out Sunday night that Seamus was eliminated, but he made it to the final three and he did it suffering the whole time from a severely herniated disk, for which he was sometimes in a wheelchair and for which he was operated on after the competition, and from rheumatoid arthritis. In some of the episodes, you could see the pain in his face! Iron Chef, indeed.)

Saturday, November 14

Seminar I (8:45 AM—9:45 AM)

Ecolab Theater

Spanish Casual, from Traditional to Modern: Tapas, Bocadillos, Cocas, and More

Moderator/Presenter: Gerry Dawes

Presenters: Paco Roncero, Seamus Mullen, Albert Asin

Sponsored by Foods from Spain

Albert Asín cooking lobster rice at Pinotxo, La Boquería, Barcelona

(CIA-WOF Video)

Seminar I (3:30 PM—4:30 PM)

Ecolab Theater

Fresh from Barcelona: Tapas, Cava, and the Flavors of Catalonia

Moderator: Gerry Dawes

Presenters: Albert Asin, Jesús Bernad, Daniel Olivella

Sponsored by Catalonia, the Gateway to the Mediterranean by Prodeca

Santi Mas de Xaxas (Director, Gastronomic +34 y coordinador del equipo Catalan-Español);
Rosalba Arrufat (Prodeca), Albert Asin Pinotxo (La Boquería, Barcelona),
Fernando Bienert (Director General, Prodeca), Jesus Bernard (Escritor de vinos).
Photo by Gerry Dawes©2009.

4:45 PM General Session XVIII: Town Hall

World Flavors…On a Stick, In a Bowl, On the Run…A Game Changer?

Moderator: Greg Drescher
Presenter: Jonathan Gold
Panelists: Rick Bayless, Roy Choi, Gerry Dawes, John T. Edge, Susan Feniger, Mark Furstenberg, Jonathan Gold, Jessica Harris, Anissa Helou, Diane Kochilas, Maricel Presilla, Jim Poris, Ruth Reichl, K.F. Seetoh, Suvir Saran

See Related Worlds of Flavor Articles About Spain:

Spanish Wine & Food Pairing: Possibilities Are Limitless

Iconic Dishes on the Wine Roads of Spain

Spain’s Innovative Vangaurdia Cuisine vs. Traditional Down-Home Cooking

About Gerry Dawes

Mr. Dawes is currently working on a reality television
serieson wine, gastronomy, culture and travel in Spain.

11/06/2009

World Wine Crisis, Part One: La Bobal Y Other Stories About Wine: A Film by Zev Robinson (With a modern-day Grapes of Wrath social commentary)

* * * * *

On Wednesday night, November 4, at the Gabarron Foundation carriage house space on E. 38th Street in Manhattan, I saw a remarkable film, La Bobal Y Otras Historias del Vino by Zev Robinson, ostensibly on the Bobal grape in La Comunitat Valenciana's Utiel Requena region.

I went expecting to learn more about the this thick-skinned, dark purple wine-producing grape, but was astounded instead by the film's back story, the "Other Stories of Wine," in which many long time grape growers with a passion for their land are facing the very sad prospect of losing everything. Many of the scenes tug at the heart strings and, just a little over a year into what more and more looks like a Depression, things will probably only get worse.

Documentary - La Bobal y otras historias del vino (La Bobal and other stories about wine) Zev Robinson on Vimeo.

La Bobal is a modern day Grapes of Wrath-like social commentary that is ostensibly about the Bobal grape, but more about how the people who grow that grape--once used for blending to make bulk wines for northern Europe--can no longer afford to grow grapes and are trying to make a silk purse out of a sow's ear.

In Zev Robinson's film, there is lots of talk about converting to produce "quality" wines from the big, thick-skinned grape Bobal, a grape that was used to provide alcohol and color for train tankloads of bulk wines that were shipped from La Grao, the port of Valencia, where large warehouses that once held huge quantities of wine awaiting shipment were recently covered into hangars to house the sailing vessels that competed in the last edition of the America's Cup.

There were many memorable scenes in La Bobal, which I will report more on later when I have a chance to go back over the film (Zev gave me a copy). One of the most striking statements was made by a grape grower who was talking about being paid more money for high alcohol content potential in their grapes, less for lower potential. The irony is that no one mentioned that this high alcohol incentive is still being done at a time when people are rebelling against heavy wines with high alcohol.

Utiel-Requena, 90% of which is planted in Bobal, has some 35,000 hectares of this grape (more than double the amount of land under vine in Navarra, for instance, and almost double that of the Ribera del Duero). Apart from producing oceans of bulk wine for years, the region made (and still does make) some delicious Bobal-based rosados at 12% and, during the last decade they have gone to phasing out bulk wines and making more of the modern vino tinto blends, some with Bobal, but many with Tempranillo, Cabernet Sauvignon and Syrah, which puts them in a massive competitive pool of similar wines made by bodegas from all over Spain, many of which have struggled and are now struggling even more to find buyers.

Bruno Murciano, Spain's sommelier of the year in 2008, who is from this region, is shown lamenting the fact that per capita consumption has fallen dramatically and people are drinking more beer and internationally marketed drinks like Coca-Cola when they used to come into his parent's bar-restaurante and have a glass of wine.

The very sincere sounding Bruno Murciano is the same young man chosen by Pancho Campo as the head sommelier at Parker's Garnacha tasting in La Rioja at WinePast-Aragón 1899* on November 12 & 13, where only two Rioja wines were put in after immense pressure on Campo and tractor brigades are being organized for a grape price protest invasion on Logroño (and are being planned for Madrid from not just Rioja, but other regions around Spain), milliones of kilos of grapes were left on the ground during this harvest and many farmers are facing ruin.

I hasten to add that Burno Murciano is not to blame for this Garnacha fiasco in La Rioja, but the irony of Murciano's poignant lament about the diminution of per capita sales of wine in Spain as scenes of his family's modest restaurant in Utiel-Requena are shown in the film is notable.

*(What some wags, including this one, are calling Pancho Campo's WineFuture-Rioja 2009 conference, whose most celebrated tasting will be conducting featuring Garnacha wines, several of which come from Aragón and Catalunya none of which were programmed to be from La Rioja, which is famous for Tempranillo-based wines.)

Robinson filmed Pancho Campo's presentation at Fenavin this year, in which he told the attendees that Spain needed to conolidate efforts more like Constellation has (and by extension the big boys who support his "Spanish wine education" diploma mills and conferences) and at one point suggests that wine is missing an opportunity for selling wine in places like Burger King.

Pancho Campo's Wine Future presentation (in Spanish), pt 2 from Zev Robinson on Vimeo.

With the worldwide Grapes of Wrath catastrophe that is descending on the wine world everywhere from Australia to Spain, we now see the long term effects not just of the economy, but of Parkerista style wines and government-subsidized programs to produce and sell wines that there was no real market for in the first place.

For every flaming egoistic wine producer, who used the money made in some other profession to make himself or herself into a Helen Turley-esque wine star--in Europe usually with govt subsidies--and who thought it was sexy to make wine and now is finding his "hobby" and social climbing tool too expensive, we will now see yet another farmer forced from his land, land that many of them have farmed all their lives through thick and thin.

Zev Robinson's social documentary brings home the plight of some of these grape farmers repeatedly. In my opinion, the film is about 30 minutes too long (but do not let that deter you from seeing it, because it is so worthwhile) and should be cut to fit the one-hour documentary time frame favored by public television and cable channels. Nevertheless, this film is a must for those who have an interest in wine and social commentary. I very highly recommend it.

* * * * *

After spending part of this year traveling in Galicia and drinking delicious Ribeira Sacra wines that seldom top 13.5% (and often have 12.5-13% alcohol), I find it harder and harder to even taste the travesties that Parker and Jay Milller and the Numanthia-Pingus-Clos Erasmus lovers of the world think are real wine. This style of wines, in my humble opinion (I sold top-end wines to the best restaurants of New York for twenty years), has caused a per capita drop in wines, since the higher the alcohol, the less wine consumed.

High alcohol wines cut into by the glass sales, restaurant wine sales where second bottle sales are lower because of powerhouse wine styles and even in home consumption, where even this veteran wine man often finds that he and his companion have left a third of a bottle of such wines undrunk, something we never experienced when tasting and drinking over dinner the wines of Ribeira Sacra, which average around 13% (with many at 12%-12.5%).

Ribeira Sacra: Where Godello and Mencía are bound for glory by Gerry Dawes (Wine News, Fall 2009)

Ribeira Sacra Tasting Notes by Gerry Dawes©2009

BTW, Ribeira Sacra sales are up 35% this year in this down market.

Mr. Dawes is currently working on a reality television

series on wine, gastronomy, culture and travel in Spain.

Experience Spain With Gerry Dawes: Culinary Trips to Spain & Travel Consulting on Spain
Gerry Dawes can be reached at gerrydawes@aol.com; Alternate e-mail (use only if your e-mail to AOL is rejected): gerrydawes@hotmail.com

11/05/2009

Robert Parker on His Way to Meet the King of Spain

* * * * *

To His Majesty Don Juan Carlos I, King of Spain

Su Majestad,

Just so you know, Your Majesty, Mr. Robert M. Parker, Jr., Wine Guru, is on his way to Spain to meet you.

World Famous Wine Guru Robert M. Parker, Jr. on his way to Spain
to meet the King of Spain and share his expertise on Garnacha at WinePast-Aragón 1999, an upcoming in event that some are calling WineFuture-Rioja 2009.

(Note: the model Parker will be using is much larger than the one in this Demo photo.)

Just so you can recognize him when he comes to La Zarzuela for his audience with you, Your Majesty, the second photo shows Mr. Parker on the left. Sr. Francisco Armando Campo Carrasco, the man being sought by Interpol for fraud of nearly $1,000,000 in Dubai is on the right. (I am positive, Your Majesty, that I have identified each of these men correctly).

I greatly respect you, Your Majesty. If not for your bravery and resolve during the infamous coup attempt of 1981, Spain's fledging democracy might never have succeeded. You stayed up all night speaking to the nation on television--with your son, the prince, at your side--talking down Spain's generals one-by-one from coming out in the streets to support the Guardia Civil Lieutenant-Colonel Antonio Tejero Molino who had shot his way into Las Cortes. (General Esquivias, the father of my best friend, Manolo Esquivias of Sevilla, was very instrumental in supporting you that night, Your Majesty, as you may remember.)

Guardia Civil Lieutenant-Colonel Antonio Tejero Molino with a gun in his hand, breaking into the Congress of Deputies (Parliament) on February 23, 1981, in an attempted coup that lasted until the next morning. This picture was taken by Manuel Pérez Barriopedro©1981, Spain, Agencia EFE.

Because of you, Your Majesty, Spain's democratic transition from the Franco dictatorship did succeed (see Javier Cercas's just-released new book, Anatomía de un instante* [Mondadori]), which credits Your Majesty for saving the country from this surely catatrophic golpe de estado.

