Gerry Dawes

Precisely what I thought when I was reading the stuff that I wrote a dozen years ago. Gerry Dawes, Gerry Dawes's Spain: An Insider's Guide to Spanish Food, Wine, Culture and Travel

Thank you so very much. You are very kind and I appreciate your sentiments. We had been divorced for 15 years, but she was the mother of my three daughters, was still a great friend and she helped me weather all those lean years as we tried to stay in the Spain we loved and she helped us immeasurably in establishing a beachhead in New York City, a place we came to directly from a storybook village in Andalucia. The change between being awakened by roosters crowing and donkeys braying, geraniums in the patio and a rooftop from which we could see Africa on clear mornings to early 1970s to Washington Heights with broken glass and dog shit on the sidewalks, dangerous people lurking about and rides on the A train was a shock not to be weathered alone. She handled it one Hell of lot better than I did and she was six months' pregnant with our first daughter. I was an ex-pat wreck whose nail marks were still on the runway in Madrid, from when I was dragged away from Spain. I will tell you exactly what I think, at the risk of pissing off a lot of old friends, whose very fine, below 14%, often below 13% California wines I sold in the 1980s and early 1990s, but right now I have to go cook dinner for my lady love. You may be able to guess what I think by reading what I wrote above in Alta Expresión Vino: Black gold or fool's gold?

