Tondonia

I will never forget my Vina Gravonia vertical tasting evening with Maria-Jose and Jose Luis in November 2018. Beforehand, Jose Luis had apologised that Maria-Jose would unfortunately have to go to Hong Kong and would not be attending the tasting with him. Fair enough, they are one of the most high demand power wine couples in the world. So when the evening eventually arrived, it was an extra wonderful surprise for Maria-Jose to arrive, announcing her schedule had changed. This augured well for an exciting evening.

One of the most interesting points taken from the evening was that Vina Gravonia blanco, while not one of their most expensive wines, is certainly one of their rarest, especially the old vintages, as it is the only wine in the Tondonia range that the estate does not really hold back any archive stock. So for Maria-Jose to taste older back vintage verticals is quite a true rarity.

So her advice was buy all you can and cellar them as they can age equally as well as many Reserva or Gran Reserva whites! After this evening, the Vina Gravonia earned an even more special place in my icon ranks and remains one of my favourite food whites.

Lopez de Heredia Tondonia Vina Gravonia 2011 Rioja Blanco, 12.5% Abv.

This is yet another wonderful Vina Gravonia white Rioja. It just seems this estate can do no wrong. Coming from a warmer year with lower yields, the wine still retains its hallmark freshness, saline dried orange peel zest and an incredibly complex aromatic array of crushed almonds and walnuts, waxy lemon peel, oxidative rancio notes, dusty grey slate minerality, chamomile and a faint kerosene touch. The palate is fairly taut and nutty, showing a fine textural polish, a bitter saline nutty melange, hints of brine, sherry, honey, bruised yellow orchard fruits and a piquant finish of stony bitter orange. Perhaps not quite as intense or piercing as some previous vintage expressions, this 2011 is nevertheless a slightly more serious, austere, mineral driven food focused wine that should continue to develop further mouth-watering complexity over the next 8 to 12+ years. Buy every bottle you can find!

(Wine Safari Score: 94+/100 Greg Sherwood MW)

At a recent wine trade lunch, we got talking about premoxed white Burgundy and what a pain it was in every fine wine drinkers life. A friend had recently opened about the seventh prematurely oxidised (premoxed) bottle of Comtes Lafon Meursault 1er Cru Charmes 2005 out of a case of 12 and vowed never to buy another bottle of Lafon white again.

While it is unfair to single out any one grower specifically, it is fair to say that Dominique Lafon’s whites have been one of the worst offenders for premox since 1996, when the problem was identified in the mainstream media.

But the interesting point of this lunch chat was that the friend in question is also a big lover of traditional styles of oxidised white Rioja as produced by Lopez de Heredia and the older examples of Castillo Ygay white.

Personally, I remember taking a bottle of expensive Chevalier Montrachet 1999 Grand Cru from a top grower, to a previous blind tasting lunch and everyone thinking it was top white Rioja with amazingly fresh acids, buttery nuanced caramel oak notes, lemon butter and a sweet pithy honied finish. Only, the problem was that it was in fact an expensive premoxed white Burgundy that should have been pale in colour, rapier fresh with taught mineral lemon / lime tension and a clean stoney finish!

So if a wine is eminently drinkable, and meant to taste oxidised, that’s all fine. If it’s NOT meant to taste oxidised, you tip it out and get derided (if you brought it to lunch.) Which made me suggest, in jest, that certain Burgundy producers should diversify and establish a culture of solera wines, that are fresh, zesty, but oxidative in the Tondonia style!

You heard it here first… oxidative solera NV Burgundies. Watch this space!! The sommeliers are going to love this!