http://www.postphylloxera.com/2012/07/24/day-6-part-i-battling-big-bodega-bureaucracy/

Cheers,
Brandon Kerne

The main reason is that Telmo like so many other Spanish wineries and winemakers fell out with Jorge Ordoñez and stopped working with him and his distribution like so many other wineries is heavily affected in the USA.

Dear Joe,

Good and interesting points and I agree Riojan winemakers do need to look at other areas apart from Bordeaux . I do think you should try and get your hands on Barbarot, which is made by Barbara Palacios who is the niece of Alvaro Palacios. It is made with a right bank varietal and Tempranillo. http://www.barbarot-wines.com

You might change your mind on Bordeaux style in the Rioja.
I do feel that it is really sad that there are less and less classic Riojas made and it would also be good to see some wineries making at least one classic rioja.

I suspect that some Telmo quotes were either taken out of context or while he was very passionately atop his soapbox, as I know he greatly respects LdH and would not call Haro simply “a railroad stop” given the quality of the terroir around this town.

Also, while I acknowledge the challenges of creating something exciting, terroir driven and unique in Rioja, as a lover of traditionally made, longer elevage wines (whether it’s LdH, Mayacamas Vineyards, or any other good example) I find that for a while, many of the people espousing their terroir in Rioja were overoaking their wine, using barrels that don’t work well with tempranillo, using yeasts that make their wines taste artificial, etc.

In other words, yes, vineyard site in Rioja matters. And, the traditional vs modern debate is a bit simplistic; by all means let’s talk about Briones compared to San Vicente, Cenicero, Lasbastida, wherever. But winemakers should taste more wines. If possible, they should travel (not just to BDX, though it is only 4 hrs away and the obvious AOC comparison for a variety of reasons). Most wine professionals in Rioja do not taste broadly and it shows. It shows in their knowledge (or lack thereof) of fine wine, it shows in their choice of cooperage, it shows in their doing so many things by rote. I say this as someone who tastes and drinks loads of Rioja, loves the best wines of this region and thinks that there is loads of potential to further improve here.

For the wine world to take Rioja more seriously, Rioja needs to engage a bit and take the wine world more seriously.

I am going to try to explain the RIOJA in a clearer way for people to understand. Though it’s pretty complicated.

First of all the Rioja has several basic problems to it.

1) The D.O.C.a Rioja explaining the structure.

The D.O.C.a Rioja has 3 sub regions.
Rioja Alta (cool climate vineyards and produces high quality wines in general)

Rioja Alavesa (Basque) (cool climate vineyards produces high quality wine in general. Also the vineyards are the most expensive in Spain and are very small plots)
Rioja Baja (Warmer climate vineyards lower quality wines but some good producers) Mass and cheap produced wines in general.

There are 597 wineries at the moment about 300 of those wineries are in the Rioja Alavesa.

Now the voting for the D.O.C.a Rioja works on how much the winery produces. So the more the winery produce the more votes you have. That is why the presidents of the D.O.C.a are from the very big wineries some owned by multinationals.

2)Political
Rioja Alavesa & D.O.C.a Rioja

Now as I mentioned there are 597 wineries in the D.O.C.a Rioja and 300 of them are in the Rioja Alavesa, if it came down to a vote per winery the Rioja Alavesa could be controlling the D.O.C.a Rioja and politically that would be unacceptable to certain people.

Now the D.O.C.a Rioja has the Rioja Alavesa (Which is Basque) basically abandoned as they do not promote it and if possible and whenever there are any tours or visits from professional groups such as buyers or journalist the D.O.C.a Rioja have brought over they do not bring the touring parties to the Rioja Alavesa and if they do it is to Marques de Riscal famous hotel and funnily enough a big producer.

Luckily enough for the Rioja Alavesa the Basque government has a very well organized and financed Chamber of Commerce and heavily promotes it and has to organize that trips to visit the Rioja Alavesa as the D.O.C.a Rioja has the Rioja Alavesa crossed off.

The Rioja Alavesa in the past wanted to seperate from the D.O.C.a Rioja but was not allowed if it went on its own to use the word Rioja for it’s wines.

B) D.O.C.a
The main problem is that it is run by the big wineries due to the voting system so the are anti terrior and pro selling the Rioja brand.

I think it is ridiculous that the premium wine producing area D.O.C.a Rioja does not have some type of growth/quality ranking like in Bordeaux or in other premium wine regions of the world, I mean even Languedoc has now a growth/quality ranking.

This is going to be close to impossible that this happens in the RIOJA due to the political strength that the big wineries have and they would be completely anti this as there wines of course in general would be with the lowest rank.

C)Rioja Brand and the Public.
Huge problem here as the general public doesn’t understand why there are such price differences between a Rioja wines. An example is the a Rioja Crianza prices can vary in Spain for example from 3€ to 15€. In some market such as the UK the RIOJA brand is massive and people don’t ask for a certain wine brand they ask for a RIOJA. This is perfect for the big wineries and the multinationals as they usually have the lower end pricing and have a very good distribution thus having market control.

My point of view and what should be done.

I think people like Telmo should set up an organization or club with european funding that gives members a growth/quality ranking that they can put on there bottle so the consumer can see the quality they are paying for. They will probably will need to take the D.O.C.a Rioja to court to be able to do this as the big Rioja producing wineries will completely against this move.Telmo going on a one man battle is not going anywhere for him or other Terrior producers.

Just to make everything clear I am not Spanish or Basque or have any political or financial interests in writing this, it is my point of view of how I see the situation in the Rioja. I do live in the Rioja and I have work in the wine industry in the Rioja in the past though I do not have anything to do with the Rioja wine industry now apart from drinking the great wines that come from there.

So glad I found this.