Celebrating Spain: Torres and Viña Esmeralda

I watched Sunday's match and though I was cheering for the Dutch (my father is Dutch - hence my name, Broerse) I have to say Spain played a solid game.

I'm getting over the reeling heartbreak of Roeben's fatal and tragic near-miss, that one beautiful attempt in the second half when he had that one breathtaking breakaway. But how am I recovering? 

THE SWEET LOSS

Well, I'm drinking Torres' Viña Esmeralda, an excellent white Spanish wine from Catalunya. I figure this is the one true, less trying way of embracing the dreariness of defeat. I dearly love Spanish wine and I have to wonder what I might have written had Holland won. They are certainly not the wine-producing country Spain is with Heinekken as their flagship alcoholic beverage producer and distributor. I might be writing about Holland's beer king or the role the Dutch played in producing brandy (for another blog).

Alas, here I am with my Spanish white, a blend of 85% Moscatel  de Alejandra and 15% Gewürztaminer grown in the northeast of Spain. The wine has a bouquet of sun-kissed bananas,  peaches,  and pineapple. On the palate, you can taste the passion fruit, the kiwi and a minimal whisper of mineral and lime. It is off-dry and would be ideal with a summery fruit salad. 

TORRES: A TORCH AND TOWER FOR SPANISH WINE

But why this wine?

Well, if you want to celebrate Spain's victory, you should chose a wine from the greatest bodega in Spain's modern wine history. Torres, for those who don't know the incomparable bodega  is what you might call  the Mondavi of Iberia. 

The story really begins several decades ago with Miguel Torres Carbó who took over the family firm in Vilafranca del Penedès in 1932 at the age of 23. During the Spanish Civil War, Torres Bodega was badly damaged by shelling. Despite the costs of reviving and rebuilding his winery in 1940, Torres knew the key to success existed in exporting.

So with his wife Doña Margarita, the couple traveled throughout South America, the Far East and the Pacific Rim, Europe and North America in hopes of establishing contacts and gaining support for his dream of reviving the Spanish wine industry. He knew the export market after WWII was in rough shape. Europe and North America weren’t especially keen on importing wine from a country with a dictator holding the reigns. He found friends in Latin America and the Far East, where there was a much warmer reception.

In the 1960’s, Torres was credited with the first installation of stainless steel fermenting vessels and holding tanks in Spain. His journeys introduced him to the technologically savvy techniques from both the New and  Old Worlds,  ultimately choosing oak barriques to age his  finest wines and the temperature controlled tanks to produce his quality everyday wines.

He also imported and incorporated other French and European grape varities into his vineyards. It is because of him we find Chardonnay, Cabernet Sauvignon, Riesling, Gewürztraminer growing amongst Spain's Tempranillo, Monastrell, Carignan and Garnacha. 

With the rise of tourism in the 1960’s and 70’s, Torres name stood at the forefront both abroad and in his homeland.

PASSING ON THE TORCH

In 1991, Torres passed on, leaving the family business to his son and present owner, Miguel A. Torres. Waltraud Maczassek, whom he married in 1962, a German artist lends her name to the Riesling of the Torres line.

Torres has vineyards in both Chile’s Curico Valley and California’s Sonoma.

TO SPAIN

It is rightly believed that a World Cup victory can mean a boost in morale for a country. Spain's economy is presently shaky. If anything, the win is a glorious, golden gift for the hard working men and women of Spain. I hope the victory celebrations slip on continuously throughout the nights. I pray the country recovers from its economic woes and wins the world over again. To this, I raise a glass and savour the salud before bed.

Read more...

A Philosophical Passion for Wine

A finger of grapevine

and a beam of sunlight

point to the spot

where my heart is

Federico García Lorca - "Granada 1850"

 This morning I went to do some lab work for an upcoming physical. Some blood was taken but I had to fast  for at least twelve hours beforehand. Basically, all I could really have was water.

Now water is great, don't get me wrong. When you're lacking, when you've been sweating after a workout at the gym or been cooped up in a dry office, cubically contained, drinking too much coffee, water is perfect. 

But I have to say, with a smirk of genuine honesty, wine is always perfect. Last night, I would have had a glass or two but I had to follow my doctor's instructions. And you know, maybe I'm a little grumpy  today because I haven't had my wine. 

