Bodegas Aliaga Superb Tempranillo and Garnacha-Based Wines From Navarra, Including Aliaga Rosado de Lágrima de Garnacha (Garnacha Rosado made with free-run juice), one of Spain's Greatest Rosados

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Bodegas Aliaga, Corella (Navarra)

 The wines of Carlos Aliaga and his family.

 
Carlos Aliaga showing his Viña Aliaga vineyards to a visitor.
 Photo by Gerry Dawes©2011 / gerrydawes@aol.com.

The Wines of Aliaga and Restaurante El Crucero
(Click on the El Crucero titles below to see photos of the restaurant and its dishes.)
 

Upgraded to Four Dalí Watches: El Crucero in Corella (Navarra), Lunch with the Wines of Aliaga at One of the Great Restaurants of Navarra's Ribera Baja Wine-growing Region, Also Home to One of Spain's Finest Vegetable Growing Regions and Some of Navarra's Little-known, But Best Country Restaurants. 

Another Great Lunch at El Crucero, Corella (Navarra) with Carlos Aliaga and the Wines of Viña Aliaga, June 6, 2011 

Aliaga Lágrima de Garnacha Rosado 13.5%

Made from free-run juice from 100% old vines Garnacha from the Viña Aliaga vineyard located at Ombatillo near Corella in the heart of the Ribera Baja of Navarra.  The soil is calcareous and poor; vine density is 1,200 vines per acre.
 
This superb, lovely rosado is made by the free-run sangrado de lágrima method.  After brief contact with the red grape skins, the grape juice is separated by gravity without using any mechanical pressing, after which the must is fermented in temperature- controlled stainless steel tanks for 20 days at 14º C. (57º F.)

Fresh, clear and brilliant strawberry-cherry colour. The fragrant bouquet is reminiscent of fresh fruit.  On the palate the wines is clean, smooth and will balanced with a hints of flowers and cherries and a long, persistent mineral-laced finish.  This wine steadily evolves with time in bottle and is often superb 2-3 years from the vintage.
 
Food Pairings: Ideal for tapas, first courses, aperitifs, fish and seafood, chicken, port, Asian food, pasta, pizza and salads.  Not just a summer wine.  If you drink cold white wine in the cooler months, you will love this great rosado all year long.

"An almost dusty-dry Navarra sangrado ("bleeding," i.e. free-run juice) rosé — meaning that it's made from free-run juice — with a light, luminous pink color and an intense strawberry fruit both on the nose and on the palate." - - Colman Andrews, The Daily Meal.  Read more:  Spanish Wines — A Seductive New Crop: Godello, mencia, and other less-than-famous Iberian grapes shine in a new selection from Spanish wine expert Gerry Dawes

In Tudela (Navarra) at the home of Carlos Aliaga and his wife Mari Curz with a tomatada (tomatoes, ham and snail stew from southern Navarra) made by Nabor Jimenez of Restaurante El Crucero, which was closed for vacation,  and a bottle of Aliaga Rosado de Lágrima de Garnacha (Garnacha Rosado made with free-run juice), October 8, 2014. A wine represented by The Spanish Artisan Wine & Spirits Group - Gerry Dawes Selections.  Photo by Gerry Dawes©2014 / gerrydawes@aol.com / Facebook / Twitter / YouTube /  Pinterest.  Canon G15 / Canon f/1.8 – f/2.8 5X 24-140mm IS USM.

Aliaga Tempranillo 13.5% 

 

Dark cherry colour, with violet tones. The bouquet is clean, harmonic and intense. The taste is pleasant and reminiscent of ripe red fruits, the tannins are well-integrated and overall effect fresh, persistent and lasting.  This wine is ideal for red meat, game, roasts and well-cured cheeses.

Straight forward, good, un-blended, un-oaked Tempranillo, a relative rarity in Navarra, where there is a multitude of tempranillo wines, often blended with mediocre cabernet sauvignon.  Made from 100 % Tempranillo grapes grown in the calcareous soil of Viña Aliaga. The wine is fermented for 6 days in stainless steel tanks at 28 º C. (82 º F.). 

Aliaga Garnacha Vieja Tinto 2010 13.9%

100% old vines Garnacha grown in the calcareous 1,200 vine per acre Viña Aliaga vineyard.  

The wine is fermented for 6 days in stainless steel tanks at 28 º C. (82 º F.) followed by maceration on the grape skins for 20 days with two stirrings every day.  Aged 6 months in American and French Allier oak cask, but the wines does not have heavy oak flavors.  Only 2,800 cases are produced. 

Deep dark cherry color. Ripe black cherry and spice nose. Round, rich black cherry fruit with hints of garrigue herbs with long, persistent finish. 

Food Pairing:  Ideal with red meat, game, roasts, cheeses.

