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Link Bait or Ignorance? A Reporter Gets Spanish Wine Wrong

Thanks to our friend Richard at a Passionate Foodie, I was pointed to an article that made me laugh, and then cry, and then realize that I had been duped by some clever Link Baiting. The article is titled, Spain’s Wines Fall Short of their Potential and is written by David Falchek.

“I have no doubt that Spain has made strides in quality. I’ll keep checking back with Spain, hoping to uncover a winner…Until then, I’ll reach for Spanish sherry and stick with table wines from California, France, Chile and Australia.”

Let’s start with his ending quote, because it’s fantastic to see sherry highlighted as a great Spanish wine! As you all know, we’re absolutely in love with sherry, but David isolates this style as the only worthwhile Spanish wine, while good table wines can only be found in California, France, Chile, and Australia, but not Spain. Remember this, as I’ll come back to it later.

First off, he begins his article stating that Spain is a hot and an up and coming wine region. Yeah! He got that right! We an emerging wine country, and our quality is unbelievable, but wait until you hear his next statement:

That’s because Spain, long a wine-producing country, has been changing. Spain has more vineyards than any country in the world, yet is a B-lister when it comes to quality.

Many of the county’s 3 million acres of vineyards are old, unproductive and not very efficient. The industry is being modernized and recreated. Spain has the potential to make a more profound mark on the wine world than Australia had in the 1990s or Chile in this decade.

I have yet to taste the results….

Spain is very much two different wine industries: the old, low-production, shaky quality industry and the cutting-edge next generation that replanted vines and invested in the new equipment and techniques.

At this point I checked the publishing date. From the sounds of it, I thought I was stuck back in 2000 when Spain was emerging from a period of renovation and really starting to examine what they were doing and where they wanted to be as a wine producing country? Today, it is hard to find the old, traditional, unsterilized winemaking practices of the decades past . Everywhere we travel throughout Spain, the modern and clean winemaking practices used in those “other table wine producing countries” mentioned above, are fully employed and adopted. If he had stated the above quote 10 yrs ago, I might agree, but at this point in the article, I just figured that he was trying to rile me up by bending the facts a bit. It worked, so I read on.

I’ve been to trade tastings where hundreds of Spanish wines are being poured and my impressions were confirmed. The best wines, from a quality/value standpoint, were the $12 and under category where the wines were refreshing, enjoyable and unpretentious

Their most expensive wines were good, but not as outstanding as you would expect a $70 bottle to be. Fancy packaging and outrageous prices do not equal quality.

When buying Spanish wines, you may see the word “criança,” which means the wine was aged in oak. Some common grape varieties used in Spain include tempranillo, Spain’s answer to deep, rich cabernet sauvignon, and the lighter and fruitier garnacha (known as grenache elsewhere).

This is funny. First, don’t get me wrong, wines that fall under $12 are great values and yes, many of the $70+ bottles are worth their weight in bottle, but the sweet spot is often in between the two and if this guy is only tasting at trade shows, I don’t have much to say to him. But that’s not the part that bugs me. What bothers me is that by this point in the article, I know the author is generally ignorant of Spanish wines when he uses the word: “criança”, meaning “child” in Portuguese, instead of using, “crianza”, a Spanish word meaning “to be aged in oak”.

Second, Tempranillo is not Spain’s answer to Cabernet Sauvignon. That’s like saying that Zinfandel is California’s answer to Cabernet Sauvignon. We actually have great Cabernets here in Spain, many of which are truly amazing. On the other hand Tempranillo is a unique grape that cannot, and should not, be compared to Cabernet Sauvignon, other than to compare how different they can be. Simple as that! Would you compare Zin to Cab? Not if you had any taste buds left in your mouth, or half a mind in your head. Also, the comment on the “lighter…fruitier garnacha”, come on, what’s light and fruity about dense powerful Garnachas of the Priorat, or better yet, the 100yr old Garnacha vines found in the region of Calatayud. There is nothing light and fruity about them!