*"El libro deja clarísimo que fue el Rey quien paró todo aquello y que "si hubiese deseado su triunfo, el golpe hubiese sin la menor duda triunfado". Se apunta también que "apenas hubo un gesto de rechazo público al golpe en toda España hasta que ya de madrugada el Rey compareció en televisión condenando el asalto". "

Because of your honor and your love of your country, Your Majesty, Spain was saved and it is now safe for Robert Parker to visit your country for the first time in almost 38 years. Mr. Parker has had such a buring interest in Spain that he failed to visit once in nearly four decades. The last time was in early 1972--and told Pancho Campo in an interview that he remembers from his visits (first reported on the Wine Academy website as in 1971-1972, now amended to visits "in 1970, 1971 & 1972"), ". . . there were no highways!", according to Parker.

For this, and for never having visited a single Spanish bodega during his entire wine writing career, while using the pages of The Wine Advocate--whose Spanish coverage was written by him and is now written by Dr. Jay Miller (See Wine Advocate Writers Spark Ethics Debate – Wall Street Journal)--to encourage a style of overpowering wine to be made in Spain (which is these days being rejected around the world), he gets to meet you, Your Majesty, as a reward?

I am posting this, Your Majesty, because it sounds, looks and smells a lot like someone has attempted to stage another coup, this time in La Zarzuela, and it appears to have succeeded.

Perhaps, in light of these circumstances, Your Majesty, you will find this little fable, !Bienvenido Mister Parquet! by Ernesto Venerable enlightening.

Con mucha admiración, Su Fiel Servidor

Gerry Dawes

About Gerry Dawes

11/04/2009

A NEW CENTURY IN THE PRADO MUSEUM

A NEW CENTURY IN THE PRADO MUSEUM

From Goya to Sorolla, the Display of the Collection Expands with 12 New Galleries & 176 Works

Madrid, SPAIN, November 3, 2009 – One of Madrid’s leading art institutions has opened 12 new galleries and is exhibiting 176 works – several recently acquired and some never exhibited before – all from the 19^th century. A New Century in the Museo del Prado, represents a key step forward in the Prado’s collections plans known as The Collection: The Second Extension. On October 6, more than 170 new works were added to the permanent collection and now, for the first time, visitors to the Prado will see an uninterrupted overview of the development of Spanish art from the 12^th century Romanesque painting of San Baudelio de Berlanga up through the early 20^th century work of Sorolla which runs parallel to the century’s earliest avant-garde movements.

Among the 176 paintings, watercolors and sculptures finally on view are several acquired in the last several years: José de Madrazo’s The French Cuirassier acquired this summer; Penitents in the Lower Church at Assisi by José Jiménez Aranda (acquired in 2001), and Large Landscape (Aragón) by Francisco Domingo Marqués (acquired in 2000). Maria Figueroa as a young girl dressed as a Menina by Joaquín Sorolla, also purchased in 2000, joins the artist’s And they still say fish is expensive!, a masterpiece of social realism and Boys on the Beach, one of the Prado’s most celebrated modern paintings.

Today the Museum has the world’s foremost collection of Spanish paintings – some 4,600 – dating from the Middle Ages to the 19^th century including outstanding masterpieces by Berruguete, El Greco, Goya, Murillo, Ribera, Sorolla, Velázquez and Zurbarán. In 2007, an extensive expansion designed by Rafael Moneo increased the museum’s space by 50 percent.

Organized chronologically, the new galleries begin with Goya (the Prado has 140 of his works), Neoclassicism and the Origins of the Museum, followed by Romanticism, Federico de Madrazo, Rosales, Fortuny and Rico and Raimundo de Madrazo There are two rooms with historical paintings and one gallery with landscapes. The final galleries highlight Naturalism, Sorolla and landscapes by Aureliano Beruete, donated by the artist’s family.

The Prado Museum is located on Paseo del Prado and is open daily, except

Mondays, from 9 AM to 8 PM. Admission is about $11.80 or 8 euros. Visitors under

18 are admitted free of charge. Students under 25 from non-EU countries pay about

$6 or 4 euros. Admission to the Permanent Collection is free Tuesdays to Saturdays from 6 PM to 8 PM and on Sundays from 5 PM to 8 PM. Go to www.museodelprado.es/en/

For information about Spain, contact the Tourist Office of Spain in New York (212-265-8822); Miami (305-358-1992); Chicago (312-642-1992) or Los Angeles (323-658-7195) or go to www.spain.info.

Contact:

Pilar Vico Meredith Pillon

Tourist Office of Spain MPMC

212-265-8822 212-289-1627

pilar.vico@tourspain.es meredithpillon@mpmcus.com

Mr. Dawes is currently working on a reality television

series on wine, gastronomy, culture and travel in Spain.

Liquid Memory: Why Wine Matters, Jonathan Nossiter

* * * * *

“I found him (Robert M. Parker, Jr., the world’s most powerful wine critic) genial, even as his opinions horrified me, especially his dismissal of terroir as an elaborate European marketing hoax. . . "

"Robert Parker (says Gerry Dawes) . . . has turned a wine world of independent winemakers making terroir-based wines that were identifiable by their origins, into a consultants’, importers’ and reps’ game, where wines are tailored to just one palate.”

– From Liquid Memory: Why Wine Matters, Jonathan Nossiter.

The New York Times review by Jim Holt was lukewarm; the Slate review by Mike Steinberger was very unfavorable.

For a really insightful, in-depth review of Liquid Memory, go to Reign of Terroir for

Why We Are Not Dogs. Jonathan Nossiter’s Liquid Memory

There is also a very in-depth interview with Nossiter, also the Reign of Terroir website, which takes some time but is well worth reading for those who want to hear more about the film maker-author's views on wine, philosophy and life.

Jonathan Nossiter pt 2, On Wine’s New Global Dialogue

Jonathan Nossiter pt. 3, Wine, Power, Portugal

I would love to hear your opinions on Liquid Memory.

(Disclaimer: I am quoted in the two chapters on Spain.)

Mr. Dawes is currently working on a reality television

series on wine, gastronomy, culture and travel in Spain.

11/03/2009

Plaza Santa Ana, Madrid, John Dos Passos "Rosinante To The Road Again" (1922)

* * * * *

"All the gravel paths of the Plaza Santa Ana were encumbered with wicker chairs. At one corner seven blind musicians all in a row, with violins, a cello, guitars and a mournful cornet, toodled and wheezed and twiddled through the "Blue Danube."

At another a crumpled old man, with a monkey dressed in red silk drawers on his shoulder, ground out "la Paloma" from a hurdygurdy. In the middle of the green plot a fountain sparkled in the yellow light that streamed horizontally from the cafés fuming with tobacco smoke on two sides of the square, and ragged guttersnipes dipped their legs in the slimy basin round about it, splashing one another, rolling like little colts in the grass.

From the cafés and the wicker chairs and tables, clink of glasses and dominoes, patter of voices, scuttle of waiters with laden trays, shouts of men selling shrimps, prawns, fried potatoes, watermelon, nuts in little cornucopias of red, green, or yellow paper. Light gleamed on the buff-colored disk of a table in front of me, on the rims of two beer-mugs, in the eyes of a bearded man with an aquiline nose very slender at the bridge who leaned towards me talking in a deep even voice, telling me in swift lisping Castilian stories of Madrid.

First of the Madrid of Felipe Cuarto: corridas in the Plaza Mayor, auto da fé, pictures by Velasquez on view under the arcade where now there is a doughnut and coffee shop, pompous coaches painted vermilion, cobalt, gilded, stuffed with ladies in vast bulge of damask and brocade, plumed cavaliers, pert ogling pages, lurching and swaying through the foot-deep stinking mud of the streets; plays of Calderon and Lope presented in gardens tinkling with jewels and sword-chains where ladies of the court flirted behind ostrich fans with stiff lean-faced lovers.

Then Goya's Madrid: riots in the Puerta del Sol, majas leaning from balconies, the fair of San Isidro by the river, scuttling of ragged guerrilla bands, brigands and patriots; tramp of the stiffnecked grenadiers of Napoleon; pompous little men in short-tailed wigs dying the dos de Mayo with phrases from Mirabeau on their lips under the brick arch of the arsenal; frantic carnivals of the Burial of the Sardine; naked backs of flagellants dripping blood, lovers hiding under the hoop skirts of the queen.

Then the romantic Madrid of the thirties, Larra, Becquer, Espronceda, Byronic gestures, vigils in graveyards, duels, struttings among the box-alleys of the Retiro, pale young men in white stocks shooting themselves in attics along the Calle Mayor. "And now," the voice became suddenly gruff with anger, "look at Madrid. They closed the Café Suizo, they are building a subway, the Castellana looks more like the Champs Elysées every day.... It's only on the stage that you get any remnant of the real Madrid. Benavente is the last madrileño. Tiene el sentido de lo castizo. He has the sense of the ..." all the end of the evening went to the discussion of the meaning of the famous word "castizo."

The very existence of such a word in a language argues an acute sense of style, of the manner of doing things. Like all words of real import its meaning is a gamut, a section of a spectrum rather than something fixed and irrevocable. The first implication seems to be "according to Hoyle," following tradition: a neatly turned phrase, an essentially Castilian cadence, is castizo; a piece of pastry or a poem in the old tradition are castizo, or a compliment daintily turned, or a cloak of the proper fullness with the proper red velvet-bordered lining gracefully flung about the ears outside of a café.

Lo castizo essence of the local, of the regional, the last stronghold of Castilian arrogance, refers not to the empty shell of traditional observances but to the very core and gesture of them. Ultimately lo castizo means all that is salty, savourous of the red and yellow hills and the bare plains and the deep arroyos palaces and belfries, and the beggars in snuff-colored cloaks and the mule-drivers with blankets over their shoulders, and the discursive lean-faced gentlemen grouped about tables at cafés and casinos, and the stout dowagers with mantillas over their gleaming black hair walking to church in the morning with missals clasped in fat hands, all that is acutely indigenous, Iberian, in the life of Castile."

About Gerry Dawes

Gerry Dawes was awarded Spain's prestigious Premio Nacional de Gastronomía (National Gastronomy Award) in 2003. He writes and speaks frequently on Spanish wine and gastronomy and leads gastronomy, wine and cultural tours to Spain. He was a finalist for the 2001 James Beard Foundation's Journalism Award for Best Magazine Writing on Wine, won The Cava Institute's First Prize for Journalism for his article on cava in 2004, was awarded the CineGourLand prize in 2009 and received the Association of Food Journalists 2009 Second Prize for Best Food Feature in a Magazine for his Food Arts article, a retrospective piece about Catalan star chef, Ferran Adrià.

Mr. Dawes is currently working on a reality television
series on wine, gastronomy, culture and travel in Spain.

John Dos Passos: A Tale of Madrid, La Plaza Santa Ana, Jorge Manrique, Pastora and Why We Love Spain!