Hi, Dave, Here is the full Monty on my 2001 article--Alta Expresión Vino: Black gold or fool's gold?--on this subject. It is amazing to look back more than a decade ago and see the things that people such as Josh Raynolds, Jancis Robinson, Stephen Tanzer, John Mariani, Fernando Chivite, Victor de la Serna and many others were saying about vinos de alta expresión. It is also amazing looking back and remembering how much I was being vilified by some of the Spanish wine establishment over articles like this one. I was actually called a "wine Taliban" on some Spanish wine boards and some tried to paint me as an ignorant American, though I have been in some 600 hundred wineries in Spain, some as many as 15-20 times. To me, it is truly incredible that these top wine people were saying all this more than a decade and the wine industry still went headlong down this path, despite the warnings, and many who sought fool's gold by making what they thought was inky black gold are suffering the consequences of not listening to reasonable people with experience and taste. IMO, the "fruit bomb" and "brash new oak" approach to wine may well turn out in the long run to be as disastrous as phylloxera and TCA combined I have extracted a few of the more choice graphs in this piece: Jésus Madrazo is the 36-year old winemaker at Contino and a descendant of the founder of the great classic bodega, CUNE (Compañía Vinícola de Norte de España). Madrazo, whose family are major shareholders in Contino, told me, “Most of the best producers hate the term alta expresión, but it has come to define the new wave of Spanish wines and is even showing up on restaurant lists as a separate heading.” Wine shops such as Bilbao’s D’Vinno “La Tienda,” owned by an enthusiastic young woman named Esperanza Ares, specialize in high-end, new wave and alta expresión wines. The fruit-driven, power-packed style that alta expresión represents does have some important defenders. Robert M. Parker, Jr., publisher of The Wine Advocate and the world’s most powerful wine critic, is the most visible. In fact, many wine experts say his palate is responsible for launching the whole genre. Stephen Tanzer, the publisher and main wine reviewer for the Stephen Tanzer’s International Wine Cellar, one of Parker’s main rivals, has one of the most respected palates in America. He too, has become an admirer of many of cult wines, garagistes wines, and Spain’s alta expresión wines. Tanzer often rates such wines, including many new wave Spanish wines, in the high nineties. In telephone interviews, defending such wines as Valandraud (an ultra-expensive, high-powered, new wave wine made by Jean-Luc Thuvenin that has set Bordeaux on its ear) and Domino de Pingus (Ribera del Duero), Tanzer told me that he believes that they generally have had a positive impact, especially in Spain and in such places as Bordeaux, where he, like Robert Parker, has been effusive in his praise of many garagistes wines. “Many of these small production wines are essentially experimental "winemaker’s" wines,” Tanzer says, “but, if yields are kept low and the winemaker uses modern wine making techniques, they show how much potential a wine region can have, especially in places like Bordeaux and Spain, where wines are often made on a large scale.” “The negative,” Tanzer says, “They are usually very international in style, so it is often not clear where they come from.” * * * * * Alejandro Fernández, the producer of Pesquera (Ribera del Duero), one of the great wines to emerge from Spain in the 1980s, and several other high-quality wines from emerging estates, is another top Spanish wine star who is not comfortable with his wines being classifed alta expresión and, like many, questions the age-worthiness of such wines. Over lunch at Marichu Restaurant in New York, he told me, “I may spend a month harvesting my grapes. The key is to get wines that are in balance and harmony, not wines that are over-ripe, over-alcoholic, and over-oaked. I have been making wines since 1975. Many of wines have aged well for 20 years. I don’t believe most of the so-called alta expresión wines will.” * * * * * After attending a tasting of such American wines in London, Jancis Robinson, author of The Oxford Companion to Wine, wrote in Financial Times (Dec. 2, 2000), “Make no mistake about it, wine in North America is a rich man’s drink.” Then, trying to put a positive spin on the theme, she added, “The world of wine is richer for the emergence of these overpriced, precocious beauties (Araujo Eisele, Dalla Valle Maya, Harlan Estate, and Screaming Eagle) - - even if their crazy purchasers are not.” John Mariani, Esquire Magazine’s restaurant columnist and author of the Encyclopedia of American Food & Drink and the Italian Dictionary of Food and Drink (Broadway Books), has his own succinct formula to describe the new wave of expensive, prestige category wines: “S ) D + MH5 - F + $$ (Supply divided by Demand plus Media Hype squared separates a fool from his money).” Many long-time wine lovers and seasoned professionals are baffled by the new wine public’s taste for the expensive, concentrated, high alcohol and new-oak laden wines riding the crest of the market wave. Established wine experts such as author Mary Ewing Mulligan, Master of Wine, who is President of New York’s International Wine Center, complain “I feel like a dinosaur when I taste many of these so-called international style, highly concentrated wines coming into the market today. Frankly, I don’t understand or like most of them.” In a recent Chicago Tribune article, William Rice quoted Christian Moueix, owner of Chateau Petrus and Napa Valley’s Dominus Estate as saying, "The character of these wines, we call them 'global,' is based on extraction. I do not care for them, but newcomers to wine seeking to launch a new label on both sides of the ocean hire fashionable winemakers who make wines that are noticed because they are dark, overripe and overly extracted, obvious with a slightly burned taste." * * * * * Fernando Chivite, at the time, was one of the true stars of modern Spanish wine (but since displaced in the winery in an internecine inheritance struggle). The Chivite family had been making wine in Navarra since the 1600s, but in the 1990s, they completely modernized all their winery operations and Fernando himself had become a consummate winemaker producing thousands of cases of exceptionally good wines at a range of prices. He made excellent, affordable, entry level whites, a superb rosado, solid red wines that one never tires of drinking; one of the great modern Chardonnay-based wines of Europe - - age-worthy in the bargain; and a dessert Moscatel that has the best restaurants in Spain begging for an allocation. . . . . . In a phone conversation, Fernando Chivite said that he was at odds with the many modern Spanish wines and international winemaking techniques. “Great wines are made from vineyards that have been properly cultivated,” Chivite emphasized, “and fine wines from such vineyards have finesse and complexity. Chivite says most of the highly rated alta expresión wines currently in vogue Alack complexity, which is something you can’t add to the wine, and they stress power over subtlety.” Fernando Chivite was contemptuous of this style of wine, which he and others called vinos de concurso, wines made especially for tasting panels and reviewers - - those he says English wine expert Hugh Johnson calls “one-taste wines,” which never get better after the first taste. “Many of them are made with artificial, not natural techniques, including the use of added tannins; you can tell some of the aromas are not natural.” "Some of today’s techniques are perversions of the winemaking process that negate all classic standards of quality," Chivite said, "Like much of the modern art world, many of the works of modern wine making are not about esthetics and good taste, they are created for their shock value." Unfortunately too many producers in Spain are embracing this approach to wine making. Many Spanish wineries have entered the mad race to turn out the wine world equivalent of monster trucks, when what the wine drinking public at large really wants is a well-balanced, affordable wine they can drink often. Jésus Madrazo, who makes El Olivo, a new generation, single parcel wine at the Contino, a wine that could be classifed alta expresión, but has too much balance and restraint to be a real contender in the category, told me, “It is not that difficult to make 5,000 to say 20,000 bottles of a concentrated expensive wine, if you have good grapes, a wine background, technical skills, and a little imagination.” * * * * * Josh Raynolds, then National Sales Representative for the highly respected Neal Rosenthal Wine Merchants (New York), echoed similar thoughts, “It's not even about the grape anymore, much less the terroir. I consider myself a pretty good blind taster - 13 years full time in the business, drinking and attending tastings for 20 years, a year in Europe devoted to visiting estates, and going to Europe once or twice a year to taste for the last 11 years.” “I am often at a loss to even hazard a guess as to even what *&$#@*# variety has been poured,” Josh Raynolds said, “I can, however, often guess what type of oak was used and even who the winemaker or consultant was. My experience is that there is a sameness to the wines that makes a taster think more about who made it, who consulted on it, what the alcohol level must be and where the wood came from (not to mention what it must have cost).” * * * * * A frustrated-sounding Pablo Alvarez, an owner and Managing Director of Vega Sicilia, told a Viandar (a new Basque Country-based wine and food magazine; Feb. 2001 issue) interviewer, “Recently I read a review in which Robert Parker gave a high score to a wine with a 200 bottle-production!” Alvarez said. At this rate, we are going to be bringing out a single bottle: ‘Here is my wine!’ I believe a winery is something more than a place to make just a few bottles.” Later in the Viandar interview, Alvarez said, “The problem is not whether Parker can make a wine fashionable or cause it to skyrocket in the United States, what is worrisome is that wineries base their wine making styles on whether they think Parker will like it or not.” * * * * * Dan Berger, former wine columnist for The Los Angeles Times and contributor to several major wine publications, wrote me in a e-mail response, “When I think about the high-alcohol, over-oaked, lower-acid style of the so-called international 'bigger-is-better’ red wine, I remember what Gertrude Stein said about Oakland: ‘There is no there there.’ * * * * * When contemplating the purchase of these highly extracted, new wave or alta expresión wines, perhaps consumers should consider Stephen Tanzer’s Freudian statement from my conversation with him. It goes to heart of the matter with many of these new wave wines. “Drinkability with meals is only about 20% of the equation,” Tanzer said. “People who pay these prices are not thinking about drinking the wines with meals. The wines are expensive because they are usually made in small quantities.," Tanzer continued. "They are highly collectible, high visibility trophy wines. People who buy CUNE and the other top classical wines of Spain, for instance, are thinking about how well the wines drink with food.” “How well the wines drink with food.” Now there’s a true alta expresión that should be high on anyone’s list of reasons to buy a wine, Spanish or otherwise.