ADDICTION VS. PASSION

I often wonder about the nature of addiction and the idea of a surrogate. The alcoholic is told  to treat his  or her addiction like a disease. In recovery he or she must reflect on the reasons why they turned to alcohol. Is there a hole inside? Why do they choose whiskey or beer to fulfill them; what is or maybe better yet, who is replaced by the drinking? Is the alcoholic mourning a loss in childhood or the misery of a failed relationship? Instead of getting past the missed opportunity or healing the nameless wound, the drink is the surrogate, misleading the addict, letting them think they are healing their reality by escaping. The drink is the blinding distraction.

Certainly, there are other addictions: gambling, drugs, sex etc... 

I'm wondering, is wine my addiction? Where is the line between passion and addiction? Can such a line be safely drawn? Is passion a form of dependence? Can wine be a distraction, misleading the imbiber?

I can get through a day without wine. Sure. No problem. But can a musician or music lover get through a day without music and still be in a good mood? Listening to Beethoven's late piano sonatas or the softy, husky melancholy of a Ray Lamontagne song can, depending on your tastes, bring the spirit up after a long, wearied day. 

I love wine and music equally. Music is wine, wine is music. Music isn't an addiction, no but it can be a necessity for some of us. And as for wine, a glass of day is fine; great for health apparently.

For myself, I definitely look forward to a glass, probably more than others. I love the bouquet and flavours of different wines, - the teasing richness of a robust Rioja or the verdant but chilled charm of a Chenin from Vouvray. When I treat myself, I move past the Champagnes, past the Bordeaux and Burgundies to the Mosel and Rheinhessen Rieslings: I prefer Prüm to an overpriced bubbly or a mediocre Médoc (because you have to spend a lot to get something good in France's most famous wine regions). 

It's not an addiction. It is reverence. It's a means of creating beauty, letting it flood the moment.

SACRED VS. PROFANE
Even though the wine consumer doesn't produce the wine, doesn't grow the grapes, he or she is a creator of the moment. By taking a glass we are involved in a tradition that has gone on for thousands of years. To borrow from the late Mircea Eliade, famous mythologist and philosopher, we are  in some way participating in the hierophany, the sacred space that is the eternal realm of tradition and ritual.

The profane involves linear time and is opposite the sacred. Profane time is daily time, historical, made up of dates continuously succeeding each other, one moment dissolving the next, one event replacing the previous.  It is the time of work, bureaucracy, governments, backyards, bars - social, polical and otherwise. By re-enacting the gods, their myths, an individual in an archaic tribe could find himself stepping into the illo tempore, the time before.

This is why the Greeks and later the Christians associated the resurrection god with the vine. By drinking Dionysus or Christ, the worshiper took the god within. Both gods were born in unique and miraculous circumstances (Dionysus was sewn into Zeus's calf following his mother's death by lightning; Mary was a virgin) and both performed miracles. Both were sacrificed and experienced equally grueling deaths. 

The nature of the vine represents the sacred nature of life.

THE FLEETING AND THE DESIRE
Life is born. It is nothing short of a miracle that in the vastness of the universe, this Earth exists and supports life. Trees are green in the summer, mountains rise, oceans fall against their shore lines, wildlife floods the wilderness, in the air, on the ground and in the sea. 

But life is not long and death haunts all our horizons. The vine produces beautiful fruit just as we produce children, works of art, accomplishing various daily tasks like gardening, carpentry - even conversation and the relationships founded on them are a production of our hidden divinity. 

When we die the vine is like us and we are like the vine. We have struggled to bring something out of the nothing, bringing purpose to the naked canvas of existence. We have our religions, our myths, our deities, desires, duties, morals and responsibilities but they are all created by us. Our dying is our dormancy. Dionysus and Christ both die but they are resurrected. 

We drink this hope that we too won't end with our last breaths. We drink a glass of wine because it is more than just a beverage. Hope is beauty and we desire it. 

There are so many things we see with our eyes, hear with our ears, touch with our hands, smell with our noises but taste is by far the most intimate. The Mona Lisa smiles at us but we are distant from her. The scent of the flower belongs in the liminal realm of space and petals while the music of Beethoven haunts our ears. Wine flows in us, it meets us. It is intimate like a lover's long awaited kiss. This is the intoxication.

Wine is our consolation. At the end of our profane hours, when we need to step back from the parade, the often hopeless journey that is life, wine brings us a comfort. Sipping a wine is either done in silence or with others. Just as we can enjoy our solitude, sitting with a book we can drink wine in whatever company so long as it is kind. When we can't have what we want, when the one we love is not going to love us or the passing face is not going to stop on the street, their beauty leaving the moment broken in two, wine is there to sew up the wake of the unfulfilled. 

This is what wine represents to me but maybe to others. This is my passion and this is how I feel.

Read more...

