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The Philosophy of
The Spanish Artisan Wine & Spirits Group™
Gerry Dawes Selections™
“Wines the Way They Ought to Taste”
“What
makes the world of wine so interesting, compelling and even romantic is
the diversity of vineyards, grapes, producers and wines, not
homogeneity or sameness.”
Eugenio Merino of Bodegas Crescencia Merino in the family vineyards in Corcos del Valle (Valladolid)
that he works so hard to tend, allowing him to produce one of the truly great rosados of Cigales.
Photo by Gerry Dawes©2011 /
gerrydawes@aol.com
We
prefer family-owned bodegas with their own vineyards (preferably
un-irrigated or minimally irrigated) or those who work with controlled
growers under long-term associations. We are looking for
winemakers with a dedication to producing wines that reflect their own
unique tastes and the uniqueness of their vineyard sites, grapes, soil,
climate and individual tastes, not preconceived tastes "that the market
is asking for." We represent unique wines that taste the way the people
who make them think the product of their years-long labor in the
vineyards ought to taste.
Gerry
Dawes with members of La Asociación de Bodegas Artesanas (Artesan
Bodegas) of Rías Baixas, some of the more than a dozen small
grower-producers who use native yeasts to ferment their Albariño wines. These Galician bodegueros make Albariños
the way they think the wines ought to taste and each of their wines is
as distinct from the other as they are as individuals. At the end of
July, these artisan producers hold their Feria del Vino de Autor, to
show their wines, with an "author" behind each one. They only
bottle their wines of the previous vintage in time to have them for the
Feria, while most producers bottle theirs just 2-3 months after the
harvest. Photo: Gerry Dawes©2011 / gerrydawes@aol.com / www.gerrydawesspain.com
We
do not represent wines that conform to the conventional canon, i.e.,
wines so dark that you can't see the bottom of the glass; wines with
jammy, overripe fruit; wines low in acid; "dry" red or white wines
with pronounced residual sugar; wines that taste more of oak than
wine; or wines with levels of alcohol higher that 13.5%. We prefer
13% and lower, but will consider wines of 14% on rare occasions, but
only if they seem particularly well balanced, which is a
sleight-of-hand performed by very few maestros.
A No-Can-See-Bottom-of-Glass Wine of the Inky Monster School.
We
see no virtue in wines so extracted and concentrated in color that you
can't see the bottom of the glass. Depth of color is no indicator of a
great wine in the glass, it merely a very dark wine, which often means
it has very high alcohol and is a very extracted wine made from overripe
grapes. Such wines are usually made to please reviewers during the two
minutes they may have to evaluate one wine among the 30-100 wines they
will taste that day. We don't believe that is the criteria by which
really good wines should be judged.
We
don't mind if the wines are lightly filtered, since we don't put much
stock in the unfined, unfiltered wisdom, nor do we believe in
exaggerated concentration of flavors as a virtue.
We
do not seek wines that rely on harvesting overripe grapes and
submitting them to long macerations to achieve dark color, high alcohol
and so-called "flavor." We discourage the abuse of battonage,
the popular stirring of dead lees back into the wine, a practice that
effectively breaks and often obliterates the seamless marriage of great
minerality with the taste from great grapes, putting an artificial
volume-appearance enhancing element in wines that misses the point of
what a great wine should be about.
And
we discourage barrel fermentation in new oak and aging wines in
improperly prepared new oak, either French or American, all of which
tend to obscure both the taste of the grape variety and any terruño (terroir), or unique sense of place, that a wine may possess.
We believe that wines subjected to the harshness of too much improperly conditioned new oak
taste more like a the product of a saw mill than of a vineyard. Photo: Gerry Dawes©2009 / gerrydawes@aol.com
We
prefer to work with wineries that use only hand-harvested fruit. In
the case that we may begin to work with a producer who machine harvests,
we will urge that producer to begin hand harvesting the fruit as soon
as possible for the wines we import.
Harvester monument, Cacabelos, Bierzo.
We
do not represent wines with artificial closures, i.e., screw caps,
plastic "corks," and composite corks with chemical binders. We will be
working with a major Portuguese cork supplier, Amorim, who will
guarantee our producers’ wines against cork taint and we will say so on
our labels. (To be implemented by all our suppliers by the second year
of their Spanish Artisan Wine Group association.)
Carlos de Jesus of Amorim in Portugal explains the process of preparing cork that will be made
into natural cork wine stoppers. Photo by Gerry Dawes©2010 / gerrydawes@aol.com
We
recognize that some vintage years are better than others, but we put
our stock in small producers who make every effort to get the best of
any vintage, even if it means throwing out half their grapes. From long
experience, we believe true wine lovers should follow producers, not
vintage years. When a great producer harvests an exceptional vintage
truly great wines can be made. In a so-called great vintages, many
mediocre producers make as much wine as possible to take advantage of
the fame of that vintage year. Such wines are seldom as good as those
that conscientious producers make, even in an off year.
We believe that there is a substantial market for wines that express our philosophy.
- - Gerry Dawes©2013.
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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 awarded 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.
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