At this point, I knew the article was not worth the time I took to read it, but I figured I’d browse the tasting notes all the same. Red Guitar came out as one of his favorites, a product from the wine giant Constellation Brands. Ironically, I know the people behind this brand, and that their goal is to make Red Guitar the Yellow Tail (Australia) of Spain. Granted, overall, it’s a good, varietally correct wine that is not terroir driven, but by no means, the best Spain has to offer. Far from it! In fact, it’s only made for the American Market, and has no distribution here in Spain. Hmmm, maybe this was a planted article? Who knows, maybe I should check with my friend.

I also want to point you to his next tasting note on a wine from the Priorat: “The only wine I tried that came close to channeling the Bordeaux style so many strive to copy is the Morlanda 2002 Criança Priorat Red Wine…” I can tell you for a fact Priorat is NOT TRYING TO COPY BORDEAUX! If anything, they are trying to mimic the Rhone, a region with much more in common with the Priorat. Though if I said this to a Priorat winemaker, I might get slapped. The Priorat is a unique and incredible winemaking region with many, many years of winemaking history. With wines that reach the highest pinnacle of winemaking, they have no need to try to mimic Bordeaux, a region that doesn’t even grow Priorat’s principle grape, Granacha.

The rest of his notes are not even worth mentioning, but I will finish by saying this: Spain is not a region that is still trying to find the modern world. Everywhere I go I taste wines of high quality and showing a uniqueness that is solely Spain indicating an amazing terroir. To write something so dismissive without doing some comprehensive research is just plain reckless and dumb. At least get your fact checking straight. I feel bad for the individuals who read this and take it for what it is, full of errors and mistruths. I hope that at least a few of them find their way to Catavino so we can help set the record straight!

What do you think of Spanish wines? Is there anything you would like to say to David?

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Posted in the Category: Blog - Spain - Wine News

Viewing 52 Comments

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    Ryan -

    You're ever the generous and patient host to still share a glass with this 'strawman' who writes such poorly written, and misunderstood articles for his poor 'small town' readers, and then gets all bent out of shape when he is taken to task for writing a poor, misleading article. Geez, this guy is more sensitive to criticism than the Man of Monkton.

    David, I'm new to wine blogging and relatively new to this site, but I am pretty confident that most folks outside of the self congratulatory crowd you speak of would read your article and be confused as to what Spanish wines are about. Maybe your talents would best be served writing for the trade pubs you previously mentioned and not for newspapers or consumer publications.

    And that's it from me on this thread.

    Feliz y prospero ano nuevo, Ryan. Looking forward to what you've got in store for '08 on catavino.

    -Joe
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    Ryan -


    You're ever the generous and patient host to still share a glass with this 'strawman' who writes such poorly written, and misunderstood articles for his poor 'small town' readers, and then gets all bent out of shape when he is taken to task for writing a poor, misleading article. Geez, this guy is more sensitive to criticism than the Man of Monkton.



    David, I'm new to wine blogging and relatively new to this site, but I am pretty confident that most folks outside of the self congratulatory crowd you speak of would read your article and be confused as to what Spanish wines are about. Maybe your talents would best be served writing for the trade pubs you previously mentioned and not for newspapers or consumer publications.



    And that's it from me on this thread.



    Feliz y prospero ano nuevo, Ryan. Looking forward to what you've got in store for '08 on catavino.



    -Joe
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    David Joe please we both love wine, civil discussion gets us much farther and lies and falsehoods don't. 3 to point out, then I'm done:

    David our "dozens of readers" equaled 10,000 last month! If working in the wine industry 10 yrs with 3 years of it specializing in Spanish wine is "still a beginner" as you say, so be it. Finally I have taken on the "titans" as you say many times in other articles, not only that but I have spoke with, met with and consider some friends such as important Spanish wine minds, like Gerry Dawes, John Radford, and Victor de la Serna...

