Back to School-Spanish Wine Academy-Day 1

WINE TALK
1

I will post all of my tasting notes after the 3 days are up, but I sat through a pretty boring day of lectures on Spanish wines.

A couple of highlights…

A joke from the lecturer that he says is circulating around Spain…

Q: What two diseases did North America give to Spain?
A: Phyloxerra and Robert Parker.

All bad jokes aside, we tasted Albarinho today. Side by side were the Codax and Burgans Albarinhos.

As per Eric Solomon’s and Robert Parker’s website, “Burgans is a custom cuvee made for importer Eric Solomon. While it’s not the best Albarino on the market, in terms of bang for the buck, it has no challenger.”-Jay Miller

Robert Parker has mentioned that this wine is a custom cuvee as well, made at Codax, as per Eric Solomon’s European Cellars website.

The lecturer, today, refuted that. Essentially stating that Burgans is practically a supermarket brand in Spain, selling for 5 euros, and is all over the place there, just not in screwcap. He was astonished to hear that that wine could sell for more money than the real Codax wine, as he said the Burgans is cheaper product with more RS.

What should come as no surprise to anyone is that in the 2007 vintages, Miller gave Burgans a 90, and the Codax 87 points.

Can anyone shed some light on this one? On Solomon’s site today, it still says that it is a custom cuvee.

2

Burgans is, or at least used to be, available in Dominican Republic years ago. I doubt Eric Solomon imports down there, right?

3

I also doubts he imports into Spain.

4

Yesterday, the instructor, who had not poo pooed any wine that we had been sampling, despite the fact that we tasted some real shit, decided to go off on Lopez y Heredia. He said no one in Spain likes the wines.

5

Dan, did he elaborate? I’ve liked some of the older Bosconias.

Interesting on the Burgans.

6

Burgans has been available in Japan for a while now.

7

Dan:

Was the instructor from Spain? What are his credentials? MW, MS?

It appears that the instructor does not know that much about one of the oldest wineries in Spain (López de Heredia has been in business for over 130 years).

FWIW, López de Heredia average annual production is 800,000 Kgs of grapes. That translates to over half a million bottles per year. 90% of its production is sold in the Spanish market according to a couple wine publications. Not a bad amount of bottles sold for a wine that people do not like [scratch.gif].

Loren Sonkin attended the same course a few months ago and provided tasting notes on the wines tasted at his course. From the list of wines that Loren provided and the order the wines were served, I am not to impressed with the course in general. The comment on Heredia does not help my impression on the course.

SALUDos,
José

8

Took this course in San Diego during August, and it was my general impression that the message of the Course was very in favor of the modern style of winemaking, versus the traditional method done by those like Lopez de Heredia. At the end of our course, our class expressed to our teacher, almost unanimously, how we wanted to see more wines done in the traditional approach. Our instructor was not happy about this at all, especially since it was being videotaped, but he was a very congenial person.

I really enjoyed the Cava and Sherry tasting. It was also good to meet some industry people in SD.

9

The instructors comments about Lopez seem really strange. Given the fact that at the SWE conference Pancho had Maria- Jose live on a scype feed.
I’ll have to check my notes from the course taken in 07’ IIRC we tasted some big ass modern wines, no Lopez I can remember.

Mark

Thats me 2nd from the left holding a bottle of wine. [berserker.gif]

10

Mark:

I guess you meant María José.

Could you check the wines you had in 2007 and see if there was any overlap with the ones Loren had recently? Was the serving order similar?

Thanks in advance,
José

11

Sorry about that. [blush.gif]
I’ll see if I can find them. I know we spoke about this at Shola’s.
Mark

12

I will post my notes as well.

I am sure we had the same instructor as the other courses. Jesus is his name.

Very nice guy. Lopez comment was the puzzler.

Pancho Campo was on Skype today for the Sherry tasting.

13

Yeah, it’s repeated all over all of the comedy shows on all TV channels… Even in Basque and Catalan. A real riot.

But come to think of it, I would say “Pancho Campo” is heard much more than “Robert Parker” these days around our little wine world in Spain.

14

It would appear that Pancho and Bob are equally popular.

I heard the joke originated at a newspaper called El Mundovino, or something like that.

15

Jose, I looked for my tasting notes but could not find them. They are arond somewhere. Eventually I’ll find them.

Here are a couple of links to the Pancho Campo story as it continues to unfold.

16

Burgans belongs to Martin Codax and it is also sold here in Spain. It is suposed to be different to Martin Codax in its approach to winemaking (they claim it is made in a more modern profile) and retails for around the same euros than the Martin Codax

In any case, I don’t think they est represent the area. Do Ferreiro, Feifañanes, Pazo de Señorans or Lusco would have been better options

Regarding Tondonia, I can introduce these guys some people that go nuts over their wines

17

Surprised to hear that Jesus said that about Lopez. I brought a bottle to the Cleveland class and he raved about it. I got my diplomas this week. neener

18

Here’s another installment:
Jim's Loire: Pancho Campo MW: the essence" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;