* * * * *

ROSINANTE TO THE ROAD AGAIN
Copyright, 1922, George H. Doran Company, New York
I: A Gesture and a Quest

Telemachus had wandered so far in search of his father he had quite forgotten what he was looking for. He sat on a yellow plush bench in the café El Oro del Rhin, Plaza Santa Ana, Madrid (see related story on Cervecerías in the Plaza Santa Ana), swabbing up with a bit of bread the last smudges of brown sauce off a plate of which the edges were piled with the dismembered skeleton of a pigeon. Opposite his plate was a similar plate his companion had already polished. Telemachus put the last piece of bread into his mouth, drank down a glass of beer at one spasmodic gulp, sighed, leaned across the table and said:

"I wonder why I'm here."

Cervecería Alemana, Hemingway Hangout
Gerry Dawes copyright 2004

"Why anywhere else than here?" said Lyaeus, a young man with hollow cheeks and slow-moving hands, about whose mouth a faint pained smile was continually hovering, and he too drank down his beer.

At the end of a perspective of white marble tables, faces thrust forward over yellow plush cushions under twining veils of tobacco smoke, four German women on a little dais were playing Tannhauser.

Smells of beer, sawdust, shrimps, roast pigeon.

"Do you know Jorge Manrique? That's one reason, Tel," the other man continued slowly.

With one hand he gestured to the waiter for more beer, the other he waved across his face as if to brush away the music; then he recited, pronouncing the words haltingly:

    'Recuerde el alma dormida,
    Avive el seso y despierte
    Contemplando
    Cómo se pasa la vida,
    Cómo se viene la muerte
    Tan callando:
    Cuán presto se va el placer,
    Cómo después de acordado
    Da dolor,
    Cómo a nuestro parecer
    Cualquier tiempo pasado
    Fué mejor.'

[O let the soul her slumbers break, 
Let thought be quickened, and awake;
Awake to see
How soon this life is past and gone,
And death comes softly stealing on,
How silently!
Swiftly our pleasures glide away,
Our hearts recall the distant day
With many sighs;
The moments that are speeding fast
We heed not, but the past,—the past,
More highly prize.]

"It's always death," said Telemachus, "but we must go on."

It had been raining. Lights rippled red and orange and yellow and green on the clean paving-stones. A cold wind off the Sierra shrilled through clattering streets. As they walked, the other man was telling how this Castilian nobleman, courtier, man-at-arms, had shut himself up when his father, the Master of Santiago, died and had written this poem, created this tremendous rhythm of death sweeping like a wind over the world. He had never written anything else.

They thought of him in the court of his great dust-colored mansion at Ocaña, where the
broad eaves were full of a cooing of pigeons and the wide halls had dark rafters painted with arabesques in vermilion, in a suit of black velvet, writing at a table under a lemon tree.
Down the sun-scarred street, in the cathedral that was building in those days, full of a smell of scaffolding and stone dust, there must have stood a tremendous catafalque where lay with his arms around him the Master of Santiago; in the carved seats of the choirs the stout canons intoned an endless growling litany; at the sacristy door, the flare of the candles flashing occasionally on the jewels of his mitre, the bishop fingered his crosier restlessly, asking his favorite choir-boy from time to time why Don Jorge had not arrived.

And messengers must have come running to Don Jorge, telling him the service was on the point of beginning, and he must have waved them away with a grave gesture of a long white hand,while in his mind the distant sound of chanting, the jingle of the silver bit of his roan horse stamping nervously where he was tied to a twined Moorish column, memories of cavalcades filing with braying of trumpets and flutter of crimson damask into conquered towns, of court ladies dancing, and the noise of pigeons in the eaves, drew together like strings plucked in succession on a guitar into a great wave of rhythm in which his life was sucked away into this one poem in praise of death.

    Nuestras vidas son los ríos
    Que van a dar en la mar,
    Que es el morir....

Telemachus was saying the words over softly to himself as they went into the theatre. The orchestra was playing a Sevillana; as they found their seats they caught glimpses beyond people's heads and shoulders of a huge woman with a comb that pushed the tip of her mantilla a foot and a half above her head, dancing with ponderous dignity. Her dress was pink flounced with lace; under it the bulge of breasts and belly and three chins quaked with every thump of her tiny heels on the stage. As they sat down she retreated bowing like a full-rigged ship in a squall. The curtain fell, the theatre became very still; next was Pastora.

Strumming of a guitar, whirring fast, dry like locusts in a hedge on a summer day. Pauses that catch your blood and freeze it suddenly still like the rustling of a branch in silent woods at night. A gipsy in a red sash is playing, slouched into a cheap cane chair, behind him a faded crimson curtain. Off stage heels beaten on the floor catch up the rhythm with tentative interest, drowsily; then suddenly added, sharp click of fingers snapped in time; the rhythm slows, hovers like a bee over a clover flower. A little taut sound of air sucked in suddenly goes down the rows of seats. With faintest tapping of heels, faintest snapping of the fingers of a brown hand held over her head, erect, wrapped tight in yellow shawl here the embroidered flowers make a splotch of maroon over one breast, a flecking of green and purple over shoulders and thighs, Pastora Imperio comes across the stage, quietly, unhurriedly.

In the mind of Telemachus the words return:

    Cómo se viene la muerte
    Tan callando.

Her face is brown, with a pointed chin; her eyebrows that nearly meet over her nose rise in a flattened "A" towards the fervid black gleam of her hair; her lips are pursed in a half-smile as if she were stifling a secret. She walks round the stage slowly, one hand at her waist, the shawl tight over her elbow, her thighs lithe and restless, a panther in a cage.

At the back of the stage she turns suddenly, advances; the snapping of her fingers gets loud, insistent; a thrill whirrs through the guitar like a covey of partridges scared in a field.

Red heels tap threateningly.

    Decidme: la hermosura,
    La gentil frescura y tez
    De la cara

    El color y la blancura,
    Cuando viene la viejez
    Cuál se para?

She is right at the footlights; her face, brows drawn together into a frown, has gone into shadow; the shawl flames, the maroon flower over her breast glows like a coal.

The guitar is silent, her fingers go on snapping at intervals with dreadful foreboding. Then she draws herself up with a deep breath, the muscles of her belly go taut under the tight silk wrinkles of the shawl, and she is off again, light, joyful, turning indulgent glances towards the audience, as a nurse might look in the eyes of a child she has unintentionally frightened with a too dreadful fairy story.

The rhythm of the guitar has changed again; her shawl is loose about her, the long fringe flutters; she walks with slow steps, in pomp, a ship decked out for a festival, a queen in plumes and brocade....

    ¿Qué se hicieron las damas,
    Sus tocados, sus vestidos,
    Sus olores?

   ¿Qué se hicieron las llamas
    De los fuegos encendidos
    De amadores?

And she has gone, and the gipsy guitar-player is scratching his neck
with a hand the color of tobacco, while the guitar rests against his
legs. He shows all his teeth in a world-engulfing yawn.

When they came out of the theatre, the streets were dry and the stars
blinked in the cold wind above the houses. At the curb old women sold
chestnuts and little ragged boys shouted the newspapers.

"And now do you wonder, Tel, why you are here?"

About Gerry Dawes

Gerry Dawes was awarded Spain's prestigious Premio Nacional de Gastronomía (National Gastronomy Award) in 2003. He writes and speaks frequently on Spanish wine and gastronomy and leads gastronomy, wine and cultural tours to Spain. He was a finalist for the 2001 James Beard Foundation's Journalism Award for Best Magazine Writing on Wine, won The Cava Institute's First Prize for Journalism for his article on cava in 2004, was awarded the CineGourLand prize in 2009 and received the Association of Food Journalists 2009 Second Prize for Best Food Feature in a Magazine for his Food Arts article, a retrospective piece about Catalan star chef, Ferran Adrià.

Mr. Dawes is currently working on a reality television

series on wine, gastronomy, culture and travel in Spain.

Experience Spain With Gerry Dawes: Culinary Trips to Spain & Travel Consulting on Spain
Gerry Dawes can be reached at gerrydawes@aol.com; Alternate e-mail (use only if your e-mail to AOL is rejected): gerrydawes@hotmail.com

10/26/2009

Ribeira Sacra Tasting Notes with Photographs

* * * * *

Basilio Izquierdo, who made the top Rioja CUNE wines for 30 years, tasting wines in Ribeira Sacra.

Ribeira Sacra Tasting Notes

Ribeira Sacra Summum, the highest red wine designation must contain a minimum of 85 per cent preferred red varieties, 60 per cent of which must be mencía.

Summum wines can be sold as a designated varietal only if the wine contains 85% of that variety.

White Summum wines must be made entirely from the preferred varieties.

Wines with just a non-Summum designation must contain at least 70% of preferred varieties and those that do not pass the Summum analytical and organoleptic tests are classifed simply as Ribeira Sacra.

Ribeira Sacra Denominación de Origen (DO) Regulatory Council President José Manuel Rodríguez,
owner-winemaker of Décima. Photo by Gerry Dawes©2006.

(Adega is Gallego for bodega, or wine cellar)

*Tasted at the bodega
**Tasted at outdoor wine fairs in Chantada and Castro Caldelas, Ribeira Sacra.

*Adega Algueira, Doade - Sober (Lugo) Amandi subzone (Raúl Pérez, consultant)

Algueira Blanco $22 (Plurivarietal) 2008 Summum (40% godello, 40% albariño, 20% treixadura;13%) Beautiful nose of white peach, honeysuckle and minerals. Silky and rich with white peach flavors and a mineral finish. 93 pts.

Algueira 2006 Summum $30 (90% mencía, 10% merenzao; aged 10 months in 3 yr. old oak; some stems left in; 14%) Somewhat closed, attractive nose of fruit, oak and minerals. A rich, tannic, juicy, mineral-laced, somewhat oaky, but balanced that needs three years in bottle. 92 points.

Author tasting wines with Raúl Pérez at Adegas Alguiera in Amandi, Ribeira Sacra, July 2007.

Photo by Fernando González of Adegas Alguiera.

*Adega Moure, Escairón (Lugo) Ribeiras do Minho

José Manuel Moure, owner of Adegas Moure, producers of Abadia da Cova,

Abadia da Cova Albariño 2008 Summum $22 (100% albariño; 12.5%)
White peach and melon nose. Dry and well balanced with peachy, melony flavors and a long, stony, mineral finish. 89 points.

Abadia da Cova Mencía 2008 Summum $25 (100% mencía )
Nice nose of ripe fruit, graphite. Cabernet franc-like with sweet black currants, dark chocolate and minerals, bitter finish. 88 points.

**Adegas Chao do Couso, Pobra de Trives (Orense), Quiroga-Bibei (Raúl Pérez, consultant)

Chao Do Couso Soutollo Tinto Ribeira Scara, Restaurante O Canton, El Ferrol.

Soutollo Mencía 2007 Summum $30 (13.5%) Ripe black currants, graphite and horse barn rusticity in the nose. Smooth, sweet currant fruit with graphite minerality and structure. Good food wines. 89 points.

