Rioja

So where is it an important blender? In the Southern Rhone.

It's also a blender in Rioja.

Generally not the main grape, but a backup to Tempranillo.

Priorat, it is often the main grape.

These are vendues naturelles or fortified wines.

Grenache is the main grape.

But as I'm talking about these famous blends, which many of them you've heard of, I'm sure you've heard of Rioja and Prirat and Chateauneuf, there's no variety on the label.

So Grenache or Grenache has never really gotten its due because although it is the horse that drives all of these really famed blends, it doesn't have top billing on a label because We're going to talk about Grenache mainly as a red grape, Grenache Tinta or Grenache Noir, but it does come in multiple versions.

Who do we listen to in our region, in our sector, in our industry? Are we listening to the people with the most useful knowledge and the most experience or maybe the ones with just the loudest voices or the biggest social media budgets? And when should we step forward and offer leadership ourselves? Which brings me back to the question that this episode started with.

How big does a farm business need to be? In Rioja, I met Victor Orsejo, who had inherited a share in a small area of vines.

Now, he could have tried to compete with the medium-sized wineries around him, but instead he built a low-cost winery in his garage and made small batches of really high-quality wine and directed it towards Michelin-starred restaurants rather than selling direct.

And here's the part that took me quite a while to get my head around – He could produce more from his vines than he does, but he chooses to sell 60% of all of his production to the local cooperative.

It had a lot of Spanish oak spice.

If you're familiar with Spanish wines and you've had like big Rioja wines, big sort of Tempranillos from Spain.

They do have like this spice that is really good.

I didn't think it worked for this particular bourbon.

But it is...

A tremendously challenging thing in the great areas of Burgundy and Bordeaux and Chianti and Rioja and all these famous places.

Champagne.

Champagne is a couple of hours drive from Calais.

wine glass.

Spain is famous for the Rioja, so I guess it's a Cab Sav sort of heaviness of beautiful red wine, but they also make great whites.

The whites drift a little into the Cab Sav area, which is not my choice.

I'm more a Chardonnay drinker, I must admit, but the wine is local and they're very proud of it.

You were in Spain.

Best country, Spain, landed in Madrid, so we did Madrid, Calatayud, Rioja, Bilbao, Cataria, Zubai, San Sebastian, and then we went up to the Pyrenees and came back via Zaragoza.

What's it like for a master of wine touring France? Do you just know everyone? Do you just go to every? Sorry.

Yeah, we do lots of wineries and we try and I was saying to you earlier that the organised tours, the tourist tours aren't really for us because we just don't want to sit there and taste wine and they're bloody expensive.

It's like slow gin.

So it's a digestive made from slow berries and it is just delicious.

And I found it was 38 degrees so it was a bit hot to be drinking the Big Reds and we were in Rioja and Calatayud.

You know, I've got a good friend, Norrell, makes wine in Calatayud and grows, you know, bush-grown Grenache at about 500 kilos per acre.