Greetings and salutations! It has been a minute since your humble Sleuth has written a full chapter of The Wine Bargain Sleuth. I hope a few of you have noticed and missed my musings, but for the rest of you I will confess that my pesky running of a business and lots of demands of my time have intervened on my passion of writing about all things wine. With the reality of today’s algorhythms and social media triggering subtleties, I am fairly certain that my “profile” is deeply buried, but then again I have always written this blog simply because it focuses on a topic that I find meaningful, the enjoyment of wine. C’est La Vie!

A lot has happened in the wine world since we last shared this space. President Trump imposed a fair number of tariffs on some of our favorite imported wines from France, Italy, Spain and South America. Inflationary trends have continued to put upward pressure on fine wines. Millenials and Gen Z’s have reduced their consumption of the fine grape as compared to their predecessors. Pot has continued to become more popular (in many cases with Millenials and Gen Z’s) as more states relax their “forbidden fruit” (pun intended) laws and penalties. All of these factors have put the wine industry on warning of, at minimum, a temporary decline of 10-25% for fine wines.

Those of you who have been kind enough to read The Wine Bargain Sleuth know that fundamental tenet of our humble Blog is identifying and praising Value Wines, which we originally flagged at a $15 or less retail price and which has evolved to $25 and under retail offerings. Certainly, I would submit to our readers that the need for Value Wines has done nothing but to become more important with the factors noted above pushing the cost of great wines. I intend to do just that. Who knows, we may even convince a younger consumer of the beauty of fine wine without sacrificing a weekend’s entertainment budget! Try making that request at a dispensary!

A Bucket List Trip to the Rioja Region of Spain

Last month the lovely Mrs. Sleuth and I had the opportunity after a wonderful visit with dear friends in Madrid to take a glorious 48 hour road trip to Rioja, long one of my favorite wine regions for its magnificent Tempranillo-based wines. With two short days some difficult choices had to be made following a picturesque 4 hour drive (including an unplanned minor detour through the outskirts of Madrid!) north through the mountains into Rioja. We made a decision to visit what has been called the wine capital of Rioja, Haro (for non-Spanish speaking tongues such as my own, the correct pronunciation is close to “Ah-Roe”). Although we arrived on a Sunday, disappointingly managing to just miss a major wine festival that was held the day before, we did succeed in finding several world-class wineries that were kind enough to open their tasting rooms.

We tasted several great wines at CUNE, also known locally as CVNE. For just a few Euros, we sampled several CUNE-family wines and a charcuterie selection of local meats and cheeses, including a CUNE Reserva 2021, a Contino Grand Reserva 2019 and an Imperial Grand Reserva 2018. All were remarkably smooth, well-crafted red wines, but the verdict came back that the Contino Grand Reserva 2019 was the winner, and that bottle and a few others made their way back to Texas with us thanks to the purchase of an auxiliary suitcase at a food store from the Medieval village of La Guardia. Mr. and Mrs. Sleuth, as has been previously pointed out by stressed porters, travel heavy!

The next stop was one of the venerable wineries in Haro in particular and Rioja in general, La Rioja Alta, S.A. This major winery dates back to the 1880’s, and like the amazing wines we sampled at CUNE, the Tempramillo-based wines of La Rioja Alta were eye-opening, both for their reasonable pricing by US standards and their elegance and high quality.

Although we would have loved to sample other legendary wineries nearby, such as Muga, Vina Tondonia and others, after a road trip through the mountains and two generous tastings in Haro we headed for our lodging in Elciego, the stunning Marques de Riscal Hotel and its whimsical architecture pictured above, where we had one last tasting at one more major Rioja winery, Marques de Riscal and also enjoyed a tour of its world-class facilities adjacent to the singular holel .

One of the terrific aspects of Rioja wines in particular is the clear and straightforward rating system of the better local wines which are ultimately exported to the US, as we discussed back in Chapter 5 of this Blog. As a courtesy for our new readers, in a nutshell the top 3 ratings for the Rioja classification system by law are characterized by their length of aging. The categories are Crianza, Reserva and Grand Reserva.  Under the strict blending and labeling rules of the Rioja region, a Crianza wine must be aged in oak a minimum of 12 months before release, a Rioja Reserva wine must be aged a minimum of 1 year in oak and at least 3 years of total aging, and for a Gran Reserva the minimums are 2 years in oak, 5 years total aging.  Accordingly, the wines from the Crianzas to the Gran Reservas are ready to enjoy when released and have already reached a surprising level of balance and elegance when purchased.

The last full day in Rioja was spent touring smaller family wineries as a contrast to the large facilities in Haro and Elciego. In order to make the most efficient use of our time in Rioja, we smartly used the services of the delightful Rebeca Perez, the proprietor and terrific guide of Rioja Like a Native. www.riojalikeanative.com. The services of Rebeca and her associate Rodrigo are well worth the tab, and she and her company make your visit both efficient and special.

Although there was a noticeable difference in physical facilities, there was a delightful similarity in the high quality wines we enjoyed at the likes of the picturesque Bodegas Puelles vineyards that grace this Chapter’s main photo and the one below and the amazing maze of caves underneath Bodega Lecea shown above. Each of these two local wineries had stunning wines, several of which were worthy of shipping back to Texas!

If you have not had the opportunity to tour the Rioja region of Spain, you are missing a real treat. The countryside north of Madrid takes you through two impressive mountain ranges and a number of buttes and rolling hills. If reminded me a great deal of the high desert of northern New Mexico and southern Colorado in the US. Good highways, courteous drivers, incredible scenery, medieval villages and world-class food and wine. In short, it was 48 hours well spent!