paul white

Rota was not an important seaport, it was a fishing village until the U.S. Navy made it an important military port.

I was thinking as it was close to Cadiz and all the other little fishing villages up to Huelva might have been growing the same/similar grapes. High acid Graciano makes sense there, although it probably gets sun-burned pretty easy.

Following a pilgrim's trail from Jaen to Portugal is a big stretch, since that would not have been a logical pilgrim's trail. Lisbon is west of Jaen, Santiago northwest. Jaen would have been impossible to a part of any pilgrim's trail to Santiago until after the 13th century, when the city was re-conquered from the Moors. It took 2 and a half more centuries to re-conquer Granada, which is only 60 miles south of Jaen, so no vine-carrying pilgrims were coming from there. How Mencia came to be called Jaen, could have come to be called "Jaen" in Portugal, could be one of those accidents of history.

Yeah, it may be one of the accidents of history, which DNA will clear up. But sometimes there just might be a bit of truth hidden there too.

Actually the Portuguese 'central way' Santiago trail came through Dao and up from the southeast via Evora, Caceres and Seville and points east and south. Keying on the old Roman capitol Viseau, it carried on inland on to Valanca bording Galicia further inland. it wasn't really attached to the Coastal Way through Lisbon far to the west.

On timing, the trail has been in continuous use for hundreds of years after Jaen fell to the Christians so there is a chance the grape might have come in after that. DNA has nailed Jaen as one of the youngest arrivals, apart from French grapes post Napoleon. It may have slipped in from short hop up to Sacra or who knows where from in south.

Somewhere in the back of my head I recall that a local relative/clone of Mencia does exist near Jaen under a different name. Poor recall? or do you know anything about this? What are the wines like around Jaen, if any? They must be some old field blends of something the locals drink.

A few years back I was judging wine in Valencia. One of saddest moments was trying to find a bottle of local Bobal to drink afterwards. I think I plowed through 120 bottles of locally made French variety labeled wines and only found 2 Bobal to taste. What's your take on all that?

Gerry,

Sorry I didn't really toss a question in there for you in last post, Gerry. It was really more a brainstorm riffing off your handing me a new factoid about Graciano. The grape got me to thinking about another connection.

It was somewhat ironic that Graciano caused our first meeting in Rioja during a wine journalist tour a good dozen years ago. I was there chasing down Graciano for an article I was writing for an Australian wine magazine. My eventual conclusion was its high acidity had huge potential in Oz, fortunately no one took my advice and the grape hasn't been spoofulated to death there in the interim (I except Brown Brothers who have honorably championed the grape since the 1920s and hold the largest Graciano vineyards in the world).

But as important as that trip was for me on that count, even more so was your helping me to understand that Rioja, at that point, was at a critical juncture. The battle between (internationally driven) 'modernists' and the 'traditionalists' was raging and you helped me understand who was on what side and what really was at stake. I am deeply indebted to you for that. It quickly became clear the traditionalis were probably going to lose the battle to big money and dummed down market demands.

So my question is where do you see the battle ground now? Who is losing or is the battle over? Are any guerillas on the upsurge? Will places like Navara and Penedes and Alicante/Valencia ever toss out French grapes and replant their native grapes and rediscover their local terroir?

I had not heard this, but I am not surprised by it. Whatever Tintilla de Rota red wine vineyards disappeared were for than compensated for by the economic boon to the region from American money pouring in to build and maintain the base at Rota, which still employs many locals. Tintilla de Rota is apparently the same grape or, at least very similar, to Rioja's Graciano.

I also found this on the very fine Fringe Wine blog, whose author has concluded after a good deal of research that Tintilla de Rota is Graciano:

"Tintilla de Rota is used in both table wine and fortified wine production around the Sherry region of Spain. Rota is the name of a town in the Sherry region whose sandy soils are particularly well suited to the cultivation of the Tintilla grape. It has been known in this region since the 1500's, but was pushed to the brink of extinction in the 1950's as an American military base was constructed where many Tintilla vines were once planted. The wine that I was able to find was the fortified version from Emilio Lustau, which I picked up my friends at the Spirited Gourmet for about $45 (I believe Curtis Liquors carries this as well). To make this wine, the grapes are picked and then left out in the sun for two or three weeks to dry out. They are then placed in tubs and covered with mats to minimize the amount of air contact. They're left in the tubs for about a month and periodically stirred before being pressed. The wine is fortified to about 17% (mine was 17.5%) and then aged for awhile in casks before being bottled."

This is so cool. As you know I'm on a similar crusade trying to keep spoofulation out of Portugal and help it keep as many of its ancient varieties in the ground so we can all drink these in future. One of the grapes I've been chasing down there is Tinta Miuda, none other than Spain's Graciano, one of my favorite varieties.

Miuda seems to have been a major red variety around Lisbon before and just after phylloxera hit there. Surprisingly, Alvarinho was also a dominant white in Lisboa as well. Both have almost completely disappeared over course of 20th century. No one makes pure varietals from either now in Lisboa that I've been able to find so far, but there are vines still in old mixed vineyards there so hope survives.

Your digging up this infor about Tintilla de Rota makes me wonder if there is a connection between the two important seaports and the grapes they shared. Previously I wondered if maybe the origin of the grape in Lisbon came from Rioja. But this seaport link makes it just as likely Graciano originated in Andalucia and moved its way north by sea. Bilbao to Logrono maybe?

And that same reasoning spills over into Mencia's connection to Portugal where it's called Jaen in Dao (where it makes some damned fine wine from this grape). The logic of that is that it followed pilgrims up the Santiago Trail from Jaen in Spain.

As it's possible with DNA measurement (of clonal populations) now to pinpoint precisely where grapes came from, the real shame of the naval base ripping up those vineyards is we may never know now where Graciano originated.

"I had no idea that we had a large naval base at Rota in the Andalucian province of Cádiz, from which the Navy kept track of the Russian fleet in the Mediterranean. Suddenly, a Chief Petty Officer called my name, “Dawes, you lucky bastard, you are going to Rota, Spain.”

Gerry, Last time I was trawling for interesting stuff around Jerez I recall asking someone if there were ever red grapes in the region. The response was the the main vineyards were taken over by the US Naval base near Cadiz. And that several grapes were made extinct by that American colonization of Spain. Do you know anything about this?

Your departure from Rota suggests there is justice in the universe and hope for the future. It is ironic that, after the destruction of Rota's vineyards (if I have my story straight) and the bigger, more destructive colonization of Spanish regional wine styles by market demand for high spoofulated, identikit New World driven 'international' wine styles, you have probably done more to champion Spain's great wine traditions and helped preserve these from serious polution, if not outright extinction.

BTW, Thinking about Veterans Day your biography goes a long way toward celebrating how many, unsung American vets like yourself have gone about quietly repairing America's reputation abroad. There are many ways to serve one's country well and you've done more than your fair share.