Our United States editor finds what you get when you mix Spanish and Californian grapes in the southern United States state.
© Shutterstock|Alongside breathtaking landscapes, New Mexico is using some seriously excellent wine.
What do you get if you ship wine from Spain and California to New Mexico and mix it together? That does not seem like a recipe for success, but in regards to quality, Vara winery is breaking boundaries — with a remarkable veteran winemaking lineup.
Vara isn’t your average midsize (40,000 case) flyover-state winery, only in part since New Mexico isn’t your average small wine-production state. Almost every effective national red wine brand name in the United States comes from the West Coast. The exception is the gleaming winery Gruet, whose creator Laurent Gruet originally moved to New Mexico for its favorable environment and soils.
Gruet offered his name winery 8 years back and he works for Vara now.
He’s not alone. Bob Lindquist, founder of Qupé in Santa Barbara County, sold his brand name 5 years ago. He and his other half Louisa Sawyer Lindquist, creator of Verdad Wine Cellars, make the still red wines for Vara while Gruet makes the champagnes. If you wonder how Spanish-California blends made in New Mexico can be great, that’s one reason.
Another is the connections of Vara co-founder Doug Diefenthaler, a long time white wine supplier in New Mexico. Diefenthaler recruited the wine makers to the project and he gets the Spanish wines from wineries in Spain that he imported from. Spain is a significant exporter of bulk red wine, a lot so that French wine makers have actually assaulted tanker trucks bring it. I wasn’t anticipating much from Vara’s Spanish-American blends for this reason. However I was incorrect: they’re great.
“A great deal of what is imported from Spain or the south of France by huge business is affordable white wine,” Bob Lindquist told Wine-Searcher. “It is less expensive to make it there. What we’re doing is going to some premium producers. We have a gentleman’s agreement that we do not disclose who they are. They don’t bottle for other individuals.”
Where all of it originates from
Vara’s Garnacha comes from Montsant and Campo de Borja in Spain, and the Sta. Rita Hills, Edna Valley and Alisos Canyon in California. Its Tempranillo comes from Campo de Borja, Ribera del Duero, Santa Ynez Valley and Delighted Canyon. Because the California sites are cool-climate spots on the Central Coast, the function that the two nations play in the finished blend is the reverse of what you ‘d expect.
“We get a little more ripeness and a bit more old-world complexity from Spain,” Lindquist said. “From California, due to the fact that we’re utilizing cool environment, we get a little bit more freshness and a little bit lower alcohol. That’s our design. That’s sort of our sensibility.”
Vara likewise makes Albarino, though that is 100 percent from the Edna Valley. Louisa Sawyer Lindquist was as soon as dubbed the “First Girl of Albarino” by Tasting Panel magazine. Though Spain’s Rias Baixas region makes excellent Albarino, Bob Lindquist stated mixing gewurztraminers was never a factor to consider.
“We can source truly fantastic Albarino grapes right here,” Bob Lindquist said. “Since of the freshness element of Albarino, we like to manage it from over here. What we ship from Spain is red white wine that needs to go into barrel for a minimum of 6 months. With Albarino we like to bottle in the spring after the vintage.
We deliver different lots over. We taste them as quickly as they show up in their shipping totes and determine what barrels to put them in: whether to put them in neutral barrels, or put them in new oak. We do that together, and we do that with Doug and with a woman named Djuna Benjamin who actually runs day-to-day operations in Albuquerque. We put them in barrel and we return a month or more later and see how they’re figuring out.
Then we mix and continue.
“It’s uncommon, for sure,” Lindquist stated. “Wine is normally determined by its local color, but in this case it’s identified by the quality of the parts.”
The champagne blends are made similarly, though the freshness/ripeness ratio is more what you ‘d expect. Gruet said about 80 to 85 percent of the grapes in Vara sparkling wine are from the United States — mostly California, with a few from New Mexico — with the rest from Spain.
“It’s great to do,” Gruet said. “It brings an element to the wine. Those Spanish red wines have a good level of acidity. From California, the grapes are huge fruit, they are very strong. Spain has the long surface. It’s a great blend.”
Of the Vara white wines, I ‘d say I most delighted in the Garnacha, which has a light body and a savory character, with dark berries and some foresty herb notes. But I liked them all, and I admit I didn’t truly expect to. If you want something genuinely various in the wine world, examine them out.
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