Alcouce Mencía 2006 Summum $25? (13.5%) Nose of oak and minerals. Big, rich, sweet, smooth with black and red currant fruit and a minerality obscured by oak tannins. 88 points.

Bodegas y Viñedos Raúl Pérez (Made at Pedro M. Rodríguez Pérez, Sober (Lugo), Amandi

Raúl Pérez at Adegas Alguiera in Amandi, Ribeira Sacra.

Raúl Pérez draws a sample of red wine in Bierzo.

El Pecado 2007 Ribeira Sacra $75 (sold as Guímaro Barrica in Spain; says 100 per cent mencía on the label, but is 80 per cent mencía, 10 per cent caíño tinto and 10 per cent garnacha tintorera; fermented in 1,500 liter egg-shaped barrels from Austria for 12 months with battonage; 13.5%).
Ripe, extracted red fruits, oak and some minerality. Deep extracted attractive red currant fruit, very juicy acidity, rustic touches, oak and minerals, a laudable example of a modern Spanish wine made to fit a commercial profile. 93 points. (Note: This wine has been rated by some as high as 98 points, but while I find it to be a good wine, it seems not to be a prime example of Ribeira Sacra.)

**Adegas Costoya, A Teixeria (Ourense), Ribeiras do Sil (“Enology” by Enológica Témera, S.L., Jorge González, a Ribiera Sacra native.)

Carlos Costoya with his wine, Alodio (he also produceds Thémera),

Carlos Costoya's wife (r) opening a bottle of Alodio at La Fira do Vinho in Castro Caldelas.

Alodio Mencía 2007 Summum $15 (13%) Graphite and currants in the nose. Delicious, full-flavored currant, cherry, pomegranate and dark chocolate flavors, lots of minerals and no oak, all balanced by good acid levels and moderate tannins for structure. 92 points. Exceptional value.

Thémera 2005 Summum $25 (Mencía; aged briefly in acacia and chestnut; 13%) (Note to editors: sic, spelling differs maddeningly from Enológica Témera) Light oak, ripe red fruit, dark chocolate and mineral nose. A wonderfully delicious wine with deep, rich cherry, cranberry and pomegranate flavors; a superb balance of acid, fruit, dark chocolate, light oak marking and minerals. 94 points. Very good value.

D. Ventura, Losada Fernández, Ferreira de Pantón (Lugo), Ribeiras do Minho
(Consultant Gerardo Méndez of Rías Baixas’s Do Ferreiro; some of these wines may have small percentages of Brancellao and Garnacha; all are incredible bargains.)

Viña do Burato 2008 Summum $20 (80-year old vines from Viña de Balboa vineyard, Minho; mencía; slate/granite; non-certified organic; 12%) Nice nose of pomegranate, currants and minerals. Delicious, eminently drinkable pomegranate and currant fruit with wonderful bracing minerality. Exemplary, young Ribeira Sacra with loads of flavor at low alcohol and with no oak. 92 points.

Pena do Lobo 2007 Summum $23 (Amandi region vineyard; mencía; granite; non-certified organic; un-oaked; 13%) Nice ripe currants and pomegranate tinged with graphite in the nose. Superb balance of perfectly ripe currant and pomegranate fruit and a compelling minerality reminiscent of Graves or Chinon. Calls you back to the glass again and again. 94 points.

Viña Caneiro 2007 Summum $26 (Doade/Amandi region vineyard; mencía; slate; non-certified organic; un-oaked; 13%) Lovely, haunting Ribeira Sacra nose of red fruits and minerals. Exceptional, complex balance of rich wonderful red fruits (pie cherries, red currants, pomegranate) and a long, lingering mineral finish, no oak to mar it. A stunningly good wine with few or any flaws and a steal at the price. 96 pts.

*Dominio do Bibei, Manzaneda (Ourense), Quiroga-Bibei (Sara Pérez and René Barbier, Jr., consultants)

Dominio do Bibei owner Javier Domínguez at his winery in the Quiroga-Bibei subzone.

La Pola Godello Summum 2008 (with Dona Blanca grapes; 12.8%)
Somewhat tropical nose. Spicy and complex with rich, sweet white peach and good acidity. 93 pts. (Also tasted was the La Pola 2004, a blend of 60% Godello, 40% Dona Blanca, which was at the quality level of a Meursault.)

Dominio do Bibei owner Javier Domínguez at his winery in the Quiroga-Bibei subzone.

La Lama 2004 Summum (mencía, garnacha, moratón; 13%)
Nose of exotic fruits and minerals. Impressive on the palate with fresh acidity, moderate alcohol and pretty raspberry/black cherry fruit. 91 points.

Javier Domínguez also employs local in-house talent at Dominio do Bibei. Laura Lorenzo, with Suso Prieto Pérez, diligently helps to manage the vineyards
and monitor the development of the wines. Photo by Gerry Dawes©2009.

Finca Míllara Bodegas y Viñedos, Pantón (Lugo), Ribeiras do Minho

Finca Míllara 2007 $45 (mencía; 13%) Nose of graphite, ripe fruit and oak. Soft up front, but rustic, with some ripe red fruits and oak in the finish. 87 points.

Guímaro, Pedro M. Rodríguez Pérez, Sober (Lugo), Amandi (Raúl Pérez, consultant)

*Guímaro Mencía 2008 Summum $15 (Contains some caíñotinto; 13.5%)
Light toast, red fruits and minerals in the nose. Gutsy, rich and fruity with black currants, cherries, a slate minerality shored up with skin tannins and light oak. A delicious crowd pleasing wine that is more akin to a Bierzo wine than Ribeira Sacra. 90 points. Great value.

Guímaro B2M 2007 Summum $29 (Mencía field-blended with small amounts of caíño tinto; aged 14 months in oak; 2500 bottles made; 13.5%) Nose of deep, ripe pomegranate, oak and minerals.
Brassy, gutsy, big, sweet cola and pomegranate fruit; oaky with lots of minerals. Delicious, but a bit too much of a good thing and more like a Bierzo wine than a Ribeira Sacra. Very similar to El Pecado 2007 [see note] at $25 less .) 93 points.

*Pena das Donas, Pombeiro, Pantón (Lugo), Ribeiras do Minho

Riberas do Sil, in the lower Sil in the Ribeiros do Minho area where Pena Das Donas is located.

Antonio Lombardia, one of the owners of Adegas Pena Das Donas, who makes the stellar Almalarga Godello.
With him a his vineyardist-partner, Jesus Vázquez Rodríguez and visitor Basilio Izquierdo,
who made the top Rioja CUNE wines for 30 years. Photo by Gerry Dawes©2008.

Almalarga Godello 2008 Summum $21 (13%) Beautiful nose of lime, white peach and minerals. Soft, silky and well balanced with lovely, sweet white peach fruit, and a haunting, lingering bitter almond and mineral finish. 93 points (This summer I drank the 2006 Almalarga and rated it 96 points.) Exceptional value.

Verdes Matas Mencía 2007 Summum $21 (100 per cent mencía; 12.5%)
Pomegranate, currant and mineral nose. Balanced, perfectly ripe and rich, with plenty or juicy cranberry, pomegranate and currant flavors, dark chocolate and a long, complex, mineral-laced finish. 93 points.

Antonio Lombardia, one of the owners of Adegas Pena Das Donas, who makes the stellar Almalarga Godello.

**Peza do Rei, César Enríquez Diéguez, A Teixera (Ourense), Ribeiras do Sil

César Enríquez Diéguez, owner and son of the founder of Peza do Rei at the Fira do Vinho in Castro Caldelas.

Peza do Rei Blanco 2008 $23 (70% Godello, 20% Treixadura and 10% Albariño; 13%)
White stone fruit, minerals. Delicious, sweet white peach fruit with lime, honeysuckle, stony minerals and a long, acid-laced finish. 89 points. Good value.

Peza do Rei Colheita 2007 $40 (mencía; 12 months in French oak; 13.5%) Oak and ripe fruit nose. A big mouthful of ripe, rich currant fruit, tarry licorice flavors, low acid and good minerality peeking through an oaky finish. A wine with market appeal, but not particularly Ribeira Sacra typicity. 88 points.

(More Ribeira Sacra tasting notes for wines not in the American market to follow.)

About the author

Mr. Dawes is currently working on a reality television

series on wine, gastronomy, culture and travel in Spain.

Ribeira Sacra: Where Godello and Mencía are bound for glory by Gerry Dawes (Wine News, Fall 2009)

* * * * *

Ribeira Sacra: Where Godello and Mencía are bound for glory

Related Articles:

Ribeira Sacra Tasting Notes with Photographs

Ribeira Sacra: The Perfect Lunch with Almalarga Godello at O Grelo Restaurant

Slide Show on Ribera Sacra

(Click on image to enlarge, go to Google web albums page and click for full screen slide show.)

Gerry Dawes can be reached at gerrydawes@aol.com.

10/23/2009

Chicago Tribune's Ten Worst Dining Trends of the Decade

The Chicago Tribune just published an article on the Ten Worst Dining Trends of the Decade. Three of them, "molecular cuisine," foams and decontruction dishes, take aim at the Spanish cocina de vanguardia modernista tendencies of the past decade or so. The relates to my current article in Food Arts, Spain's Chemical Reaction.

But, one of the real jewels in these worst trends is about wine and it is in the body of the article, not on the list of the Big Ten:

"Worst trend?" said Tim Zagat, co-founder of the Zagat restaurant survey. "Buying wine to show off. It's not new but it got out of hand with Wall Street types this decade. If you spend $100 on a bottle now, you're exhibiting some degree of stupidity."

Well, yeh!

Gerry Dawes

10/19/2009

Background to the Pancho Campo-Kevin Zraly-Robert Parker Wine Futures Rioja Affair 2009

* * * * *

On Sept. 4th:, Decanter published Arrest warrant posted for Spanish Wine Academy director co-authored by investigative reporter, Jim Budd, and Decanter editor, Adam Lechmere.

And on October 2, Decanter published Pancho Campo resigns to 'focus on clearing name', this time also signed by Adam Lechmere and Jim Budd:

"Pancho Campo MW has stepped down as director of the Wine Future Rioja conference next month and resigned as president of the Spanish Wine Academy.

Kevin Zraly of New York's Windows on the World wine school, and a highly respected wine critic and writer, has taken over as chair of the conference, at which Robert Parker, Jancis Robinson MW, and Decanter's consultant editor Steven Spurrier are due to appear.

Campo's brother-in-law Rony Bacqué will replace him as president of the academy.

The beleagured Campo has been embroiled in a complex battle with authorities in Dubai for the last few weeks, after a Madrid journalist came across a type of arrest warrant or 'location notice' for him on the Interpol website.

The warrant relates to a 2002 complaint brought by former business partner Jackie Wartanian to do with a fee paid to singer Enrique Iglesias. At the time Campo ran a sports and music promotion company in Dubai.

