Contined from Rioja report found here.
Ribera del Duero pix http://tinyurl.com/ylbfqbn
The next day we were off to Ribera del Duero. We had an afternoon appointment at Felix Callejo. They are located about 20 minutes Northeast of Arande de Duero in the town of Soltillo de la Ribera. Here is another bodega making stunning wines. We met up with Cristina Callejo, their export director and holder of the WSET Advanced Certificate and her brother the winemaker Jose-Felix. The Bodega is a non-descript utilitarian winery that allows them maximum space for versatility in moving things around. They also built a small winery in the garage next door to Jose-Felix’ house where they will be making a Pago. I believe, of syrah, cabernet sauvignon and merlot grown at and elevation of 2000 meters. None has been released yet nor do they have a name for it yet.
Here we tasted 08’ tempranillo, 06’ Crianza, 05’ Reserva, 05’ Seleccion de Vinedos de la Familia and the 04’ Seleccion de Vinedos de la Familia. The last two were like 96 and 95 from the Wine Advocate but the Penin guide to Spanish wine had them in the low 90’s, Nevertheless still great wines. (NB the 03 received a 98 from Dr. Big Jay)
We spent the better part of 3 hours with them.
Next day we had an appointment at Abadia Retuerta, A relative new winery started in 1996. Pascal Delbeck has been a consultant on design and winery operations from the start. They have about 700 acres planted in valley just north of the Duero and a few miles west of Vega Sicilia. We had called a few days before to confirm and we found that we would be joining a group of 12 from the UK and that they would be serve a light lunch as long as we did not mind. So we arrived at 10:00 AM sharp as they asked us to be on time. The Abbey and a few out buildings were under renovation so we checked out the work site while we waited. The bus with the folks from the UK arrived about 20 minutes late. There were about a dozen or so Sommeliers in all states of study (and pain from their forced march across the Iberian Peninsula), whether Diploma, MW or MW refugees, so we felt right at home, at least with the refugees.
We were led by their sales and marketing director Alvaro Perez Navazo.We hopped on their bus and rode up into the vineyards on the south side of the N-122 their vineyards are facing north. I thought this was a little strange especially since they are /were trying to get cabernet sauvignon and merlot ripe. I did not get a chance to ask about this choice. They are giving up on cab and Merlot and going to graft over to syrah.
At one point I did ask when they might be producing a wine within the Ribera del Duero DO. I did not realize that they are not in the DO. When they drew up the boundaries there were no vineyards at his location so the land was omitted.
After the vineyard we toured their production facility and met the winemaker who spoke no English, but he did offer us a taste of 130 proof arguadente they were using in some fortified wine they were messing with. Most wanted no parts of this but I stepped right up. Very impressive operation all gravity fed several sorting tables and overhead cranes to move everything around by gravity.
Pascal Delbeck has invented a device that is fitted into the bung of the barrel that permits racking with out turning the barrels up, so all the bungs are down and they leave the barrels in that position. I did videotape this operation but it’s a video of a video so I did not think it was to cool to load on to youtube.
We then went back to the abbey for a tasting and lunch, Santa María de Retuerta Monastery which housed The Premonstratensian Order, founded in France by St. Norbert in 1120, We entered the retail area and then the church, We looked at each other like OMG, Here we were standing in this fully renovated 12th century church of the Abbey.
We tasted several wines, their popular Rivola from several vintages 06’ and 07’ and you could see in the weaker vintage how it is difficult for the cab not to show an herbal bell pepper edge, Followed by 2006 Seleccion Especial. Then we moved on to two their pagos, 05’ Pago Garduna (syrah) and 04’ Pago Negralada (tempranillo). The pagos were clearly the best wines with the tempranillo just nudging out the syrah for my wine of the tasting. I’ll find my notes and see if I can add to the notes here. We then dined on Iberico, Queso, Croquettas and breads. A great visit and my wife was especially pleased with the church and abbey as the backdrop
After lunch we went to the castle in Penafiel but we got there at 1:45 and they were closed from 2:00 until 4:30. So we drove around and parked looking for a place to chill, finally landing in the Black Rose Taberna. Oddly enough then sign in the window was in English but not a lick of English was spoken and our Spanish is weak. I saw the young bartender had a pc underneath the bar and asked “google major league baseball”
(The Phillies were still playing the Dodgers and we were out of the loop. Once we found out the Phillies’s had won the NLCS he started to use a translation web page to talk to us for the next hour or so until it was time to go back to the castle. Pretty novel way to communicate.