I don't think posting this link about Paul Lukac's "Inventing Wine" is a shamless plug at all. I am glad to have the link and I am going to order the book today. It will be a relief to read it as a break from my current wade through Vladimir Nabokov's "Lectures on Don Quixote." I am glad Paul wrote this book. I obviously haven't read it yet, but from your review I have no doubt that I am going to like it. It is ironic that I have been vilified over the years, in Spain and here, for saying a decade or more ago what Paul is documenting in his book. One approach is a wine "manufactured" in the cellars, the other approach is a wine with a distinct sense of place. One is an attempt to create a homogenous product "that the market is asking for" (How many times have I heard that phrase in Spanish wineries?); the other is original, unique, authentic and not easy to duplicate. One is a wine made in the cellars, sometimes with "better living through chemistry" plus the use industrial yeasts, battonage, new oak and all kinds of stunts to shoehorn wines into shoes that don't fit. The "sense of place" approach is original and most of the wines are distinct from one another, even from plots in close proximity. Not all of the wines are perfect, but most, even with their imperfections are much more enjoyable to drink than a duotone (oak and powerful overripe flavors) Ribera del Duero trying to imitate a California Cab. Gerald Asher once wrote something like: "It is not the similarities, but the differences in wines that make the wine world so unique and fascinating." Drawing on that inspiration from Asher, my take is: “What makes the world of wine so interesting, compelling and even romantic is the diversity of vineyards, grapes, producers and wines, not homogeneity or sameness.” Followers of this thread can read more (shameless plug) of my Spanish Artisan Wine Group philosophy about wine in my Mission Statement, part of which goes like this: "We do not represent wines that conform to the conventional canon, i.e., wines so dark that you can't see the bottom of the glass; wines with jammy, overripe fruit; wines low in acid; "dry" red or white wines with pronounced residual sugar; wines that taste more of oak than wine; or wines with levels of alcohol higher that 13.5%. We prefer 13% and lower, but will consider wines of 14% on rare occasions, but only if they seem particularly well balanced, which is a sleight-of-hand performed by very few maestros. We see no virtue in wines so extracted and concentrated in color that you can't see the bottom of the glass. Depth of color is no indicator of a great wine in the glass, it merely a very dark wine, which often means it has very high alcohol and is a very extracted wine made from overripe grapes. Such wines are usually made to please reviewers during the two minutes they may have to evaluate one wine among the 30-100 wines they will taste that day. We don't believe that is the criteria by which really good wines should be judged. We don't mind if the wines are lightly filtered, since we don't put much stock in the unfined, unfiltered wisdom, nor do we believe in exaggerated concentration of flavors as a virtue. We do not seek wines that rely on harvesting overripe grapes and submitting them to long macerations to achieve dark color, high alcohol and so-called "flavor." We discourage the abuse of battonage, the popular stirring of dead lees back into the wine, a practice that effectively breaks and often obliterates the seamless marriage of great minerality with the taste from great grapes, putting an artificial volume-appearance enhancing element in wines that misses the point of what a great wine should be about. And we discourage barrel fermentation in new oak and aging wines in improperly prepared new oak, either French or American, all of which tend to obscure both the taste of the grape variety and any terruño (terroir), or unique sense of place, that a wine may possess. . ."