It now appears that in June 2003 in Dubai Campo was found guilty in absentia of breach of trust and given a one-year custodial sentence followed by deportation."

Jim Budd, on his Jim's Loire weblog, has detailed the chronology of the Campo affair under Pancho Campo, MW: the essence.

Campo was pushed to resign as Director of WineFuture-Rioja 2009 because he is the subject of an Interpol arrest warrant and he said he "wanted to concentrate on clearing my name."

Campo also resigned, on paper at least, as President of The Wine Academy in early October (See the Time Line on this case by Jim Budd, the Decanter magazine writer who finally broke the story with the help of several contributors in Spain, in the U.S. and in the Caribbean). Campo named his brother-in-law, Rony Bacqué, as President of The Wine Academy of Spain and his wife, Melissa, is still one of the directors.

On October 1, Kevin Zraly was named to succeed Pancho Campo, President of The Wine Academy of Spain, as "Technical Director" of WineFuture Rioja 2009 to be held in mid-November in Logroño (La Rioja), Spain.Many, including journalists, winemakers and political figures in La Rioja, believe that Kevin Zraly, who lives two hours northwest of New York City and does not speak Spanish, is un hombre de paja, "a straw man," or figurehead who will allow Pancho Campo to continue to direct the conference behind the scenes.

Campo's The Wine Academy of Spain is still the organizer of the event and still stands to profit from the revenues. On the Wine Academy website, a statement says that WineFuture-Rioja 2009 is the propiedad (property) of The Wine Academy. Some reports emanating from La Rioja place The Wine Academy's gross profit on the WineFuture Rioja 2009 conference at 1,000,000 Euros (approximately $1,500,000) and others have placed Robert Parker's fee for appearing at the conference at 100,000 Euros ($150,000).

The WineFuture-Rioja 2009 conference is being underwritten by the government of La Rioja--they are also providing the venue for the conference, Riojaforum, free-of-charge--and by several wineries and other entities, including the very recent addition of the government of Aragón as a sponsor. The event is also very strongly supported by the Rioja Consejo Regulador (Regulatory Council), with whom Kevin Zraly's wife, Ana Fabiano, signed on earlier this year to promote Rioja wines in the United States.

And, notably, WineFuture-Rioja 2009 is also supported by a number of periodicals, specialized wine publications and websites, all of which to date have been silent (at least to the knowledge of several writers following this story) for almost two months about what has come to be known as "The Pancho Campo affair."

Aragón, the Spanish comunidad (group of provinces) neighboring La Rioja, who signed on as a sponsor after the Pancho Campo Interpol affair broke in Decanter magazine, seemingly stands to gain more than La Rioja from WineFutures-Rioja 2009. Aragón promotes its wine regions and its wines under as the "El Reino de La Garnacha" banner. Aragonés wines from Garnacha, a native Spanish grape, produces big, rich, soft, smooth wines, albeit with alcohol levels that seldom drop below 14.5% (and are often even more potent), wines which are known to be favored by Robert M. Parker, Jr. and Dr. Jay Miller of The Wine Advocate.

The reason that Aragón stands to benefit as much or more than La Rioja, the main underwriting region, is because the "cata magistral," the tasting with the maestro, at WineFuture-Rioja 2009 will be conducted by Robert Parker and was originally planned to include nothing but "Grenache-based" wines (Garnacha is a native Spanish grape and should always be referred to by its Spanish spelling). Only five Spanish wines are included in this tasting, but three of them come from Aragón and none of them from La Rioja, which is famous for its Tempranillo-based wines. The rest of the wines announced for the tasting come from France, Australia or California.

After mounting pressure from local press and Rioja politicos, plus complaints from many Rioja wineries, shortly before he "resigned," Pancho Campo came up with the "surprise" addition of two Rioja wines, a 1945 historical wine from Marqués de Riscal, one of the conference sponsors, and, supposedly, a Contador 2007, neither of which contains Garnacha.

The Marqués de Riscal 1945, which contains 60% Cabernet Sauvignon, 40% Tempranillo, is one of the greatest wines ever made in all of Europe, but it is now 64 years old and certainly does not speak for the Rioja of today, in fact, many forces in Spain, including most of Madrid's wine press corps, have spent considerable ink trying to paint La Rioja's historical wines as dinosaurs.

The latest rumor about the Contador, a wine given 100 points by Parker's Spanish wine reviewer, Jay Miller, is that there is not enough of the 2007 remaining to serve at the tasting, so it will have to be replaced. Contador, like two of the wines from Aragón, are wines that Jorge Ordoñez, Robert Parker's most favored Spanish importer, brings into the United States. That makes the score in the Parker tasting: Aragón 3, Jorge Ordoñez 3, La Rioja 2!

According to Campo, he had this "surprise" planned all along although he did not reveal his "little homage to La Rioja" until his ass was already in the big-time vise grip and "the surprise" was too little, too late. Campo, who then went on to describe has gesture as a "little homage" to Rioja benefactors infuriated many Riojanos, including politicians such as Miguel González de Legarra, spokesman for the minority Partido Riojano. González has written several long editorials recently denouncing the whole WineFuture-Rioja 2009 process and focusing in the fact that La Rioja is underwriting the conference, which is basically the Pancho Campo Wine Academy's own profit-generating business venture.

In one editorial, González wrote, (In spite of the Rioja wine powers-that-be contracting someone sought by Interpol to run the conference. . .) "Neverthless, I consider the programming of Wine Future Rioja 2009 the most scandalous, "an event that is paid for by Riojan grape growers and wineries," there has been no inclusion of the wines from the Rioja D.O."

"It was indicated that the main event of the congress is a tasting led by the renowned media guru, Robert Parker, that is dedicated to Garnacha, when Rioja wines are known for the Tempranillo variety, but they are going to taste 18 wines, of which only five are Spanish, all of the them from Cataluña y Aragón."

In the opinion of González, "the situation is a bloody farce," especially when one takes into consideration that "the Rioja Regulatory Council lied when they now say that they had always planned to have two Rioja wines" (both put belatedly into Parker's Garnacha tasting, where they are totally out of place).

González continued, "The program has been finalized for months and until yesterday no one mentioned two Rioja wines, y besides, Tempranillos, which are not part of the tasting (of Garnachas), and are not comparable to the rest of the wines (in the tasting); they are jumping in and trying to fix what is not fixable, nor justifiable."

The Pancho Campo affair has created an ever widening whirlpool of crosscurrents involving high-powered wine interests in Spain and abroad, a number of well-placed Spanish wine and food figures, importers of Spanish wines to the United States on Robert Parker's most favored list; and politicians, not only in La Rioja, but in Sherry country as well, where Campo was selected to run the "noble" desserts and fortified wine fair, Vinoble, and an uproar ensued that brought the woman mayor of Jerez de la Frontera under fire from opposing politicians and is still ongoing.

Even the King of Spain, Don Juan Carlos I, has been caught up in these swirling waters, since it has been reported that he was influenced by high-placed people known to have had business dealings with Pancho Campo to offer dinner to Robert Parker at his official residence, La Zarzuela Palace, just outside Madrid. However according to Victor de la Serna, Deputy Director of the newspaper, El Mundo, in a post on the elmundovino.com website's Sobremesa section, Parker is only receiving a "brief audience" on the afternoon of November 10, though there have been many reports of a lunch or a dinner. On October 7, De la Serna wrote on the Sobremesa board, "Ni hay ni nunca hubo cena de Parker con el Rey. (There is not, nor was there ever a Parker dinner with the King.)"

Some of these same "enchufados," the people wired into the Royal House of Spain, had a powwow after they heard that Campo had resigned, and told Campo that he would not be permitted to attend the Parker audience (lunch/dinner?) with the King. Some of the journalists investigating this story have it on good authority that at least one of the Campo cohorts with connections to the King of Spain has known about the Interpol arrest order for several months.

Add to this potent mix, the collusion of Spanish wine journalists* who have been silent almost to the person, along with the attempted stifling of the independent press, including reports of intimidation and suppression through veiled threats by Pancho Campo's lawyers and, from some reports, offers of perks that could be interpreted (and were) by some specific sources as attempts at bribing them into silence.** This worked for awhile until a couple of journalists in Spain, armed with overwhelming evidence, were finally able to file some stories, after nearly two months of being muzzled. (The journalists' jobs may be at risk in a game where money and the illusion of money overrules principle.)

*The list of 29 media outlets and organizations signed on to WineFuture-Rioja 2009 as "Media Partners" is revealing and explains why so little (almost nothing) has been written in the wine press about the Campo affair. The list now totals 30 with the addition to The International Federation of Wine Journalists (IFWJ) and Associación Española de Periodistas del Vino (AEPEV), who just signed on (see below).

**On October 13, nearly two weeks after Pancho Campo “resigned” as Director of WineFuture-Rioja 2009, The International Federation of Wine Journalists and its Spanish Chapter, the Associación Española de Periodistas del Vino (Spanish Association of Wine Writers) gave their support and backing to the event, which is still being run by Campo’s Wine Academy. According to María Isabel Mijares, Vice President of IFWJ and President of AEPEV, “All members of this Association can attend this congress, enjoy the conferences and round tables that are offered on the program, as well as cover the event for their respective media outlets, thanks to a collaboration agreement that has been reached.” Mijares, as an official in both these organizations, has confirmed her personal support and underscored that she will be attending WineFuture-Rioja 2009.

So, into this maelstrom steps Kevin Zraly and this is where Gerry Dawes and Gerry Dawes's Spain comes in, since the aforementioned "unnamed American journalist" warned by Pancho Campo's lawyer was me, Gerry Dawes*, writer of this blog; contributor for decades to numerous publications on Spanish wine, food and travel; and recipient of the Premio Nacional de Gastronómía Marqués de Busianos award for writing and lecturing about the quality of Spanish gastronomy over many years.

On August 31, 2009, this writer had an extensive phone call (see below) with Kevin Zraly, during which I forwarded a third-party e-mail (a scanned copy is available) with information about the Pancho Campo case to Zraly. Two days later, on September 2, as described below, I received a phone call threatening various actions from someone saying he was Alfonso Martínez, Pancho Campo's lawyer. This was followed by an e-mail by Martínez to the same third party e-mail address requesting a meeting with me the following week in New York. The Decanter article was published on Sept. 4. So far, I heard from nothing more from Martínez.

As with America's Watergate, the attempted cover-up may be worse than the crime, in this case the crime for which Pancho Campo is the perpetrator according to Interpol and from news reports in Dubai, Decanter magazine and other periodicals. By attempting to silence journalists and by having his lawyer "warn" this writer, in particular, Campo's offenses against freedom of speech and the collusion of the Spanish press and of well-known wine and media figures, both Spanish and American, and have become the real story in this ongoing saga.

