The two-day Wine Future Rioja 09 event next month will showcase a long list of wine luminaries including Jancis Robinson, Oz Clarke, Steven Spurrier, Gary Vaynerchuk, Jorge Ordonez, and Robert Parker.

The pinnacle of the wine summit will be a premium tasting with Parker (who will be meeting King Juan Carlos during his trip, Parker’s first to Spain since 1972). Limited to 450 attendees, the VIP tasting costs 217€ but can only bought in conjunction with the 783€ conference ticket. Parker and the organizer selected a lineup of 18 grenache based wines, seven from Chateauneuf-du-Pape, five from other parts of Spain, two from California (including one aptly named Pandora), and four from Australia.

Can you imagine a top-dollar tasting in Napa Valley, sponsored by the Napa Valley Vintners, that showcased the wines of the Rhone, Australia, and Argentina?

Grenache, of course, is not the top dog in Rioja, land of Tempranillo. So the local hosts and sponsors of the event took afront and after much protest that included the regional Partido Riojano joining the fray. Now, two wines from the Rioja have been added, the Marqués de Riscal de 1945 and a Contador 2007. Neither of those wines contains any grenache.

But the drama doesn’t end there. The event organizer, Pancho Campo, has resigned from his position to “focus on clearing his name” according to Decanter. In 2003, a court in Dubai found him guilty in abstentia in a dispute stemming from his time as an event organizer and promoter in Dubai. Jim Budd has a thorough round-up of the evidence; Manuel Camblor has been writing about the events recently in Spanish on his blog La Otra Botella.

The following weekend, I tried exactly that. We met up with some college friends at a Rhode Island home just a stone’s throw from the ocean. I brought several bottles of wine and threw in a bottle of Lustau fino that I had picked up at Astor Wine to try out on the guinea pigs–er, our friends. The hors d’oeuvres included some crab cakes but no marcona almonds, which are a great match.

The wine was universally panned. One guy wouldn’t even taste it saying, “It reminds me of my grandmother.” It then flooded him with memories of his grandmother and he regaled us with tales from his youth. But he still wouldn’t taste it. “Is there any Sauvignon Blanc?” someone else asked. Another guy soldiered on and almost finished his glass. Surprisingly, the crab cakes didn’t help the situation.

What do you think? Is sherry, the darling of wine writers and some sommeliers, poised to be retro chic or remain simply retro? Some of you have recommended a fino here in food pairings, such as gazpacho. Food really is key. Assuming people will even try it.

Related: Apera, topaque, vintage, lickoffable – Aussie fortifieds grasp new names

We continued the discussion of “trading down” that we started last week, this time with a focus on bubbly, as the day demanded. Since I didn’t get a chance to actually mention the Dibon cava brut reserve (about $11; find this wine) on the show, I’ll do so here: it’s some really easy drinking stuff, great for parties, or to accompany coconut fried shrimp, as I did recently (it sure beat Lipitor, which could have also worked for that dish). I brought the tasty Roederer Estate brut NV on the show as well (find this wine). And for those who really didn’t want to trade down–or simply prefer fine Champagne in the winter, as I do, economic climate be somewhat damned–I brought the Larmandier-Bernier, brut, premier cru, blanc de blancs (about $45; find this wine). It’s a fantastic example of a grower Champagne and one of my favorites.

So here’s the big mystery question: since they didn’t allow us to pour wine on the set, what bubbly was actually in our glasses at the end?

Which is the most planted red grape variety in the world? According to our speaker and grenache-o-phile, Jean-Francois Ey, it’s grenache. The grape often appeals to winegrowers because of it’s workhorse-like productivity in early years of the life of the vine. But it may appeal to consumers, particularly as the vine ages, because of wines light in tannin that can have a faint sweetness and high degree of alcohol. Even though the day of our tasting was still warm, it strikes me now as an excellent transitional red as the weather has cooled.

Our tasting consisted exclusively of old-vine grenache. “Old vine” appears to be the wine label term du jour and producers toss it around–like “reserve”–with so little regulation. Jean-Francois, 30, imports several wines from Roussillon under the Ey Vineyards label and put the question of age into perspective for Grenache. In the Mediterranean climate (with no irrigation or fertilizer), the vines take five years just to get going. Then they have 25 bountiful years with abundant yields. But as the vines age, he said, they yields become so miserly that one vine produces enough fruit for just one bottle of wine. At 30-35 years of age, a producer can make good money but after 50 years, they will make good quality he said.

Turning to the wines, we had two white grenache, one rose, several 100% red grenache and some blends, and finally a Banyuls sweet wine.

One white was fascinating. The La Conreria d’Scala Dei, Les Brugeres 2006 (find this wine, about $29) is an astonishingly aromatic yet dry white from Priorat. Given that every wine I’ve ever had from the region before has been red, this was a real find, with fruit from 104 year old vines fermented in stainless steel on the lees. Throw it in a blind tasting and completely stump even the most wine-geeky of friends.

Rolling in at $11 (find this wine), I found the red Sella & Mosca Connanau 2004 from the volcanic soils of Sardinia to be a fun, juicy, toss-it-back kind of wine. But the finish was abrupt.

Jean-Francois’ own Ey Vigne d’en Gaume 2004 from a 12-acre single vineyard in Roussillon again had that pleasant juiciness since it is both unoaked and 100% grenache. A good wine with fish or meat. (find this wine)

The real star of the tasting in my view also came from the Rousillon. In fact there were two other stand out wines from this region that used to provide wine by the train car to the Parisian working class in the 19th century. One stood out for me as the best one of the tasting; the other for the bling factor.

