A Not So Blind Tasting at Vega Sicilia
I wondered if I had put blind tasting behind me when I became a Master of Wine in 2011. Wishful thinking. I have friends that scour the world looking for obscure wines and then relish presenting them to me to taste and identify blind, hoping to catch me out.
I also expect to stay on my toes through regular blind tastings with the Rothschild team. But the good news is that my blind tasting skills still serve me quite well and it turns out that contextual knowledge and analytics are often, but not always, more helpful than a practised nose and palate.
In July '21, when I was travelling with my friends Flea and Konrd von Löhneysen from Berlin, I had a chance to visit two good friends that own and run Vega Sicilia in Ribeira del Duero, Pablo Alvarez and Elisa Kwon de Alvarez. Vega Sicilia is the leading winery in Spain, and Pablo is one of the kindest and most generous people on our planet. He always goes to great lengths to welcome his guests. We were by coincidence visiting Vega on the same day as two fellow Masters of Wine, Sarah Jane Evans MW and Pedro Ballesteros Torres MW, so Pablo planned a lunch and blind tasting for our combined group. Pablo is beaming with excitement because he is happy to put this group through a blind tasting.
Pablo presented us with a white, a flight of five reds, and a sticky. My question was, amongst the dizzying world of wine choices, what would Pablo serve us?
Before even putting my nose in a glass, I ran through what I knew might be valuable data. I've always said that one of the most valuable Master of Wine blind tasting skills is factoring in relevant knowledge. And I had some.
First, Pablo does not make white wines in Spain. He make two dry white wines in Hungary, made from the furmint grape. He could present one of these wines. Wines made from Furmint are typically high in acidity with smoky and honeyed notes.
Pablo imports Domaine de la Romanée-Conti (DRC) to Spain, and I believe that he does this primarily for access to DRC's white wine, the DRC Montrachet. At Pablo and Elisa's wedding in 2012, we enjoyed the Montrachet in magnum for the whole evening, and DRC only makes about 250 cases of Montrachet per year. So you'd need an entire country allocation to entertain like this. I have travelled with Pablo and Elisa to many places, and the only white wines Pablo drinks are White Burgundies. So before even looking at or sniffing the white wine, I have narrowed the wine down to two.
Sarah Jane and Pedro are visiting in their capacity as critics working with Decanter, and so I am sure that Pablo will present Vega's top reds. It's merely a matter of working out how many of the five reds are Pablo's. Pablo and Elisa have developed a Hungarian Tokay winery, so I am almost certain Pablo will also present this as the final sweet wine.
Armed and equipped, it's time to taste.
The white does not have the high acid and smoky hallmarks of Furmint. It has an elegant nose of spicy pear and flowers, with a powerful concentration of fruit and minerals coating my palate. It tastes like a top White Burgundy, but is it the DRC Montrachet? While delicious, I am not sure. Sarah Jane and Pedro are not aware of Pablo's unwavering white wine drinking preference and import dealings, and so they are not predisposed like I am. They are busy considering a broader set of Grand Crus Burgundies, and it turns out to be the Domaine Leflaive Chevalier-Montrachet 2015. My contextual DRC analysis proved to be wrong, but we all loved the wine.
Amongst the reds, the first is clearly a pinot, but what pinot? It’s hauntingly beautiful aroma takes me straight to Burgundy. It is now a question of working out just how special it is. I then taste the four remaining reds, and smile and remember how much I adore Pablo when I taste a stupendous 2009 Mouton Rothschild in the lineup. It is his thoughtful and very generous nod to me.
“Pardon my reach,” he says as Konnie stretches past the A$8,000 bottle of 2015 Domaine de la Romanée-Conti La Tâche, to pour a little more of the 2009 Vega Sicilia Unico. After this, Konnie is always a welcome guest at Vega.
My friend Konrad, who runs a music label and is a burgeoning wine enthusiast, makes the day. He jumps ahead of any comments from the wine experts in the room to announce, without proposing any wine identification, his two favourite wines of the tasting. Pablo smiles as Konnie's two wines turn out to be Vega's Unico and Valbuena, both 2009. Bravo.
The Lafite Rothschild 2009 was the final red.
We all marvelled at how nicely all of the 2009 reds were shaping up and how lucky we were.
As predicted, the sticky was the Oremus Tokay from Hungary, and its depth and purity are a testament to Pablo's meticulous hand at the wheel.
Blind tasting is not always so blind when you factor in any contextual knowledge you have.
Thank you, Pablo and Elisa
xxx Mish