But, for the sake of fairness, let me offer these ringing video endorsements--from Jancis Robinson, Robin Kelly O'Conner of Sherry Lehmann and Ana Fabiano, Kevin Zraly's wife and a contracted promoter of Rioja wines, and wine book author John Radford--of Pancho Campo, his Wine Academy and the wines from wineries such as Gonzalez Byass (where Campo signing a barrel is a major video event, putting him in the same league as King Juan Carlos I, Orson Welles and Stephen Speilberg), Freixenet, and the regions of Rioja, Rias Baixas, Jerez and Jumilla who support his efforts, plus a really quite glowing article about Kevin Zraly in The New York Times (the banner My Dubai Diary advertisement running next to the article on Zraly has nothing to do with him, but it has really quite a prescient, you-can't make-this-stuff-up irony to it.)

About the author

Gerry Dawes was awarded Spain's prestigious Premio Nacional de Gastronomía (National Gastronomy Award) in 2003. He writes and speaks frequently on Spanish wine and gastronomy and leads gastronomy, wine and cultural tours to Spain. He was a finalist for the 2001 James Beard Foundation's Journalism Award for Best Magazine Writing on Wine, won The Cava Institute's First Prize for Journalism for his article on cava in 2004, was awarded the CineGourLand prize in 2009 and received the Association of Food Journalists 2009 Second Prize for Best Food Feature in a Magazine for his Food Arts article, a retrospective piece about Catalan star chef, Ferran Adrià.

Experience Spain With Gerry Dawes: Culinary Trips to Spain & Travel Consulting on Spain

Gerry Dawes can be reached at gerrydawes@aol.com; Alternate e-mail (use only if your e-mail to AOL is rejected): gerrydawes@gmail.com

10/01/2009

Spain's Chemical Reaction Food Arts October 2009

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Mr. Dawes is currently working on a reality television

series on wine, gastronomy, culture and travel in Spain.

9/20/2009

Guide to Gerry Dawes's Spain

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Guide to Gerry Dawes's Spain

Customized Culinary Tours

Epicurean Ways Scheduled Tours

Photography, Articles and Archived Posts

Gerry Dawes & Lucio Blázquez, owner of Casa Lucio in Madrid, during Madrid Fusión week, January 2009.
Photograph by John Sconzo ©2009.

8/29/2009

The Wines of the Canary Islands - Article in Wines From Spain News

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The Wines of the Canary Islands

Article by Gerry Dawes in Wines From Spain News Fall 2009

(With a short slide show.)

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About Gerry Dawes

Experience Spain With Gerry Dawes: Culinary Trips to Spain & Travel Consulting on Spain

Gerry Dawes can be reached at gerrydawes@aol.com; Alternate e-mail (use only if your e-mail to AOL is rejected): gerrydawes@gmail.com

7/26/2009

Alicante: Monastrell & La Taberna del Gourmet

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Monastrell, calle San Fernando 10, 03002 Alicante. 96 520 03 63. Chef María José San Román, who worked under Catalan three-star chef Joan Roca has made Monastrell (named for the local red grape, the French mouvedre) the top modern cuisine choice in the capital.

And María José is an azafrán (saffron) expert (see this recent article in The New York Times; she is working on a book on saffron.

She uses Spanish azafrán, often almost imperceptibly, in many of her dishes, including desserts. Opt for her tasting menu and be surprised by her ideas, combinations and the quality of the ingredients she uses.

La Taberna del Gourmet (Taberna, Delicatessen & Wine Bar), San Fernando 10, Alicante. 965-204-233. María José San Román's superb, quality product-driven, taberna and wine bar, next door to Monastrell and one of the best traditional cuisine restaurants in La Comunitat Valenciana. Somehow you must work María José's restaurants (she also owns Los Mejillones [The Mussels], a block away on the Esplanada de España) into your stay in Alicante, even if it is just some tapas at the bar at La Taberna del Gourmet, which is run by Geni Perramón, daughter of María José and El Portero "Pitu" Perramón.

My recommendation at La Taberna, which is also "Pitu"'s (legendary former goalkeeper for the Spanish national handball team) pride and joy, is to put yourself in the hands of Geni and ask her (drop my name) to do a tasting luncheon of stellar modernized traditional offerings.

Depending on the season, a "little" sampling luncheon may include such dishes as little Navarrese txistorra chorizos; a shared portion of arrós con magro y verduras (paella-like rice with pork and vegetables), maybe the best patatas bravas (saffron-infused) in Spain; splendid, supernal gambas rojas (legendary prawns from the Alicante coast); and unbeatable grilled sepionets (small cuttle fish).

Now that the preliminaries are out of the way, go on with white esparragos de Navarra with a vinagreta de solera de requena (aged vinegar); an ensalada méditerraneo (arugula , goat cheese cubes, tomatoes and siurana olive oil),;spectacularly good croquetas de chorizo Ibérico; equally spectacular alcachofa a vinagreta (artichokes); pan con tomate y anchoas (bread rubbed with tomate and topped with house-cured anchovies; a little escalivada montadito con foie (grilled vegetables on a toast round with foie gras); riñoncitos de lechazo (milk-fed lamb kidneys) and finish up with a bit of arrós caldoso con cigala y sepia en dados (a delicious soupy marinera rice with chunks of Dublin Bay prawns and sepia cuttle fish).

The wine: A Godello from Valdeorras.

Of course, a little dessert won't hurt, so try María José's bizcocho de tocino de cielo, borracho de lima, freson and helado de gengibre, a take off on the classic, normally sinfully rich, lighter in this version tocino de cielo (read eggs and sugar), with lime, strawberries and a ginger ice cream.

Or course, you don't have to do this whole-nine-yards-menu, which I am very honored to say is now called "El Menu de Gerry Dawes," you can tell Geni when to stop anytime.

7/24/2009

Ribeira Sacra: The Perfect Lunch with Almalarga Godello at O Grelo Restaurant

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From Galicia Ribeira Sacra Wine News Aug 31 2009
Ribeira Sacra vineyards in Amandi overlooking the Sil River with the Catamaran that carries tourists. Photo by Gerry Dawes©2009.
In recent years, La Ribeira Sacra, a stunningly beautiful, isolated wine region located some 350 miles northwest of Madrid in northwestern Spain's mountainous Galicia, has begun showing some of the most exciting potential I have encountered in more than 40 years of traveling the wine roads of Spain. Here God and Men--using primarily godello for white wines and mencía for reds--are creating exceptionally delicious, often profound wines from native grapes grown in impossibly steep, rocky vineyards, whose terroir is the equal of any in France. The region's is so awesomely compelling and the wines so enticingly beckon the drinker back for another sip--with bright fruit, good acid balance, lower alcohol levels and, mercifully, little or no flavor destroying new oak flavors--that the Ribeira Sacra is rapidly becoming one of the most compelling "new" wine regions on earth.
Lunch at O Grelo, Monforte de Lemos, Ribeira Sacra

As I write this (literally, I have a note pad with me at the table) I am having lunch alone on the terrace of O Grelo, a very good traditional Galician restaurant situated just down the hill from the parador and castle of Monforte de Lemos, the main regional agricultural and business center of La Ribeira Sacra. For the third time this week I do something I almost never do--at least in the same short span of days--I am repeating one of those nearly perfect meals that I have sometimes been lucky enough to encounter.

Almalarga Godello and the Galician Cows' Milk Cheeses
Tetilla

First, I am served wedges of three kinds of Galician cows' milk cheeses--the suggestive tetilla (shaped like a woman’s breast), the pleasantly ahumado (smoked) San Simón and a creamy Ulloa-Arzúa–with which I am drinking Pena das Donas Almalarga Godello (2008), a Ribeira Sacra white wine that is one of my favorites. This wine has a depth of white peach fruit and haunting minerality that is hard to match in all of Spain, a wine that one day could become known as Spain's equivalent of Montrachet. It is lovely, beautifully drinkable and calls you back to the glass again and again, something that seems to be a defining characteristic of many Ribeira Sacra wines, both white and red. The Almalarga Godello is a perfect foil for the milky richness of the cheeses.

Tomatoes, Onion and Pan Galego

Next comes a plate of fresh tomatoes and onions; at least three, maybe four tomatoes come cut in wedges. It is a huge plateful, topped with very thinly sliced onions. The first day at lunch, I asked the waiter to take at least half the tomatoes away, since I don't want to waste them. That was a mistake. This time I keep all the tomatoes. For dressing this simple, but sublime dish, I am brought a stainless steel rack with Spanish extra virgen olive oil, red wine vinegar, salt and pepper shakers and a bowl of Maldon salt on the side. I sprinkle the tomatoes and onions with the Maldon first, then drizzle on a good quantity of olive oil, followed by a sprinkling of vinegar. The oil and vinegar will pool on the plate, mix with the juice of the tomatoes and make for prime dipping for the excellent, crusty, thick pan galego (Galician bread) in the basket alongside. The tomatoes are just ripe, never overripe, and are still firm to the bite and the sheer onion slices make a perfect counterpoint. I am in heaven with this salad.

Zamburiñas al horno

For the main course, I have zamburiñas al horno (oven-baked small scallops). There are eight of them, each in its half shell cradled by a crescent of pink-orange coral with the milky white scallop juices pooling up in the shell.

The zamburiñas, one of my favorite of all Galician bi-valve or crustacean dishes (which is saying something given the incredible range of Gallegan mariscos), are unflavored by anything but the sea and their own good taste and are incredibly delicious.

Normally, dessert would be the rest of the Pena Das Donas, but this time I also had arroz con leche with a caramelized sugar, créme brulée-like crust on top.

The Pena Das Donas Almalarga Godello 2008 with its sweet stone fruit flavors and long, compelling mineral finish balanced perfectly by fine acid levels is a superb match for the scallops and made this luncheon complete, ethereal, unforgettable.

Wine Tasting note:

Antonio Lombardía pouring Pena Das Donas Godello. Photograph by Gerry Dawes 2008.

Pena das Donas, Pombeiro, Pantón (Lugo), Ribeiras do MinhoAlmalarga Godello 2008 Summum $21 (13%) US Importer: Eric Solomon European Cellars

Lively green tinged, white gold.

Beautiful nose of lime, white peach and minerals.

Soft, silky and well balanced with lovely, sweet white peach fruit, and a haunting, lingering bitter almond and a haunting mineral finish. This is wine that may benefit further from a year in bottle. 93 points Exceptional value.

(This summer I drank the 2006 Almalarga, one of several bottles I had, and rated it 96 points.)

Antonio Lombardía, one of the owners of Adegas Pena Das Donas, who makes the stellar Almalarga Godello. With him a his vineyardist-partner, Jesus Vázquez Rodríguez and visitor Basilio Izquierdo, who made the top Rioja CUNE wines for 30 years. Views of Pena das Donas vineyards. Photos by Gerry Dawes©2008.

Restaurant & Hotel Info:

O Grelo, Campo de la Virgen, s/n, Monforte de Lemos (Lugo) 15011, Spain (Just down the hill from the Parador.) Telephone: 011-34 982 404 701.