Many, many thanks, SeanMike. B) Dave McIntyre, Many thanks for your post. I will answer you shortly. This is from my post to bookluvingbabe (above): (Sorry the link to the story does not work right now. I will fix it by this evening. The original article was published in the now defunct Wine News, but their website is not longer operative, so I have to post the text from my original manuscript and format it for blogger and add some photos.) I wrote this in 2001 in an article entitled Alta Expresión Vino - Black gold or fool's gold? (Check back tomorrow or Sunday for the whole article, the link disappeared.) "During the past decade, scores of powerful, highly concentrated, new-wave wines have cropped up all over Spain like the saffron crocuses that proliferate in La Mancha every October. These intensely extracted, international style wines encompass a bewildering array of newly minted brands that vary widely in quality and seriousness. Lumped together under the controversial term vinos de alta expresión ("high expression," or "high concept" wines--read high extract and some say "alta extorsión," for the outrageous prices some command), these potent wines depart sharply from the traditional, mellow, age-worthy style for which La Rioja, the country's premier wine region, is famous. Winning high praise in some circles and vociferous criticism in others, alta expresión wines have pushed Spain smack into the center of the brewing international debate between winemaking traditionalists and advocates of the high-octane New World approach."

Spanish Wine & Food Pairing: Possibilities Are Limitless An article of mine on the Culinary Institute of America's Worlds of Flavor website "In recent years, Spain has become increasingly popular with American wine drinkers. Once perceived as a source of inexpensive wines with an envious price-quality ratio, Spain has become increasingly sought out for the quality of its wines and many are fetching high prices. The American boom in Spanish tapas bars and restaurants (more than 70 establishments in New York City alone), with by-the-glass sales and adventurous Spanish wine lists, has helped introduce a multitude of new consumers to the jewels of the Spanish wine world. Likewise, savvy sommeliers around the country, once attracted by price, now by the quality levels of Spanish wines, are giving them prominence on wine lists at a broad range of restaurants, including the mostly highly regarded restaurants in the country. This has also been spurred by intense publicity about Spanish cocina de vanguardia, which has attracted many American chefs and food lovers to Spain where, in the process of discovering Spanish food, they have also discovered the wide gamut of Spanish wines. Spanish wines are naturally great with the broad spectrum of Spanish traditional cuisines and many of them work well with ultra-modern dishes and cooking techniques inspired by Spanish chefs. But the real revelation is the ability of these wines to match well with a range of cuisines just as the wines of France, California, Italy, and Australia do. In this article, I will make some broad sketches of different Spanish wine types and equally broad recommendations about some foods they might pair with. With some tasting and experimentation, American chefs, restaurateurs, and wine-lovers will find a whole new world of exciting possibilities within the range of Spanish wines now available in many markets." (Click on the link above to see the rest of the article.)

More on the wines of La Rioja, giving some background on two important wines, Contino and Roda, with notes on wines from the 1990s. "For at least a decade or more, I had had a love-hate relationship with the wines of Rioja - a region responsible for some of my life's most memorable tasting experiences. I prized the best of the old guard wines (R. López de Heredia, CVNE, La Rioja Alta, Marqués de Riscal and others) -- yet recognized the mediocrity of many -- and I grated against the brashness of a gush of new wave Riojas that left palate-scalding new oak and high alcohol in their wake. Not surprisingly, the passage of time has seen most of the stalwarts evolving toward a more modern style and many of the newcomers toning down their brash styles to a degree that moves them closer to the classic wines that made Rioja famous in the first place. Among the most captivating of these maverick makers, Viñedos del Contino has emerged as Spain's most important "château" and Bodegas Roda as one of its most significant and innovative wineries founded in the past 25 years. Both are now at or near the top of almost everyone's list of the greatest wines of the modern Spanish era, including mine. And because each has accrued substantial a track record -- Contino with more than 30 vintages, Roda with more than 15 -- the time was ripe to reassess their evolutions." For the rest of the story, click on the link below. Roda & Contino: Mano a Mano (A 2006 Article Revisited) Historic Tasting at Contino.

More on the question of bookluvingbabe on the wines of La Rioja: Rioja: The Mountain Cat Springs to Life (An article originally published in 2002 about what was going on with Rioja wines at the end of the 1990s and the beginning of the new century.) ". . . La Rioja is arguably the greatest red wine region in Spain. And its prowess is still based primarily on the ability of the top centenarian bodegas to produce millions of bottles of high-quality wines at reasonable prices. This core group includes CVNE (Compañía Vinícola del Norte de España), La Rioja Alta, Muga, López de Heredia, Marqués de Riscal, Marqués de Murrieta and Bodegas Riojanas. This distinguished group of bodegas makes more bottles of 90-plus-rated wines than the rest of Spain put together.I will have another piece up on Contino and Roda from La Rioja shortly.