Aliaga Colección Privada Tinto 2007 13.5%  

Made from 80% Tempranillo and 20% Cabernet Sauvignon grown in the calcareous soil of Viña Aliaga.  The wine is fermented for 6 days in stainless steel tanks at 27 º C. (80 º F.), followed by maceration on the grape skins with two stirrings every day. Aged 12 months in new American and French Allier oak.  Just over 1650 cases made.

Deep black cherry colour rimmed with brick-red.  The nose is intense, with “toasty” aroma from its ageing in cask, reminiscent of ripe black and red fruits. Smooth, full-bodied and round, with a long finish. A very special wine.

Good with red meat, game, roasts, grilled and fried fish, Spanish, Italian and Mediterranean dishes, cheese.

Carlos Aliaga at the edge of Aliaga's property. The vineyards are on a higher plateau. Here the vineyards end and the land drops off into an area that is covered with wild thyme and rosemary, traces of which turn up in some of the wines as what the French call garrigues.   Photo by Gerry Dawes©2013 / gerrydawes@aol.com / Facebook / Twitter / YouTube / Pinterest.   Canon EOS 6D / Tokina Macro 100mm f/2

Aliaga Reserva de la Familia Tinto 2005 13.5% 

Brick-edged ruby.  Black and red fruits, complemented by toasty oak in the nose. Round, smooth and ripe with red and black berry compote, spices, garrigues-like herbal components and persistent finish. Good with red meat, game, roasts, grilled and fried fish, Spanish, Italian and Mediterranean dishes, cheese.

Made from 75% Tempranillo and 25% Cabernet Sauvignon grown in the calcareous soil of Viña Aliaga.  The wine is fermented for 6 days in stainless steel tanks at 27 º C. (80 º F.), followed by maceration on the grape skins with two stirrings every day. Aged 14 months in new American and French Allier oak.  Just under 2000 cases made.

Aliaga Moscatel Vendimia Tardia Dulce 2010 12.0% 500ML
 

100% late harvested Moscatel de Alejandria, from the calcareous soil of a single vineyard, Viña Lorena at Fugenique near Corella in Navarra’s La Ribera Baja.    Fermented for 35 days in stainless steel tanks at  12 º C. (53.6 º F.), after which by using only cooling techniques the fermentation is stopped without the addition of alcohol. Only 750 cases are produced.

Clean, clear, bright, gold-tinged color. Lovely honesuckle nose with hints of pear and peach.  Very fruity with luscious honeysuckle and peach flavors and a lingering, fresh, but not unctuous finish.    

Excellent with foie gras, ripe, soft cheeses and fruit-based desserts.

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Cabaliero Do Val, Meaño (Pontevedra) Bodeguero Artesano Francisco Dovalo

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Gerry Dawes with Francisco (“Paco”) Dovalo López, owner of Cabaleiro do Val, is the founder and president of the Asociación of Bodegas Artesanas, Rías Baixas, Galicia. The Spanish Artisan Wine Group - Gerry Dawes Selections imports six different artisan albariños from the Bodegas Artesanas.

Adega Cabaliero Do Val, Meaño (Pontevedra)
Bodeguero Artesano Francisco Dovalo 

Cabaleiro do Val Albariño 2013 13% 12/750ML $27.99
(also 2010, 2011, 2012 Colheita Seleccionada available)
 

Cabaliero do Val, Paco Dovalo's great Albariño, Asociación de Bodegas Artesanas.

Cabaleiro do Val was officially incorporated as a bodega in 1989, although Paco Dovalo López has been producing his vino de autor signature wine all his life in an old granite stone farmhouse that he inherited from his ancestors and dates from 1834.  A section of the house is the old bodega, where the Dovalo family has been making wine for more than 100 years.  In the garden of the house is a huge old grapevine, estimated to be at least 150 years old, that measures more than three feet in circumference and has branches 30 feet long (vines are trained on the trellised parral system here).

Chefs Michael Chiarello and Ryan Mcilwaith (Bottega, Napa Valley) with the 200-year old vine 
at Cabaliero do Val in the garden of Paco Dovalo's home.
All Photos by Gerry Dawes©2012.

In the early 70's, there were numerous little known grape varieties such as Espadeiro, Tinta Hembra, Catalán, Hoja Redonda and even some unknown grapes growing in his vineyards and though he kept a some of these varieties to study their characteristics, he decided to use only Albariño in his wines.  At the time, there were also strains of Albariño estimated to be more than 150 years old.  Dovalo took cuttings these old vines for re-planting sections of his vineyards–he calls them the mothers of all his Albariño vines. 

Paco Dovalo says the grapes obtained from the original Albariño vines made wine that is the model for what he tries to achieve in what he calls “my indigenous artisan wine,” Cabaliero do Val.  Dovalo, wine our ancestors. Dovalo has kept some of these old vines, which he says are unique among Albariño vineyards in Rías Baixas. 

