Pictures are here
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We did not try and jam 5 wineries a day in. So in the end we visited Roda, good wines, hi tech, but not a personal visit more the typical tourist visit. We did get a chance to taste all of their wines plus several of their olive oils.
We tasted Roda, Roda 1 and Cirsion ( there $200-300 bottle) excellent wines with great depth and concentration.
The rest of our appointments were all very personal ITB visits.
At Rameriz de Ganuza their marketing/export director Luis Martinez, He was on the skype feed during the Iconic wines of Spain session along with Fernando Rameriz de Ganuza with Maria-Jose from Lopez de Heredia and someone from Marques Di Riscal along with Pancho)showed us around. They are very determined to make the highest quality wine. All gravity fed. We only tasted one wine thought so that was bit of a drag.
Then next day we had an appointment at noon at Lopez de Heredia. The wine maker Mercedes Lopez de Heredia, A 5’2” dynamo, led us.
We were waiting for 5 additional people to join us as we chatted for about 20 minutes. We were about to start and the group showed up. Here they were wine friends from Philly on a tour of Spain on their on. Real serendipitous. So Jose had been to LdH many times and we got the gold standard of a visit. We were there for 4 hours finishing up with Iberico, nuts and queso along with barrel samples of their 03’ Tondonia Riserva (current release is 02’), 05 Tondonia Riserva and a
Rosado made from blending white and red (this is banned by the EU except for Champagne to the best of my knowledge.). At this point Mercedes kept talking as I was inquiring as to what label does it get VdlM or VdlT. I really did not have a chance to ask Mercedes. I never saw a bottle so it’s unknown except that they call it Claret also probably not permitted by the DOCa or EU. I found a picture of a 1998 bottle and is states DOCa.
1998 Lopez de Heredia Rosado | Dining at Brooklyn Fare. Befo… | Flickr . So I guess it must be legal. I looked the Consejo Regulador regulations and could not find a definition of how Rosado must be made. So much for the geek in me.
Then we went and tasted a slew of wines in bottle Gran Reservas, and Reservas. I don’t have my notes here so can’t tell which specific wines. They have 15,000 barrels full of wine aging in their cellars or 4.5 million bottles. Amazing stuff.
After Lopez we drove their Tondonia vineyard for an hour. It is bordered on 3 sides of the Ebro river. The winery is on the South west side across the river and you can see the road as Avenida de Vizcaya. Amazing views of the Sierra Cantabria mountain as well as the small town of Brinas.
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