There were some very good to excellent vintages in the 1990s, especially the 1994, 1995 and 1996, vintages and about the same time, they began to go over to the dark side, getting the grapes fully phenologically (Is that even a word?) ripe, which is to say overripe and ratcheted up to 14% - 15% alcohol to impress the critics. Two things, the critics, both American and Spanish, who praised that type of wine from La Rioja, IMO, didn't know their ass from a whistle and neither did the store clerk who told your friend about "unusual conditions." High praise for this atypical, alcoholic, new oak-lashed version of Rioja caused more and more producers to go for that style. You say that you rarely agree on wines and her taste tends to run towards wines with minerality. IMHO, you should pay more attention to her palate. However, she was not getting minerality out of most Riojas. While some Riojas can be great, minerality is not Rioja's strong suit, because, though they have the minerals, Rioja wine have always been a cellar rats wet dream and the wines have mostly been made in the bodega more than in the vineyard. Try a good vintage of Contino, though it gets up there a bit in alcohol because of its unique estate micro-climate, in years when it is spot on, it can be a majestic wine, like the 2001 Contino El Olivo, which is the greatest "modern" Rioja I remember tasting. I wrote this in 2001 in an article entitled Alta Expresión Vino - Black gold or fool's gold? (Check back tomorrow or Sunday for the whole article, the link disappeared.)"During the past decade, scores of powerful, highly concentrated, new-wave wines have cropped up all over Spain like the saffron crocuses that proliferate in La Mancha every October. These intensely extracted, international style wines encompass a bewildering array of newly minted brands that vary widely in quality and seriousness. Lumped together under the controversial term vinos de alta expresión ("high expression," or "high concept" wines--read high extract and some say "alta extorsión," for the outrageous prices some command), these potent wines depart sharply from the traditional, mellow, age-worthy style for which La Rioja, the country's premier wine region, is famous. Winning high praise in some circles and vociferous criticism in others, alta expresión wines have pushed Spain smack into the center of the brewing international debate between winemaking traditionalists and advocates of the high-octane New World approach."

Goats Who Stare at Men, Men Who Stare at Rabbits and Rabbits Who Won't Be Staring Back (Slide Show: Asturias, Canary Islands, Andalucía) :o Goat, La Palma, Canary Islands. Photo by Gerry Dawes©2009. Goats, La Palma, Canary Islands. Photo by Gerry Dawes©2009. Men who stare at rabbits, at a restaurant in the Canary Islands. Photo by Zach Minot ©2009.

Canary Islands Seafood - Fish Available in the Markets of Las Islas Canarias Boquerones, pickled fresh anchovies and "unicorn" fish. All photographs by Gerry Dawes © 2009. Use of photos prohibited without written permission. Sargos, white sea bream, caught off Senegal. (Note: Since the water is so deep right off these volcanic islands, many of the fish are caught in the shallower waters of the African coast.) All photographs by Gerry Dawes © 2009. Use of photos prohibited without written permission.

Another article on The Canary Islands The Wines of the Canary Islands - Article in Wines From Spain News Canary Islands wines in the market at La Laguna, Tenerife. All photographs by Gerry Dawes © 2009. Use of photos prohibited without written permission. Vines growing on volcanic ash deposits near Stratus winery on Lanzarote. All photographs by Gerry Dawes © 2009. Use of photos prohibited without written permission. Giant rock that fell onto the property at Los Berrazales during an earthquake. They built around it and incorporated it into the winery. Agaeda, Gran Canaria. All photographs by Gerry Dawes © 2009. Use of photos prohibited without written permission.

I am on the run, so this is all I have time for right now, but I will post some more info later. Canary Islands: Exotic Spanish Islands with a Unique Culinary & Wine Heritage Tenerife's Teide, the volcano that is the tallest mountain in all of Spain and third tallest volcano in the world. Photo by Gerry Dawes©2012.