More South Africa: The Story of Delheim

In my previous blog, I wrote about the history of South Africa touching on soccer and the story of the first vines, the Dutch, the British and apartheid. Today, I'm going to focus on a particular winery with ties to Germany: Delheim.

TWO LIVES: VAN RIEBEECK AND SPATZ                      Jan van Riebeeck (1619-1677)

Vines have been growing in South Africa since the 17th century. For many, Jan van Riebeeck, a Dutch surgeon is often considered the founding father of the country's wine industry. He was in no way a viticulturist, or a winemaking pioneer, simply a doctor looking for a way to reduce the risk of scurvy for sailors on long sea journeys between Europe and Asia. By planting vines, he hoped to create a cure for the men stopping over in the nearby ports along the Western Cape. 

Like the Dutch doctor, Michael 'Spatz' Sperling was not a trained winemaker. Born and raised in what is now western Poland, Spatz fled to South Africa in 1951 at the age of 21. He was tired of the starvation years following the war and needed a change of scenery. Working on the communist state-run farms had fortunately kept him close to food and he often stole potatoes to get through the harsh winter months. 

                                                                                      
In South Africa, he went to work for his aunt and uncle. Hans Otto and Deli Hoheisen owned a 494-acre farm on Simonsberg Mountain just outside of Stellenbosch (both the mountain and city are named after Simon van der Stel, the colony's first 17th century governor). Spatz's relatives produced a variety of products including a bit of wine. The name Delheim is actually named after Spatz's aunt - 'Deli's home'.

SIMONSBERG AND A HUMBLE BEGINNING

If you were to go back in time, back to the late 17th century, you would fine a home on the southwestern slopes of Simonsberg Mountain. Inside the humble dwelling lived a Dutch East India Company servant. When ships were spotted arriving in Table Bay, the servant would fire a cannon, the third in a relay. From there, it was up to locals of Cape Town to welcome the new arrivals and offer their wares or defend their city.  

The land passed through different hands, eventually a series of parcels forming the vineyard owned by the Hoheisen family. Before Spatz arrived, his aunt and uncle had a humble and basic set-up for wine making: a basket and continuous press, hand pumps and filter.

Now, the young emrigrée Spatz knew nothing about wine but as luck would have it, he became a student of traveling German wine experts who came to South Africa to teach the locals. Eager to learn, he absorbed what he could during the 1960s and made many mistakes at Delheim. One story goes that he was trying to impress a group of German tourists with a sweet-wine he had made. One of them remarked, "Spatz er ist noch dreck!" (The wine is really shitty...).

But Spatz was determined and improved the wine, calling it Spatzendreck. The name has a double meaning. Sperling is sparrow in German and Spatz is the diminutive. So it means both Spatz's 'shit' or 'Little Sparrow's Shit'. (Fondly enough, in 1979 Decanter awarded Sperling the 'worst label of the year' for the winery's label of a bird defecating into a wine barrel.)

DELHEIM - THE ROAD TO QUALITY AND TOURISM

In 1959, Spatz entered Delheim's wines into the South African Wine Show in nearby Paar, winning a trophy for his Palomino in the best Dry White Table Wine category.

During the 1970s fellow wine producers, Franz Malan of Simonsig Estate, Niel Joubert of Spier winery and Spatz came together to work on promoting wine tourism in South Africa. Malan had been to Europe and returned impressed by the wine routes he had seen in France. With little support from  both KWV and local road engineers, the three handed out maps showing tourists how to get to the participating wineries. First came the students from Stellenbosch University followed by their parents.

Eventually, the Stellenbosch wine route took off (today it is sponsored by American Express) and in 1976 Spatz with the help of his Dutch-born wife, Vera, opened up the Vintner's Cheese Lunch Restaurant to cater to the arriving tourists. Serving home-made food to compliment their wines, the establishment became popular and complimented the available wine and cellar tours.

DELHEIM TODAY

Delheim is still operating today with Spatz as vintner and his son, Victor as viticulturist and general farm manager.

For soccer and wine fans, Delheim is featuring a venue to view the World Cup soccer matches.

In the LCBO, look out for Delheim 2006 Simonsberg Cabernet Sauvignon (on sale $13.40 in the Vintages section). A bouquet of red currant and green pepper; equally seductive on the palate with a smoky kiss of dark fruit. 

BIBLIOGRAPHY 

Robinson, Jancis, The Oxford Companion to Wine. Oxford Univ. Press, Oxford, 2003.

Taber, George M. In Search of Bacchus: Wanderings in the Wonderful World of Wine Tourism. Scribner, New York, 2009. 

www.delheim.com 

Read more...