    So David there is still a glass to share if you do make it to BCN any time in the near future. I'm happy to talk, but don't take out your frustration here.

    Cheers to both!

    BTW I was wrong on the Crianca/Crianza sort of, yes it was on a bottle of Cava where it's meaning has nothing to do with wood aging and the spelling is in Catalan not Spanish. As to the wines you tasted, they need no comment.
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    David Joe please we both love wine, civil discussion gets us much farther and lies and falsehoods don't. 3 to point out, then I'm done:


    David our "dozens of readers" equaled 10,000 last month! If working in the wine industry 10 yrs with 3 years of it specializing in Spanish wine is "still a beginner" as you say, so be it. Finally I have taken on the "titans" as you say many times in other articles, not only that but I have spoke with, met with and consider some friends such as important Spanish wine minds, like Gerry Dawes, John Radford, and Victor de la Serna...



    So David there is still a glass to share if you do make it to BCN any time in the near future. I'm happy to talk, but don't take out your frustration here.



    Cheers to both!



    BTW I was wrong on the Crianca/Crianza sort of, yes it was on a bottle of Cava where it's meaning has nothing to do with wood aging and the spelling is in Catalan not Spanish. As to the wines you tasted, they need no comment.
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    Jeez, Joe M,

    My column was not in step with how people view Spanish wines? My column, in a nutshell, was Spanish wines are great , Spain is experiencing a revolution in quality, Spain will take over the wine world in the next decade, and I got five mediocre to crappy Spanish wines. So, what part of my column do you not agree with because I thought this was a blog for Spanish wine FANS. www.detestavino .net is a different site.

    As for the five wines I didn’t like, no one, in all these verbose retorts, defended them. What of the specific charges of incompetence, poor research, sloth, and the other deadly sins levied against me in this pile on begun by Ryan? In one of his histrionics about my column he rails against me for calling Garnancha fruity. I wonder if he went into seizure when he read Jancis Robinson’s entry on the variety? Or the Wines from Spain literature? Both call Garnancha fruity.

    Same with the comparisons of some Spanish wine to Bordeaux. From reading Ryan's shock-and-awe entry, one would think I compared Spanish wines to Arizona Green Tea. Guess what Catavino fans, Cab Sauv and Merlot are Bordeaux varieties. When you plant them, blend them, put them in oak, and bottle them in Bordeaux glass, it might look a bit like you picked some idea up from Bordeaux. Now, WE, WS, Decanter, everyone, has drawn the same comparison between some Spanish wines and Bordeaux. Where is Ryan’s outrage? Seems like he may have some uncompensated work to do. He faulted me for a word from a Spanish wine LABEL from chrissakes. I couldn’t even mention a wine without incurring his faux outrage.

    Let’s get down to brass tacks, then. Other than my unchallenged opinion on those 5 wines that let me down nothing in that column was new or not said before by many, many others far greater than I. (No one believes me, but I clip the work of others and I research my humble columns). The question then remains, why do you think Ryan singled me out when all I did was repackage? I think I know. Ryan can’t credibly tilt at titans like Robinson and Parker. So he, still a beginner, finds a straw man from the Keystone State, puts him up to a circle jerk of self-congratulatory bloggers, makes an outrageous (and in the end, inaccurate) critique, and looks oh so smart to his dozens of readers for putting some hick in the sticks in his place.

    Then the straw man gets pilloried for things he didn’t say about Spanish wines (poor, confused Joe M working out the vine thing in his head, still thinks I condemned, rather than praised, the Spanish wine industry). The straw guy gets blamed for every wrong in the world of wine, even Neo-Prohibitionist legislation and is told he can't write about wine unless he visits the countries they come from. And he gets slammed for not writing about some single vineyard, biodynamic, small lot, special cask, reserve wines no one outside of Manhattan can find. There’s outrage, give-and-take, lot of hits, and all is good in Opazland.