Hotel Parador de Monforte de Lemos, Plaza Luis de Góngora y Argote, s/n - 27400 Monforte de Lemos (Lugo), Spain. Telephone: 011-34 408 916 9102; Fax: 982418495; monforte@parador.es

Road Warrior's Inexpensive Hotel:

Hotel Ribeira Sacra, Rúa do Conde, 17, 27400 Monforte de Lemos (Lugo) Teléfono: 982411706; Fax: 982411546; ribeirasacra@yahoo.es

Modern, plain, comfortable (good beds) and homey, sometimes a bit noisy; wi-fi on the first floor and in the breakfast room. Spartan breakfast available: pan tostado or croissant with butter and jam, café or tea and freshed juiced orange juice. At about 30 Euros per night, a steal. My home-away-from-home in Ribeira Sacra.

More on Galicia

La Queimada in Galicia with Paco Dovalo & the Group of Bodegueros Artesanos - Video by Zachary Minot, Devour.tv

Lampreia: Eating Lamprey Eel Along the Minho River in Southern Galicia

Mr. Dawes is currently working on a reality television

series on wine, gastronomy, culture and travel in Spain.

Experience Spain With Gerry Dawes: Culinary Trips to Spain & Travel Consulting on Spain

Gerry Dawes can be reached at gerrydawes@aol.com; Alternate e-mail (use only if your e-mail to AOL is rejected): gerrydawes@hotmail.com

6/09/2009

Maestro Spain: Photographs of Spain & Assignment Photography by Gerry Dawes

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In these times of crisis, photo acquisition budgets have been cut. Art directors and photo editors often cannot afford to send a photographer to cover stories in Spain on gastronomy, wine, popular culture and tourist sights, but that doesn’t mean that you can’t have access to top quality, original photographs of Spain, Spanish travel, Spanish gastronomy, Spanish wine and many, many other subjects covering a broad range of activities (see samples below). And, since I travel in Spain as many as eight times each year, an assignment often does not require re-imbursement for air travel.

(Click on the arrow to activate slideshow, click on the lower left corner box to turn captions on or off; double click on the image box to go to a Picasa webpage where, by clicking on "slideshow," you can see the images enlarged full frame.)

Based in New York's Hudson River Valley, I am Gerry Dawes, an award-winning writer-photographer, who has been traveling or living in Spain for forty years. I have thousands of high quality digital photographs and a library of thousands of transparencies going back more than two decades on a multitude of Spanish subjects. I have published hundreds, if not thousands, of photographs in such publications as Food Arts, The Wine Spectator, The Wine News, The Wine Enthusiast, Santé, Decanter, Saveur and The New York Times. I have had had cover and full-page shots for The Wine Spectator, Wine Enthusiast and Wine News and I have photographs in several books. Numerous photographs of mine can be see with my articles on this blog, on Verema.com and on the new Culinary Institute of America-Greystone website dedicated to Spain.

My stock includes thousands of photographs of Spain, taken on an average of seven trips per year to Spain over the past decade.

Available subjects include (see slide shows below for samples of my work):

Spanish cocina de vanguardia chefs (Ferran Adri , Arzak, Roca, Dacosta and scores of others), their restaurants and hundreds of dishes.

Spanish traditional cuisine chefs, restaurateurs, restaurants, restaurant façades and dishes (roast suckling lamb, pig, shellfish, rich dishes, vegetable dishes, etc.)

Market photos from Madrid, Barcelona’s La Boqueria, San Sebastián’s La Bretxa, Valencia’s Mercat Central, Mercado de Jerez and others; fish markets; farmer’s markets; gourmet shops; and food producers.

Spanish products such as olive oil (and production); hundreds of artisan cheeses (cheesemaking operations and animals that provide the milk); rice, paprika and saffron.
Wine, wineries and vineyards from almost every denominación de origen, many of which are isolated or little-known; Spanish wine personalities, star winemakers and little-known winemakers; closeups of wine glasses.

Christian and Moorish Castles, ancient synagogues, Roman ruins, cathedrals and village churches, monuments, museums, statues, works of art, train stations, airports.

Landscapes: mountains, plains and seacoast.

Street photography, including street performers (hundreds of human statues and musicians.)

If you don’t see it in this general listing, ask, chances are Dawes's archives may have what you are looking for to illustrate your articles and advertisements.

Dawes is also available for assignments and the fact that he is so often in Spain–leading tours, attending and speaking at conferences or just traveling and taking photographs–can mean that the customer may not have the expense of my airfare.

Slide shows of sample photographs:

(Note to potential publishers: These photographs represent only a cross-section of my photographs of Spain, drawn from my large archives of digitals and from thousands of transparencies taken over many years. No photographs are to be reproduced or used without payment, photographer's copyright credit and explicit written consent from the photographer.)

Spain: General

Spanish Gastronomy: Chefs, Restaurants, Dishes, Products

Spanish rice dishes

Spanish wine

Street Performers in Spain

All photographs taken with Canon cameras and Tokina 12-24mm f4, Sigma 17-70mm f2.8-4.5, Canon 50mm f1.4, Canon 50mm Macro f2.5 and Canon 70-200mm f4 'L' lenses.

About Gerry Dawes

". . . Gerry Dawes, the gastronomy/travel writer-photographer known for good reasons in wine and periodical circles as ‘Mr. Spain." An inexhaustible fund of knowledge on his favorite subject . . . " - - Michael & Ariane Batterberry, Publishers of Food Arts

Spanish National Gastronomy Prize: 2003 Marques de Busianos Award from the Spanish Academy of Gastronomia y La Cofradia de la Buena Mesa for activities (writing, photography, lectures) on behalf of Spanish gastronomy and wines.

Gerry Dawes was born in Alto Pass, Illinois (pop. 300) and lived in Spain for eight years in sherry country (Cádiz), in Sevilla, and in Mijas (Malaga) and has been traveling there for forty years. He represented the late American artist-matador John Fulton in Sevilla and Marbella; apprenticed under Robert Vavra, photographer of James Michener's Iberia; ran The Dawes Gallery, a contemporary art gallery in Mijas, and studied Spain's language, history, and culture at the University of Sevilla (in the former Fábrica de Tabaco--made famous as the setting of the opera Carmen). Dawes has a B.A. in Spanish and Creative Writing from State University of New York (SUNY).

An avid aficionado of Spanish fiestas and a photographer, Dawes traveled extensively in Spain during the eight years he lived there, putting muchos kilómetros on Rocinante, his Volkswagen sedan. He amassed thousands of color transparencies and a wealth of knowledge about the country, its wine and food, customs and culture. Since that time, he has returned to Spain nearly 100 times on gastronomy, wine and photography missions. He has also led nearly a dozen customized culinary and wine tours to Spain.

Mr. Dawes is currently working on a reality television

series on wine, gastronomy, culture and travel in Spain.

(Video currently unavailable to do a feeder site failure, back by Feb. 3)

Experience Spain With Gerry Dawes: Culinary Trips to Spain & Travel Consulting on Spain

Gerry Dawes can be reached at gerrydawes@aol.com; cell phone: 914-414-6982

Alternate e-mail (use only if your e-mail to AOL is rejected): gerrydawes@hotmail.com

6/08/2009

Homage to Iberia: More Spanish Travels and Reflections by Gerry Dawes

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Images of Gerry Dawes's Homage to Iberia:

More Spanish Travels & Reflections

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A Sequel to James A. Michener's Iberia: Spanish Travel & Reflections

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Foreword to Homage to Iberia

by James A. Michener

"Your long letter about your relationship to my book, Iberia: Spanish Travels and Reflections has finally caught up with me, and it has touched me deeply. I have received in these later years some dozen letters each year in which someone of apparent good sense and writing skill - - and, in your case, long experience in Spain - - qualified them to make value judgements.
A person like me who writes in solitude, rarely sees his readers and profits from specific contact with them. I had been waiting for a letter like yours to come in so that I could respond to it in some detail, and I found in your account of your travel adventures in Spain over a span of nearly thirty years to be what I wanted. I could have used the story of a Canadian who read my book on Japanese prints and decided to go to Japan and become a woodblock artist. He did, and with outstanding success. Or the people who went into archaeology because I made it so attractive, or the lovable ones of the lot, those who simply caught the travel lust from reading my books and went off hightailing it through the world. I hear from them all and from a very wide spread of countries.
But, your letter was of a different quality in that you specified how Iberia affected you and what specifically you did about it. You were fresh off a four-year hitch in the Navy during the Vietnam period, standing at the farewell gate at U.S. Naval Headquarters in Rota, Spain, with $500 bucks in your pocket and a determination to see Spain as intimately as this writer guy Michener had done in his youth. Your adventures far exceeded mine in both width and depth. Truly you had a basketful of experiences that made me envious: art gallery manager, college stints at the University of Seville in the old tobacco factory of Carmen, marriage to lovely backpacker from Michigan whom you met in Andalucia, tour guide to back country Andalucian villages, Spanish wine and food expert, and a plunge into the world of adventure, art, history, and bullfighting that I’d described in Iberia.

I was impressed by your story about how you and your new friend John Fulton were stuck in Sevilla without a dime between you as the Fiestas de San Fermín at Pamplona approached on the 7 of July for eight wild days, and how you met a large group of affluent-looking American college students in Sevilla’s labyrinthine streets and arranged an impromptu tapas and sangría party at your house in the Barrio de Santa Cruz, the old Jewish Quarter, so they could meet Fulton and buy copies of his artwork. You earned enough money that night to permit you both to scurry off to Pamplona, where you met many of the characters in Iberia, joined in their wonderful tertulias, and had your hair-raising adventure in the encierro, the running of the bulls. That story and the way you told it made me think that you would be a pretty fair writer. In your thirty years of "wandering the back roads of Spain," you have built up a much stronger bank of experiences than I had to rely on when I started writing Iberia.

It was good to hear of your intellectual adventures as well and I am honored that Iberia had such a profound effect on your life and writings. Do you realize that because of the time you spent in Spain, both in the Navy and in those early years after your discharge, that you knew those characters of Pamplona and Sevilla and the bullfight aficionados better than I ever did? And what a scintillating group they were, and how privileged we both were to have know them. I am flattered that I have inspired you to pick up where I left off and write Homage to Iberia. The continuing saga of Spain, its people, and the wonderful characters who love this vibrant country deserves to be told.

James A. Michener
Austin, Texas
January 1996

About Gerry Dawes

Gerry Dawes was awarded Spain's prestigious Premio Nacional de Gastronomía (National Gastronomy Award) in 2003. He writes and speaks frequently on Spanish wine and gastronomy and leads gastronomy, wine and cultural tours to Spain. He was a finalist for the 2001 James Beard Foundation's Journalism Award for Best Magazine Writing on Wine.

Mr. Dawes is currently working on a reality television

series on wine, gastronomy, culture and travel in Spain.

6/07/2009

Canary Islands Fish - Available in the Markets of Las Islas Canarias

Slide show - Click on the arrow. Double click to go to Picasa page for a full-screen view.

