Description
Long-term amigos and now business partners, Telmo Rodriguez and Pablo Eguzkiza have been kicking wine goals together for nearly 30 years. No doubt at the forefront of Espana’s finest new wave viticulturists and winemakers. They started working together in the late 1980s at Telmo’s family Rioja estate, Remelluri, and went on to become leaders in changing conceptions of Spanish wine during the post-Franco era (one of significant recovery and re-imagining).
Trained as winemakers at University of Bordeaux, with formative experience working for some of France’s finest (Clape, Chave and co..), Telmo and Pablo are among the most thoughtful of Spain’s post-industrial organic producers, deeply committed to authenticity. Since the early 90s, they have attempted to move beyond the limits of 20th century practice; increasingly this involves deeply historical revisions. It would be a poor mistake to tag such cultural historians with any label such as ‘modern’.
La Compania started in 1992 with a modest Navarra Garnacha. That same year they bought their first parcel of land (the Falcoeira vineyard in Valdeorras) and set about exploring Spain with the intention to re-discover, re-interpret and re-invent Spain’s lost /degraded wine history. Over time, they found parcels to work all over Spain. Initially, they worked in old vineyards guarding the (often endangered) genetic identity of these different regions. Nowadays, they are also doing much new planting, re-asserting the historical match of locally evolved cultivars (often as field blends) to best sites and historical practices.
A cool site, facing west towards the eastern reach of DO Ribeira Sacra on the other bank, Caborcas was Telmo and Pablo’s first single vineyard release from Valdeorras. The fine print on the label, ‘Ladeiros do Bebei’, means high terraces above the Rio Bibei. Organically grown, hand-planted to selections of indigenous genetic material, it’s a field blend of Mencia with Merenzao, Brancellao, Garnacha, Godello and Sousón, facing west and north-west towards the Falcoeira vineyard on the other side of the valley. Grown at 550-600m altitude and exhaustingly worked by hand, it’s a 50-50 mix of 100 year old Mencia vines and a young field blend. Caborcas minuscule yields 4 tonnes on nearly 2 hectares of close-planted bush-vine. It is fermented in a mix of neutral large oak and stainless steel vats and aged 12 months in large old oak casks. The images on the label of As Caborcas are drawn from the nearby 17th century Santurio das Ermitas. The first release of Caborcas was 2010. Caborcas is one of the purest wines to pass these lips! Telmo’s aspiration to express through the earth, rather than winemaking is profoundly achieved – the wine from this granite vineyard barely seems made at all, but rather like some heavenly breath; an utterance of the soil. It has the roses, velvet, sour cherry and crushed fruit stone-and-rock perfume on nose and in mouth that can only be Mencia. Purity & Delicacy reminiscent of Grand Cru Morey St Denis.. Deftly textured, mineral, herbal and red-fruited, it’s long, open and lively with a lovely sense of space. It’s expressive, expansive and utterly free.
Heathery balsamic country characters run through boysenberry fruit richness, cut by bright spicy-acid, with the fresh mineral granite in and under. It’s truly a wine of its countryside. The palate is magnificently formed – almost mid-weight, it radiates in all directions with utmost deftness. Lingering spices are fine and spritely – water-spray-delicate – giving a delicate sourberry thrill. Crunchy-fine tannins are a guiderail, and those little round purply-tart fruits just roll along and on … the way the fruit works within all the countryside tells is brilliant! A wine of mind-boggling unified oneness; expressive, expansive, utterly free.
Caborcas is up there with the purest of wines to pass these lips.. its extraordinary high tone and balance reminds me of Grand Cru Morey St Denis! Rare and limited!
RRP $170
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