More on Gin and Spain (and Washington's own José Andrés) Food Arts, El Quencher: Mad dogs and Spaniards? How did the quintessential quaff of British colonials become a runaway hit in Spain? Gerry Dawes reports. José Andrés with "The Ultimate Gin & Tonic," made with Hendrick's gin and Fever Tree tonic water, at Bar Blanca at The Bazaar by José Andrés at the SLS Hotel, Beverly Hills. Photo by Gerry Dawes ©2012; contact gerrydawes@aol.com for publication rights. Spain—and lately its high-flying vanguard of chefs—has long had a love affair with Gin & Tonic, or “Gintonic,” as they call it. Who knew? No wonder, then, that the proliferating tapas bars in the United States are introducing Gintonic menus. Estadio, a Spanish restaurant near Logan Circle in Washington, D.C., mixes Old Raj Gin with house-made orange thyme tonic and Tanqueray 10 with house-made elderflower citrus tonic. In Brooklyn, New York, Cynthia Diaz’s Bar Celona celebrates “Spain’s most popular tipple” by using artisanal gins, house-made tonics, and nontraditional ingredients: The Sea Monkey calls for Death’s Door Gin, house-made celery/apple juice, lemon, anise, Fever Tree Tonic, and fennel salt; El Matador has spiced gin, house-made tonic, cava, and bitters. Andrés’ newly renovated Jaleo Restaurant and Tapas Bar in Washington, D.C., will likely outdo them all. His ThinkFoodGroup lead bartendar, Owen Thomson, has a Gintonic menu that includes Death’s Door and Fentiman’s Tonic with fennel, radish, cubeb, and kumquat; Ransom Old Tom and Bittermen’s Tonic with pickled ginger, allspice, orange, and lemon; Ridge Silver Tip and Fever Tree with tarragon, lemon, lime, and borage; Botanist & Q Tonic with coriander blossom, lemon, and lime; and Tanqueray 10 and house-made tonic with grapefruit, mint, lemon, and white pepper. Since a Gin & Tonic is a drink ostensibly made for hot climates, many people have been drinking it—most often gin with Schweppes Tonic and a twist of lemon—for decades in Spain, where more than 200 brands of gin are sold. Read the rest of the article here: Food Arts, El Quencher, May 2012

Well, Mark, I see you found the 'Cock' bar in Madrid! Obviously, at the Cock, you should have asked for the Dutch Fockink Gin (click on this link to see a hilarious video), which is served all over Spain and worth bringing back, just so you can refill the bottle and serve it guests!

I am not real expert in gin, but, except for Xoriguer, I think most of the gins produced in Spain are imitations of the London Dry Gin's. They even have knock-off label that looks like Gordon's. Xoriguer (pronounced sho-ri-gair) is the same today as it always has been. This is from the drinkshop.com website in the UK: "It is the result of distillation in traditional copper stills, using high quality wine alcohol and carefully selected juniper berries, which come from the neighbouring Mediterranean mountains, together with aromatic herbs. These herbs are the jealousy guarded "secret" of the liquor's original bouquet. Only the heirs of family know the identity and proportion of this valuable ingredient, which is added behind closed doors and without witnesses, at the start of each distilling. The respect for tradition is such that the fuel still used today in the distillation is wood. The distillation begins when the vapours which are produced in the still's boiler circulate through copper pipes until they reach a coil, where they condense, forming a precious liquid that drips into jars. An expert tastes the liquid at intervals to determine the pecise moment when the distillation is complete. Once this is accomplished the gin is stored in large oak barrels, where it retains unchanging its colour, flavour and aroma, until finally it is bottled. Xoriguer, thanks to its unique character and to its distillation from natural products, is free of any unwanted additives which could impair its preservation or spoil any kind of cocktail or mixed drink. Menorca is a Mediterranean island which belonged to the British crown over 200 years ago, for most of the XVIII century. Thousands of British soldiers and sailors were stationed on the island in those days. They frequented the local taverns, but they were unable to find the liquor that was fashionable at the time in their country: GIN. Soon someMahón craftsmen found a solution to the problem. They would import juniper berries and produce gin on the island, using wine alcohol from Mediterranean vineyards. In this way, gin, a nordic drink, was successfully launched in Menorca. During the XVIII and XIX centuries, it became established as a popular drink, and became an indispensable feature at any special event, private or public, on the island. In the early part of the XX century, on the initiative of a Menorcan family of craftsmen, a brand name was born: Xoriguer, which began to bottle and carefully commercialise the product which hitherto had only been marketed locally. Xoriguer is the name of the old windmill built in 1784, in which many generations of the Pons family had converted bushels of wheat into white flour. Miquel Pons Justo, heir to a long tradition of craftsmen, wanted to put these traditional values of quality and refinement to use in his liquor company, and for this he chose as an emblem not only the name but also the image of the century-old family business: the graceful windmill with its wind-sails. Gin Xoriguer ceased to be merely a local curiosity and became a product with an ever widening reach, opening the way in the market with its quality and attractive bottling. Due to its origins, traditions and Mediterranean characteristics, Gin Xoriguer has gained recognition throughout the EEC, being denominated a guaranteed traditional speciality or specific name of product E.T.G. Mahón Menorca. Xoriguer is still a family business, looking to the future, faithful to its origins and to a continuing tradition of craftsmanship, with the desire to please all their clients and friends with its carefully elaborated Gin Xoriguer." Xoriguer is also the name of a falcon-hawk.

Hi, Mark, go on to the Hidalgo importer, Classical Wines's website, get their contact info and ask where they have it in D.C. Suerte, G.