Dovalo says that his wine very much reflects his personal taste, which is rooted in tradition and in his memory of wines from a by-gone era.  Though, he and his fellow artisan grower-producers respect that tradition and still work their own vineyards, some of which have been in the family for generations, they have evolved by incorporating modern vineyard management and winemaking equipment.  But, though they have “modernized” to a certain degree, many of the winery maintain rustic touches and they continue to produce exceptionally high quality artisan wines that their ancestors would have been proud of.

Paco Dovalo, grower-producer of Cabaliero Do Val.

Paco Dovalo says, "In my group of small artisan grower-producers, we make a very personalized style of wine, whose individual roots reside in the tradition and memory. 

Although we have incorporated some of the lessons learned from modern winemaking, we still continue the artisanal work that we learned from our fathers.”

“For those who continue our style of artisan winemaking,” Dovalo says, “we hope that our new generations will maintain this tradition and endure, but for them to do that we also know that we have to build a following and an appreciation of these pure and noble limited production wines.”

It was because of Paco Dovalo’s wine that I discovered this incredible group of artisan producers.  One day a decade ago, I was on my way from Rías Baixas to Ribeira Sacra.  I was driving through an area known more for cheeses than wine when I reached the small town of Melide.  It was nearly four o’clock and I still had not had lunch, so when I saw a hotel-restaurant, I stopped. 

At first taciturn, as Gallegos sometimes are, the son of the chef-owner (a damned good cook trained in France) opened up as lunch service was wearing down and made some recommendations to this American stranger.  First, he offered a couple of excellent Galician cows’ milk cheeses–slices of Arzua-Ulloa and of the breast-shaped classic Tetilla–and he suggested that I might like to try a glass of Cabaleiro do Val Albariño to accompany the cheeses.       

The wine was stunning.  He told me that it was from the jefe who had organized a group of artisan producers, who were rebelling against making Albariños like most of the larger wineries were producing.  I wrote down the name of the winery and vowed to check out these producers, but it was nearly three years later when I finally tracked them down and it would be another five years before I founded The Spanish Artisan Wine Company and began to import Cabaliero do Val and five more of these splendid artisan wines. 

Dovalo may see his dreams for the artisan wines of his group come true.  Although the wines have hardly seen the light of day in Spain outside of Galicia, the wines of the Asociación of Bodegas Artesanas are now on the lists of such great American restaurants and wine bars as Blue Hill at Stone Barns, Blue Hill (New York City), Crabtree’s Kittle House, Picholine, Petrossian, Terroir Tribeca, Tertulia, Barcelona Wine Bars (Connecticut) and Solera.
 

Carlos Aliaga and the Wines of Viña Aliaga at Another Great Lunch at El Crucero, Corella (Navarra

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Pochas at El Crucero.

Slide Show: Lunch at El Crucero

Also see El Crucero in Corella (Navarra), Lunch with the Wines of Aliaga at One of the Great Restaurants of Navarra's Ribera Baja Wine-growing Region, Also Home to One of Spain's Finest Vegetable Growing Regions and Some of Navarra's Little-known, But Best Country Restaurants.

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About Gerry Dawes  

Gerry Dawes's Spain: An Insider's Guide to Spanish Food, Wine, Culture and Travel  

Gerry Dawes was awarded Spain's prestigious Premio Nacional de Gastronomía (National Gastronomy Award) in 2003. He writes and speaks frequently on Spanish wine and gastronomy and leads gastronomy, wine and cultural tours to Spain. He was a finalist for the 2001 James Beard Foundation's Journalism Award for Best Magazine Writing on Wine, won The Cava Institute's First Prize for Journalism for his article on cava in 2004, was awarded the CineGourLand “Cinéfilos y Gourmets” (Cinephiles & Gourmets) prize in 2009 in Getxo (Vizcaya) and received the 2009 Association of Food Journalists Second Prize for Best Food Feature in a Magazine for his Food Arts article, a retrospective piece about Catalan star chef, Ferran Adrià. 

In December, 2009, Dawes was the subject of the Food Arts Silver Spoon Award in a profile written by José Andrés. 

". . .That we were the first to introduce American readers to Ferran Adrià in 1997 and have ever since continued to bring you a blow-by-blow narrative of Spain's riveting ferment is chiefly due to our Spanish correspondent, Gerry "Mr. Spain" Dawes, the messianic wine and food journalist raised in Southern Illinois and possessor of a self-accumulated doctorate in the Spanish table. Gerry once again brings us up to the very minute. . ." - - Michael & Ariane Batterberry, Editor-in-Chief/Publisher and Founding Editor/Publisher, Food Arts, October 2009. 

 

Mr. Dawes is currently working on a reality television series 

on wine, gastronomy, culture and travel in Spain.

Experience Spain With Gerry Dawes: Customized Culinary, Wine & Cultural Trips to Spain & Travel Consulting on Spain  

Gerry Dawes can be reached at gerrydawes@aol.com.