Wine tasting or drowning in sophistication

There’s something tremendously exhilarating about a wine tasting session. I mean, apart from being able to drink some rather good wines, it also gives you the opportunity to bathe in apparent sophistication even if, like me, you really need water wings to stay afloat in such a rarefied medium. 

I do generally know when I’m drinking a good wine. I’m a bit hazier on the difference between a good wine and a superb one. As for all that stuff about a touch of raspberry or peach, let alone hints of vanilla or liquorice, it’s all completely beyond me. But I like to sit listening to people who apparently know what they’re talking about and nod my head as if I had the faintest idea what they meant, especially if I have a glass in my hand from which I can keep confirming that I don’t.

Now, I won’t pretend that I knew absolutely nothing about Spanish wine before moving to this country. I used to drink the odd glass of Rioja, which I enjoyed, but which I also felt might help establish that veneer of sophistication that, as I said, I rather aspire to. Two of my sons, who have been living in Madrid so long that their move there more or less disappears in the mists of time, then introduced us to the Ribera del Duero wines, which do have a certain je ne sais quoi, even if I don’t know what it is.

Valencian wines, however, I’d never really tried. That’s despite the fact that, as well as rice and oranges, the Valencian region is a leading producer of wine. And it was to that region that we moved.

Danielle and I had been to wine tastings in France and Germany before, but until just now, never in Spain. I felt this was remiss of us. Fortunately, we have two excellent friends, Pamela and Ian, who know more about wine than Boris Johnson knows about mendacious politics. Pamela, indeed, taught people about wine and would take them on wine tasting tours of Spain.

The modern style of the outside of Chozas Carrascal

When they suggested we might like to join them at the Chozas Carrascal winery in the town of Requena, just three-quarters of an hour’s drive from here, we jumped at the chance to get to know the heart of the Valencian wine-producing region at last.

The visit was all we’d hoped for. The company was excellent, of course. The wine was uplifting (perhaps a little too uplifting: we weren’t spitting it out, and by the time I got home, I felt rather too uplifted to do anything much else that day). And, of course, we got all the sophistication I could possibly wish for.

It turns out that Chozas Carrascal is a recent ‘bodega’. Founded in 1990, the land was bought by a family which took over and restored a fine old farmhouse, and then added much more modern but equally attractive buildings around it. 

We were shown around by a friendly and well-informed guide. She turned out to be from Venezuela, like rather a lot of people we meet in Valencia. But then around a third of that sad country’s population has fled abroad. Fleeing what some friends of mine persist in calling Socialism, though I like to think that Socialism might be a tad more attractive than that.  

Our guide Chahua, from sad Venezuela,
with a joyful bottle of 'The Eight'

The family spent a couple of years studying the soil and decided that they could plant eleven grape varieties, each to their own patch of particularly suitable land. They then decided not to follow the vogue set in Anglo-Saxon countries, of having wine from only a single grape variety – a Merlot, a Chardonnay, a Pinot Noir, whatever – but take the individual varieties, each fermented in its own way and then blended for the best possible effect.

So they served us a sparkling wine, a Cava, made from two varieties, a white wine known as ‘las tres’, the three, and to crown the whole session, a red made from eight grapes, ‘las ocho’.  

It might surprise you to learn that I could distinguish all eight varieties and the specific flavour of the soil in which each was grown. At least, I assume it would surprise you, because it would have astonished me. 

I enjoyed it all, though, which I guess puts me into the same category of sophistication of the art lover who tells you “I don’t know much about art, but I know what I like”.

Well, I know what I like. I liked the wine. I liked the company. I liked the setting. What’s more, we came away with some bottles for us to enjoy later.

Great company, a lovely setting in the old farmhouse's cella
With Danielle, Pamela and Ian

One we’ll be enjoying later this evening, as the old year ends and the new begins. A bottle of two-grape Cava to celebrate the start of what we hope will be a better year. With a touch of sorrow for one event it marks, Britain’s final departure from the EU.

Still, to the rest of us: Happy New Year!

Roxanne Cava from Chozas Carrascal