About my former wife, Diana, thanks. I am doing okay, just a rough couple of days of scanning old fotos and reliving old memories. My daughers are hurting because she was such a terrific Mom to them. Thanks for asking. Spain has been described a bull's hide drying in the sun, but no usually as a bull's head. As to Galician and Catalunya being the horns, many without a sense of humor in those two regions might object to that since putting the cuernos, or horns, on someone means you are insinuating that they are a cabrón, or cuckold. Neither region lacks its fair share of cabrones, for sure. Most of my friends and I in those regions (and elsewhere) endearingly address one another thusly: "Hola, cabrón." If you use that word in anger, it can cause a problem and if you use it in the literal sense, it can cause a very big problem. In Galicia, where some of my best friends are and where I contend that cabronismo has been raised to a fine art, I sometimes begin a conversation with "Hola, cabrón de Galego, then I apologize for being redundant. But, then I have a galego friend who address me as "Rey Pugnante," or the "King of the Repugnants." Like I said Galicians have raised cabronismo to a fine art. As to regions on the bull's hide that I have not visited: I have been once to Mallorca, but not to Menorca, where I want to visit because of Mahón cheese, caldereta de langosta (a seafood stew with a whole lobster) and Xoriguer, a good gin that has been made there since the island was occupied from 1707-1756 (and again for 20 years at the end of the century) by English soldiers, who, by the way, did not like cheese made with ewe's or goat's milk, so cows were imported from England and the somewhat Cheddar style of Mahón was developed. Mahón is the capital city of Menorca and is the origin of one of the world's most famous sauces, mayonesa, or mayonnaise. I have been to all the other mainland regions multiple times, but I still need to spend a bit more time in Aragon and in the Catalan Pyrenees. Though I have been to each the following provinces a few times and have slept in all their capital cities on more than one occasion, I still need some more time in Ávila, Salamanca, and León provinces.

La Castela, Madrid Zamburiñas (small scallops), La Castela, Madrid. Photos by Gerry Dawes©2012

Wow, Mark. I was hoping to hear how you made out. I am very happy that Sanlúcar worked out and really thrilled that you got to Taberna Juan Peña in Córdoba and La Castela in Madrid (love those zamburiñas). Looking forward to hearing more details. My best, Gerry Sunset in a Glass: Drinking Manzanilla Sherry at the Source Langostinos de Sanlúcar with La Gitana manzanilla in the evening, Bajo de Guía beach on the Guadalquívir River, Sanlúcar de Barrameda. Gerry Dawes©2008 / gerrydawes@aol.com A Modern Version of Cordoban Classic Tomato-based Salmorejo at the Legendary Taberna Mesón Juan Peña At the legendary Taberna Juan Peña in Córdoba, the classic tomato-based salmorejo with Cordoban extra virgen olive oil, topped with hard-cooked egg and small bits of Spanish jamón Ibérico de bellota (from the D.O. Pedroches, Córdoba province), ham from free-range pata negra (black hoof breed) pigs fattened on acorns. Juan's wife, Mari Carmen, makes theses salmorejos. It was served with a sherry-like fino from Montilla-Moriles, a D.O. also from Córdoba province. Berenjenas fritas, olive oil fried eggplant strips are often served with salmorejo as a sauce into which the eggplant strips are dipped. Like the most exquisite French fries with the most exquisite ketchup you have ever eaten. La Castela, Madrid Zamburiñas (small scallops), La Castela, Madrid. Photos by Gerry Dawes©2012

Don, it has been written many times that Spain is shaped like a bull's hide, or ox hide. If it a bull's head, I guess the horns are Galicia and Catalunya! There are plenty of jewels to be found in some of the lesser known regions like Ribeira Sacra, Monterrei and Ribera de Arlanza. Priorat has some high quality wines, but they tend to be very alcoholic and that is after taming the alcohol levels that historically soared very high (only the isolated indigenous acclimated yeasts could survive to allow those wines of yesteryear to reach 18%!). That and politically powerful, nationalistic Catalunya needed its own 'grand cru' wines, so Priorat has been heavily promoted. Just a few years ago, Priorat was considered the hottest, sexiest (insert other adjectives here) in Spain, but now the combination of high alcohol, new oak and very high prices has considerably dampened enthusiasm. I wrote this a few years ago: Juve y Camps, a family firm that has long been appreciated here by wine aficionados, is probably the best known of these cavas, but top-quality names such as Agustí Torelló Mata, Raventos i Blanc, Parxet, Gramona and Castillo Perelada are well worth tasting. The Spanish Artisan Wine Group has some exceptional cavas from Can Festis, but they are not available in the U.S. right now (stay tuned). To give you an idea of what one critic thinks about the quality of cava, in September, John Gilman, who recently made a trip to Catalunya and came away excited about cava, wrote this in the July-August issue of his View From The Cellar newsletter: Thanks for your questions, Don!