About Writer-Photographer Gerry Dawes

Gerry Dawes was awarded Spain's prestigious Premio Nacional de Gastronomía (National Gastronomy Award) in 2003. He writes and speaks frequently on Spanish wine and gastronomy and leads gastronomy, wine and cultural tours to Spain. He was a finalist for the 2001 James Beard Foundation's Journalism Award for Best Magazine Writing on Wine. His articles and photographs have appeared in scores of publications .

Mr. Dawes is currently working on a reality television

series on wine, gastronomy, culture and travel in Spain.

5/30/2009

Canary Islands: Exotic Spanish Islands with a Unique Culinary & Wine Heritage

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Tenerife's Teide, the volcano that is the tallest mountain in all of Spain

I have been traveling the gastronomy, wine and tourist roads of Spain for more than forty years, but until May of this year, when I was asked to report on my travels in The Canary Islands, I had never stepped foot on any of the seven major islands–La Palma, La Gomera, El Hierro, Tenerife, Gran Canaria, Fuerteventura and Lanzarote--in this volcanic archipelago located some 1100 miles (or a three-hour flight from Spain’s capital, Madrid).

Wow, did I get a surprise! I expected the Canary Islands, which is one of Spain’s 17 comunidades (regional divisions), to have a lot in common with the rest of Spain with a few interesting food and wine twists. What I found on these fascinating islands off the coast of Africa in the Atlantic Ocean is a culture as distinct from the rest of Spain as Hawaii is to the mainland United States.

In fact, the Canaries are sometimes referred to as “Europe’s Hawaii,” because it is where a lot of Europeans go for the year-round delightfully mild climate, which makes for prime beach vacations, though these islands offer far more than just beaches, as I was pleasantly surprised to find. And the wild, evocative, extinct (and not so extinct) volcano-dotted landscapes, deep blue-green seas and exotic climates that change from north to south on these generally small islands are the stage for distinctly different experiences from what you might expect to find on the Iberian Peninsula, which Spain shares with Portugal.

Here you will find not only the influences of Spain, Spanish Galicia and Portugal, but Africa as well, and certainly not least to native Canary Islanders, the still powerful pull of the aboriginal tribes such as the Guanches (Tenerife), the Canarios on Gran Canarias and the Gomeros, who communicated down the steep mountain valleys by means of the Silbo Gomera (whistling signals). Thought possibly to be descended for tribes in Africa’s Atlas mountains (Lanzarote is only 70 miles east of the African coast), the original inhabitants of the Canarias lived in these islands from at least from 200 BCE (some believe 1000 BCE) and experienced Phoenician, Greek and Roman expeditions.

The Canary Islands got their name from the fierce native dogs, canes, the Romans encountered on the islands, not Canary birds, which originated here and get their name from the islands). Europeans, mostly Spaniards, came to subjugate the islands in the 15th Century and Columbus stopped here with his ships on his voyages of discovery of the New World.

Once the native inhabitants were subdued the Spanish Crown, the Canary Islands became the last stop–and supply life line–for explorations of the New World by Spanish and Portuguese explorers and the continual sailings and return of the explorers fleets seeded the Canaries with an influx of New World products. In fact, here, many of the ingredients used in Canary Islands cooking–corn, cilantro, watercress, hot peppers, tropical fruits (papaya, mango, guava), unique varieties of potatoes and many other items–that the islanders have used since the exploration period never emerged as essential elements in most Spanish mainland cooking. But these ingredients took hold here tenaciously and form the basis for many dishes that are unique to the Canaries.

Fish and many other dishes are served with three of the most ubiquitous and defining elements of Canary Islands cuisine: Gofio (toasted flour, the true national culinary supplement that predates the conquest, though several versions include toasted New World millo, or maize, flour); the quickly addictive papas arrugadas (special Canary Islands varieties of small potatoes, including “black’ ones, “wrinkled” by cooking them in sea water or heavy salted tap water); and the wonderful mojos, or vinegar-and-oil based dipping sauces served with almost every Canary Islands meal.

Gofio flours are often served as a dip with raw onions , as an accompaniment to fish dishes, soups and other dishes

and are often put out in bowls on tables in restaurants specializing in native cuisine.

Papas arrugadas are often served as a appetizer and just as often as a side to fish or meat dishes,
along with usually two vinegar-and-oil based mojos.

The mojos most frequently encountered include:

green mojo de perejil (parsley, garlic and cumin)

or mojo de cilantro (garlic, green and chili peppers, cilantro, cumin and crushed toasted bread, vinegar and oil)

and red mojo colorado (garlic, red pepper, paprika, cumin and toasted bread).

Perhaps the star version is the famous mojo picón, made with red chili peppers and hot paprika, which makes a picante sauce that is anathema to mainland palates and is a sensation absent in most mainland Spanish regional dishes, except in gambas al ajillo (which uses a slice or two of dried cayenne pepper), in the sauces for patatas bravas and in the Basque Country, where red chilis are used in several dishes.

Other notable mojos are one made with avocados, one made with grated cheese and tomatoes, one uses almonds and another is made with orange juice.

A visit to the colorful markets in places such as Las Palmas de Gran Canaria, Los Llanos de Aridane (La Palma) and La Laguna (Tenerife) reveals a wide variety of fish seldom seen in mainland markets:

Fish Available in the Markets of Las Islas Canarias

Sama (a type of sea bream from the same family as dentex and urta)

cherne (wreckfish)

vieja colorada (parrot fish)

cabrilla (a type of grouper)

morena (moray eel)

Alfonsino (emperor fish)

burro (none-too-attractively called in English, the rubber-lip grunt).

Some of the fish come from local waters (quite deep just offshore due to the abrupt volcanic nature of the birth of these islands), but many of the varieties are caught in the shallower waters off the coasts of Morocco, Western Sahara (unil 1975, Spanish Sahara), Mauritania and Senegal. Usually these fish are grilled a la plancha (on a flat-iron grill), sometimes a la parilla (grilled over wood fire) and sometimes in fish soups and stews, caldo de pescado (fish soup, Gran Canaria) or cazuela de pescado (a fish stew casserole; Tenerife).

Other typical Canary Islands dishes include fried conejo en adobo (rabbit marinated in olive oil and vinegar with bay leaf, thyme, oregano, chili pepper and saffron); potaje de berros (a watercress-based soup with beans, pork ribs, yams, potatoes, cumin and paprika); cabrito en aliño (goat marinated with white wine, vinegar, garlic, oregano and then friend and sauced with the hot marinade); and Carribean inspired ropa vieja, leftovers from a typical stew (chicken or meat, chickpeas, carrots and onions) sauteed with spices.

Desserts include bienmesabe ("it tastes good to me"), made from almonds, sugar, lemon, cinnamon and egg yolks); huevos mole (beaten eggs cooked gently in a bain-marie and served with lemon-cinnamon syrup); and bollos de millo (cornmeal buns).

There are also several distinguished Canary Islands cheeses, usually made with goats' milk, sometimes with mixed ewe's and goats' milk: Majorero from Fuerteventura is the most famous, but queso palmero (La Palma), queso de Gomera and the cooperative Arico in the Abona area of Tenerife, which made a gofio-covered goats' milk cheese that won first place in the 2009 World Cheese Awards in Dublin. One of the most typical dishes in the islands is almogrote, a spread mad from aged Gomera goat cheese, olive oil, chili peppers and hot paprika.

Canary Islands wines, above all the white wines and sweet wines are fascinating, often delightful companions to the local dishes. The Islands have a wide variety of grapes, many of which disappeared from the Iberian Peninsula when it was hit by the late 19th-Century phylloxera plague that devastated European vineyards. Some of the vineyards, especially those on Lanzarote, planted in holes in volcanic ash to collect life-sustaining moisture from dew and partial lava rock walls protect them from the forceful winds, are some of the most unusual and striking vineyards in the world. The Canary Islands have eleven D.O.s (denominaciones de origen) governing the production of wines.

Most of the best dry white wines and the best sweet white wines-among the greatest dessert wines of Spain-are made primarily from the Malvasía grape variety. Predominant red varieties include Listán Negro and Negramoll. Among the bodegas to search out are Tenerife's superb Viñatigo (Ycoden-Daute-Isora D.O), Viña Norte/Humboldt (Tacoronte-Acentejo), Bodegas Buten's aptly-named Magma de Crater (Tacoronte-Acentejo) and Tajinaste (Valle de la Orotava). Three wineries of note on volcanic Lanzarote are El Grifo (Lanzarote), Los Bermejos, and the architecturally stunning, state-of-the-art jewel Stratus (Lanzarote). And from La Palma come some spectacular sweet wines such as Tamanca's Sabro Dulce and the excellent Malvasía Dulces from Carballo and Teneguía grown on the volcanic slopes (the last major eruption came in 1971!).

On this trip, I visited Gran Canarias, La Palma, Tenerife and Lanzarote. That still leaves food and wine adventures on Fuerteventura, La Gomera and El Hierro, plus a couple of smaller satellite islands off Lanzarote. After the rich experiences I had on this trip, it will certainly not be another forty years before I return to these exceptional islands again.

--The End--

About Gerry Dawes

5/16/2009

The Powerful New-Wave Catalan Wines of Old Roman Tarragona

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The Powerful New-Wave Catalan Wines of Old Roman Tarragona:

Priorat, Montsant, Terra Alta, Conca de Barberà, Tarragona and Costers del Segre.
by Gerry Dawes

Not since the six-century Roman occupation of Spain (until the early 5th Century) when Pliny the Elder praised the wines of Tarraconensis, have the wines from Spain’s Tarragona province–the Priorat, Montsant, Terra Alta, Conca de Barberà, a small piece of Costers de Segre and the eponymous Tarragona denominación de origens, or D.O.s–been so highly rated as they are today. Until the recent explosive debut of Priorat wines on the international wine scene, Tarragona, located in Cataluña, about two hours southwest of Barcelona, was best known for its Roman ruins, for romesco (a superb, addictive sauce made with olive oil, garlic, dried peppers, tomatoes and hazelnuts or almonds), and as the birthplace (in Reus) of modernista architect Antoní Guadí.

Gerry Dawes's Spain: An Insider's Guide to Spanish Food, Wine, Culture and Travel

11/19/2009

11/18/2009

11/17/2009

About Gerry Dawes

11/16/2009

11/15/2009

11/10/2009

11/09/2009

11/07/2009

11/06/2009

11/05/2009

11/04/2009

There is also a very in-depth interview with Nossiter, also the Reign of Terroir website, which takes some time but is well worth reading for those who want to hear more about the film maker-author's views on wine, philosophy and life.

I would love to hear your opinions on Liquid Memory.

11/03/2009

10/26/2009

10/23/2009

10/19/2009

10/01/2009

9/20/2009

8/29/2009

7/26/2009

7/24/2009

6/09/2009

6/08/2009

6/07/2009

5/30/2009

5/16/2009