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JR's notes:

Valdepeñas is a wine which has always represented two things - the leisurely, warm, southern-Spanish countryside , and amazing value for money. This article appeared in a Christmas Spanish supplement to DECANTER magazine in December, 1997. The DECANTER website is at www.decanter.com

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NEVER MIND THE FLOWERPOTS...

John Radford charts the course of a wine area which has been quietly improving itself without too much interference from the outside world...

It tasted like flowerpots, in those days.

Valdepeñas was my fourth Spanish wine - or, rather the fourth wine I knew to have a name that wasn't 'Spanish Burgundy' or 'Spanish Chablis'. I'd discovered Sherry at the age of 16, thanks to enlightened parents who reasoned that all adolescent boys are going to find some way to drink alcohol and it might as well be a quality wine, at home and generally under their supervision. I discovered Cava at the age of 18 (in the days when it really still was called 'Spanish Champagne') and, in my first few faltering days in the wine-trade, more than twenty- five years ago, I simultaneously discovered Rioja and Valdepeñas. The former, of course, was already a legend among the cognoscenti, but Valdepeñas was a curiosity. The brand we imported came in a Bordeaux-style bottle with wire-netting, enclosing a label printed in copperplate, and it sold for twenty-five shillings a bottle (£1.25) at a time when our cheapest generic (English- bottled) Beaujolais was on sale at 18/9d (89p). And it tasted of flowerpots.

This, I learned subsequently, was because the wine was made in giant, open-topped earthenware jars, fermented with its natural yeast at whatever temperature nature dictated... No, that's not quite true. Sometimes they buried the point of the fermenting jar in the soil to keep it a bit cooler. The difference was negligible.

If you want to see those earthenware jars today, you still can. They stand to attention on your left as you drive into Valdepeñas from the north on the N-IV, a guard of honour along the Avenida del Vino as well as a public demonstration that, in winemaking terms, their days are gone. Wineries had already switched to concrete tanks (usually lined with epoxy-resin) by the end of the 1970s and, of course, any installations after about 1980 have been in stainless steel, which is now much cheaper to buy and easier to use than any previous method of winemaking, thanks to the economy of scale brought on by its worldwide acceptance.

Valdepeñas always bucked the trend amongst the old, flat, dull, uninspiring wines of La Mancha (that's all changed, too, but that's another story) and the main reason was that one of the Royal Mail routes (to Córdoba and Granada) passed through the town. At approximately two days' travel from the new capital of Madrid, the old town of Valdepeñas found, from the late sixteenth century, that it had a regular passing-trade in food, wine and accommodation. The travellers had money to spend and the big-city taste for something a cut above the average, and there is no encouragement towards better quality than a ready, willing and solvent market.

Geographically, Valdepeñas slopes downwards towards the south, away from the blinding summer heat and freezing winters of the great plain of La Mancha, and it's sheltered on either side by mountain ranges, providing a less harsh climate and allowing the Cencibel grape (the southern version of the north's Tempranillo) to flourish in greater quantity. Most of this area, still, is planted with the hardy white Airén, and a good deal of lightweight local red is made from a mixture of the two grapes, but where Valdepeñas has stolen a march on its southern neighbours is in its Reservas and Gran Reservas, glowing with the heat of those long, hot autumns and rich with the tertiary scents of American oak barricas. By law these must be made from 100% Cencibel and, although numerically in the minority, they have carried the reputation of the whole region for three or four centuries. It would be a brave bodeguero who would try something different.

This is not to imply that there's no innovation in Valdepeñas: a case in point is Casa de la Viña, which came to the region determined to improve and develop. They bought good vineyards, replanted with Cencibel, installed the latest winemaking kit and applied rigorous selection procedures throughout the winemaking process. Significantly, however, they did not tamper with the success-formula which has kept Valdepeñas in business for four hundred years or more - Reservas and Gran Reservas made from 100% Cencibel, aged intelligently in American oak. The only real marketing innovation has been a joven red (i.e. without oak ageing) using 100% Cencibel instead of the traditional Cencibel/Airén mix. The result is not the cheapest of Valdepeñas' young wines, but it's almost certainly the best.

And, sitting in the comedor of one of the unpretentious bars which dot the chequerboard streets of the old town, you can see how the formula has been a success. Powerful, pungent garlic soup with a poached egg in the middle of it, followed by lazily-roasted cordero asado and then some crumbly Manchego cheese... Simple, plain country food which takes advantage of the natural resources of the region, and which has remained virtually unchanged for generations. These make a perfect marriage with the hot, southern ripeness and rich, almost plummy fruit of the Cencibel grape, burnished in American oak. And it may come at a price rather higher than in my early days in the wine-trade, but it still represents some of the very best value for money of any wine from Spain.

You can almost hear the creak of the harness, the rattle of the coach-wheels and the snorting of the horses, as weary travellers come indoors for some heavyweight sustenance after travelling all day through a bitter Manchego winter. Never mind the flowerpots - just pour me a very large glass of that heat we were complaining about last summer...

Valdepeñas - What's What and Who's Who

Most bodegas survive by making a fairly large amount of everyday white and light red (which may contain up to 80% Airén) for the local and Madrid markets, as well as middle-market wines for consumption further afield. There is some small amount of experimentation with other varieties but, in general, Valdepeñas has raised the making of Reservas and Gran Reservas from 100% Cencibel to such a fine art that most Bodegas are unwilling to rock the boat. The market has been dominated for many years by three major producers:

Bodegas Félix Solís makes the perennial Viña Albali Reserva which has been one of my favourite everyday red wines for more than ten years. It's warm, ripe, full of fruit and autumnal scents, solidly consistent in quality and offers quite astonishing value for money.

The Señorío de Los Llanos is known for stonking Gran Reservas with enormous heat, weight, power and fruit - very much in the old 'coaching' tradition.

Bodegas Luís Megía produces one of the region's best white wines (100% Airén) under the Marqués de Gastañaga label as well as an excellent Gran Reserva red called Duque de Estrada.

A relative newcomer to Valdepeñas - but one which has arrived with considerable style and success - is Casa de la Viña, part of the giant Bodegas y Bebidas Group. They set out to replant heavily with Cencibel and produce one of the few (and certainly the best) of the region's joven (young, non oak-aged) wines made entirely from this grape. They also make a delicious, gently oaky and warmly ripe Reserva. These wines have already come to the front rank of what Valdepeñas is producing.

Other producers to look out for:

Bodegas Videva - Crianza, Reserva, 25 Aniversario 1992

Bodegas Miguel Calatayud - Vegaval Reserva, Gran Reserva

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