Towering Torreblanca: Alicante's Maestro Paco Torreblanca, One of World's Greatest Chocolatiers & Pastry Chefs For those of you who may not know the great Spanish pastry chef, Paco Torreblanca, who is descended from a Jewish family that came to Spain 800 years ago, the above link leads to an article and a slide show. Paco is one of the world's greatest desserts maestros. Paco Torreblanca in front of the ancient olive tree growing in his Totel chocolate and desserts plant, Monover-Elda, Alicante. Photograph by Gerry Dawes©2012 / gerrydawes@aol.com / http://www.gerrydawesspain.com

No problem. I will answer what I can and ask my most trusted source in La Ribeira Sacra to fill me in on the rest. I certainly don't know it all, but I can probably find out who does. Well, if you can find a moderate vineyard climate with a little altitude and that area happens to have 2,000-year old terraces built by the Romans (or their slaves, at least) on 85% inclines hanging over a deep river canyon, Hell, yes, go ahead and give Mencia a shot in the Western Hemisphere. Manuel Formigo of Adegas Manuel Formigo in Ribeiro visiting La Ribiera Sacra. Tour boat on the Sil River far below the Amandi vineyards of La Ribeira Sacra. Photo by Gerry Dawes©2011 / gerrydawes@aol.com. I will find out about maceration times, but I am very much against long macerations just to pick up deep color (which doesn't have to do with a wine's quality) and a lot of pigmentation that is just going to fall out later in your bottle, so you can throw it away, instead of letting the winery do it. I would prefer that the wines pass time in epoxy-lined cement tanks as a part of the ageing process, then, if wood must be used, put the wine in well-cared for used barrels, like they always did in La Rioja until the de-forestation lobbyists and salesmen began to dominate the flavor of our wines with ghastly oak, instead of the flavor of grapes and soil-driven (terroir) flavors that make wines taste like the only place they could have come from. IMO many of the best Mencia wines in Ribeira Sacra have a distinct pomegranate flavor component and often have an equally characteristic lead pencil or graphite-lie taste in the finish. If the winemaker doesn't oak up so much that the timber kills the terroir in the finish, these wines can be a thing of true beauty. But, when wood becomes a flavoring agent, instead of an ageing receptacle, it kills flavor, complexity and charm. In an article I wrote about oaky, high alcohol, new-wave Spanish wines more than ten years ago, I quoted Josh Raynolds, now with Stephen Tanzer's International Wine Cellar, but then National Sales Representative for Neal Rosenthal Wine Merchants (New York). Here is an excerpt from that piece: ”It's not even about the grape anymore, much less the terroir. I consider myself a pretty good blind taster - 13 years full time in the business, drinking and attending tastings for 20 years, a year in Europe devoted to visiting estates, and going to Europe once or twice a year to taste for the last 11 years." "I am often at a loss to even hazard a guess as to even what *&$#@*# variety has been poured," Josh Raynolds told me, "I can, however, often guess what type of oak was used and even who the winemaker or consultant was. My experience is that there is a sameness to the wines that makes a taster think more about who made it, who consulted on it, what the alcohol level must be and where the wood came from (not to mention what it must have cost)." Oak had become such a important flavoring agent in new wave wines that according to an American visitor (ten years ago), a new wave Rioja producer was very disappointed that he had been turned down when he tried to buy the same type of barrels used by Romanée Contí from François Freres, a producer of the type of assertive French oak that is very much in vogue. Then one day François Freres called and said, "You got a 90 from (Robert) Parker, so you can have some barrels." (GD) I also quoted Raynolds in that piece saying: "New Wave cult wines are undeniably tasty and appealing in a shame-inducing way, like Slim Jims (which they resemble - smoky, meaty, spiced, oily, sweet) but they should in no way be confused with truly great wines, as Slim Jims ought not be confused with fine cuisine." As to Luna Beberide 'Daniel,' named for the importer's son and thus his special cuvee, that wine was certainly not be my benchmark wine from Bierzo, even though my good friend Gregory Perez undoubtedly had a hand in making it, as did another good friend, the great Mariano Garcia (once the winemaker at Vega Sicilia), who was consulting at Luna Beberide at the time. According to their published specs on that wine, it was "Macerated and fermented in small stainless steel vats for 20 days with 2 or 3 pumping overs every day. The wine was aged for 15 months in New French oak (Renou, Seguin Moreau, Taransaud). Fined with egg whites and bottled unfiltered in April 2005." Several Ribeira Sacra producers do leave some stems in (I think I had one last night!). I will make some inquiries and give you some names. Many of my producers ferment with native yeasts. Many thanks for you questions, ChiantiandFava. My best, Gerry Dawes Gerry Dawes's Spain: An Insider's Guide to Spanish Food, Wine, Culture and Travel

Many, many thanks, SeanMike. My best regards, Gerry