The Gilles Troullier, l’Esprit du Temps 2005 (find this wine; list $65) is a rich, serious wine with a significant but assiduous use of oak. Great aromas of tobacco and coffee add a multi-layered intensity to this wine made biodynamically from 100 year old vines. The label depicts a “gobelet” or “bush vine” as the Australians call it. Grenache often grows without a trellis in this form. In the winter it makes great material for photographers with old, gnarly trunks.

At $264, you’d think that the Clos des Fees was made by someone who was one of the top sommeliers, restaurant owners and journalists who had to ride a mule for 20 minutes along a dirt road from the valley floor to arrive at the vineyard where he harvested grapes from a steep, walled vineyard with 80 year old vines? Well if you thought that, you’d be wrong, since Herve Bizeul actually drives there instead of using a donkey.

The resulting wine, the Clos des Fees, la Siberie, 2004 (find this wine) almost made me reject it on principle because of the price tag. Impressive as it was, the oak was a little too intense for me pushing it too far in to the wood zone. If he’d throttle back on the oak and pave the road for greater efficiencies, maybe the resulting cost savings could bring down the price of the wine to the consumer?

The Domaine de la Janasse 2004 (find this wine) was my favorite Chateauneuf-du-Pape despite its intensity. Thick and brooding, it is drinking well now, redolent of dried herbs and meatiness. This is Grenache back in its role as a blender, and it’s leading this chorus in perfect harmony.

The Domaine de Marcoux 2004 was again a big, bold CdP (find this wine). The $150 list price nearly put me off, but it is a fun, bulked up and blended example of Grenache. Needs meat.

For as low as $24 on line, the La Soumade, fleur de confiance, (find this wine) was one of the few Rhone wines that I’ve enjoyed from the hot 2003 vintage. Although it is showing some signs of age already, it was still holding it together. However, after being open for an hour, I found it oddly out of balance, almost amarone-like. Pull the cork on this one and serve it, don’t save it. I wonder how much this would apply to Grenache wines on the whole since it’s not clear to me if bottle age would do any of these wines particular good.

From Down Under, the Yalumba “Tricentenary” 2004 from Barossa was a good value at $25 (find this wine). It had a bit more oak and intensity than the 06 Bush Vine from the same producer. But still had food friendly crossover potential for food pairings. Good luck finding it though with only 100 cases imported to the US.

Finally, we finished the lunch with the dessert wine, Ey Banyuls 2001 (find this wine), which was a great way to go out on a good note. Grenache: how sweet–and surprisingly multi-dimensional–it is.

If you’d like to see the top two consensus wines from the group and read Paul Zimmerman’s spirited tasting notes, surf on over to the Wine Media Guild site.

Related: “Green wine: the zen forest of Matassa, Roussillon”

Image: Mas de la Dame’s Grenache vineyard in Les Baux de Provence, France, on Jan. 11, 2006. Source: Palm Bay International

In a recent blind tasting of 42 Riojas, ranging in price from $10 to $300 a bottle, I tasted through a good portion of the wines from this venerable estate. This producer encapsulates the dual trend in the region, looking both forward and backward. While the I found the new style wines to be overly extracted, the old style wines displayed a beautiful touch.

First up was the white, a straight-forward, relatively high acidity blend, with notes of stone fruits. Competent, but nothing special for a list price of $15 (find this wine).

Next, the Muga rosado (wouldn’t rose do better in America if it were called rosado?), the wine I put my “white wine only” Mom onto earlier this summer. It is a very pleasant rosado, with notes of rose petals, strawberry and a citrus splash and a whiff of alcohol on the nose. Good summer fun. (find this wine)

The next wine of theirs that I tried in this blind lineup was the 2003 reserva (about $23; find this wine). The whiff of brett (think: barnyard) on the nose betrayed the old world sympathies of this wine, but on the palate, a vigorous tannin blast and somewhat muted fruit made me think it needs a year or two in the cellar to mellow–or a good decanting.

hen we hit the sweet spot, the two wines of the tasting for me. They say that tempranillo, can have a delicacy akin to pinot noir, and that was on display here with these two Prado Enea wines. The 1998 Prado Enea has beautiful aromas of sandalwood, red currant, and dark cherries. On the palate it has elegant notes of rose petals and currants, a faint minerality, mild acidity, and a long finish. The 2000 Prado Enea (find this wine) was very much in the same vein of gran reserva delicacy, but the fruit was drier and richer, thereby slightly less appealing to me. Although these wines might be able to age in your cellar for longer, why bother? Muga pre-aged these for you and they are drinking wonderfully now.

Switching to the more modern style, two vintages of Torre Muga appeared in the tasting. Dark in color, the 2003 (about $75; find this wine) has yeowza intensity, a full throttle explosion of dark fruits, vanilla oak, and alcohol on the nose with chunky tannins and faint sweetness on the palate. The 2004 (find this wine) was even more awkward, with aromas of nail polish remover intermingled with the dark fruits and vanilla of the 2003. Does it need age? Perhaps. But my general thinking about sending something into the cellar for a prolonged period is that going in, it has to be something I’d be interested in drinking if there’s even a faint hope of my wanting to drink it coming out in 10 years. Such is not the case with these two wines.

The grand hurrah of this tasting was the final flight that was a study extraction. The Muga Aro 2004 (about $200; find this wine) stopped me cold with its staggering, full-bore assault of hunks of oak tannin firing down on top of dark fruits. Really, the Aro is an incredibly odd, not integrated wine even among this flight of new style wines (by comparison, the Allende Aurus 2004, a similar price, had a certain Rhone-style elegance under its admittedly bold styling; find aurus).

So there you have it: Rioja in a nutshell, or one bodega actually. Unlike stalwarts like Lopez de Heredia who remain resolutely traditional, Muga has, over the past decade as with many other houses, grafted some modern style wines onto their existing ones. In this case, I’d go with the old.

Bodegas Muga web site (with panoramic camera in each barrel room)