Wine of the Week: CVNE Viña Real Barrel Fermented Blanco
White Rioja that isn’t boring but isn’t like chewing a tree either.
White Rioja used to fall into two categories: like chewing a tree or tastes of nothing at all. Generally I preferred the first category. When the traditional style was good, like Marques de Murrieta1, it was really good, especially older vintages that took on a sherried tang but when it was bad it tasted like wine that had been soaked with oak chips.
The unoaked style was an attempt to drag Rioja into the 20th century but the results were usually underwhelming. The problem was the grape, viura. It doesn’t sound very inspiring does it, like a rebranded Northern building society or perhaps something you’d use to treat a groin infection. It’s not a grape with a lot of pizzazz. There are other grapes in the region like malvasia blanco but that oxidised quickly, not handy for making a fresh style of wine, and some garnacha blanca - again not a fireworks grape.
No wonder some bodegas gave up trying to make a white wines and instead looked further afield. Marques de Riscal pioneered Rueda in central Spain in the 1970s, using high tech winemaking to draw out all the aromatic potential of verdejo, a grape previously used to make sherry-style wines. Other bodegas like La Rioja Alta invested in albariño from Rias Baixas founding Lagar de Cervera in 1988. There was even talk of planting chardonnay in Rioja to try and spice things up a bit. I’m not sure how far that got.
The funny thing is that over the border in France viura is known as macabeo (or macabeu in Catalan) and it makes some interesting examples. It’s usually blended with grenache blanc, gris etc but solo viura doesn’t have to be boring as my wine of the week demonstrates.
It comes from CVNE which has to be one of the most no-nonsense names for a producer, Compañía Vinícola del Norte de España. No pissing around there with aristocratic titles here. It’s a wine company from Northern Spain. ¿Comprende? It’s one of the original bodegas in Haro along with La Rioja Alta and others. - and I do seem to be writing a lot about Rioja recently, don't I?
Anyway… The company is famous for its red wines: Viña Real, tends to be lighter and comes in a Burgundy bottle, and Viña Imperial, heavier comes in a Bordeaux bottle. The latter in particular can be magnificent but they are muscular wines which need bottle time. There’s also a cheaper range called Cune (coo-nay, how CVNE is pronounced in Spanish) which is reliable. Plus single estate wines under the Contino label are usually superb.
It’s the Viña Real Barrel Fermented Blanco I want to look at in detail. It’s sort of trad Rioja but with a modern twist. I can’t believe I wrote, with ‘a modern twist’. Next it’ll be ‘gifting’ then you can take me out and shoot me. It’s fermented in barrels, hence the name, but they’re not American oak as is traditional in the region, the wood is Hungarian. From tasting I’d also surmise that the wine is aged on the lees because it has lots of texture. I’ve tasted quite a few vintages and in the past there seemed to be a lack of harmony between the oak and the rather nondescript viura character, if character is the right word.
The latest vintage, 2021, however, is an absolute joy. There’s plenty of rich appley fruit with creamy nutty notes and the oak is blended in seamlessly. In fact, it doesn't really taste oaky at all, just really rich. Imagine a particularly tasty Macon. It’s really very very good. It’s one of those wines that I’m always looking out for that functions like a white burgundy but on a budget.
But the fun doesn’t stop there!
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