    Friends, bloggers, countrymen. Why not call an end to your pajama revolution against some small time scribbler from Pennsylvania? Some of us have paying jobs we need to get back to.
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    Jeez, Joe M,


    My column was not in step with how people view Spanish wines? My column, in a nutshell, was Spanish wines are great , Spain is experiencing a revolution in quality, Spain will take over the wine world in the next decade, and I got five mediocre to crappy Spanish wines. So, what part of my column do you not agree with because I thought this was a blog for Spanish wine FANS. www.detestavino .net is a different site.



    As for the five wines I didn’t like, no one, in all these verbose retorts, defended them. What of the specific charges of incompetence, poor research, sloth, and the other deadly sins levied against me in this pile on begun by Ryan? In one of his histrionics about my column he rails against me for calling Garnancha fruity. I wonder if he went into seizure when he read Jancis Robinson’s entry on the variety? Or the Wines from Spain literature? Both call Garnancha fruity.



    Same with the comparisons of some Spanish wine to Bordeaux. From reading Ryan's shock-and-awe entry, one would think I compared Spanish wines to Arizona Green Tea. Guess what Catavino fans, Cab Sauv and Merlot are Bordeaux varieties. When you plant them, blend them, put them in oak, and bottle them in Bordeaux glass, it might look a bit like you picked some idea up from Bordeaux. Now, WE, WS, Decanter, everyone, has drawn the same comparison between some Spanish wines and Bordeaux. Where is Ryan’s outrage? Seems like he may have some uncompensated work to do. He faulted me for a word from a Spanish wine LABEL from chrissakes. I couldn’t even mention a wine without incurring his faux outrage.



    Let’s get down to brass tacks, then. Other than my unchallenged opinion on those 5 wines that let me down nothing in that column was new or not said before by many, many others far greater than I. (No one believes me, but I clip the work of others and I research my humble columns). The question then remains, why do you think Ryan singled me out when all I did was repackage? I think I know. Ryan can’t credibly tilt at titans like Robinson and Parker. So he, still a beginner, finds a straw man from the Keystone State, puts him up to a circle jerk of self-congratulatory bloggers, makes an outrageous (and in the end, inaccurate) critique, and looks oh so smart to his dozens of readers for putting some hick in the sticks in his place.



    Then the straw man gets pilloried for things he didn’t say about Spanish wines (poor, confused Joe M working out the vine thing in his head, still thinks I condemned, rather than praised, the Spanish wine industry). The straw guy gets blamed for every wrong in the world of wine, even Neo-Prohibitionist legislation and is told he can't write about wine unless he visits the countries they come from. And he gets slammed for not writing about some single vineyard, biodynamic, small lot, special cask, reserve wines no one outside of Manhattan can find. There’s outrage, give-and-take, lot of hits, and all is good in Opazland.



    Friends, bloggers, countrymen. Why not call an end to your pajama revolution against some small time scribbler from Pennsylvania? Some of us have paying jobs we need to get back to.
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    David,

    Thanks for clarifying and providing the history above. What I was trying to point out in my critique of your article, is that old vines and low production are not necessarily indicative of poor quality wine. Which, to me any, is what your article suggested. Your article also seemed out of step with the way that a lot of people view Spanish wine these days. Therefore many people on this site, myself included, thought it worthwhile to point this fact out to you. Including one of catavino's founder, Ryan Opaz, who originally offered his critical opinion of your findings. I do not pretend to speak authoritatively on the Spanish wine industry, which is why I consult this website and others like it to increase my knowledge.

    David - I regret that you consider tough, constructive criticism an 'ad hominem attack.' And I regret that all of this needed to happen on what is typically a very civil, informative blog.
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    Debating in this format really is the Special Olympics. I'm trying to resist this "bait."

    But I think I have to clarify something for the Joe M up there who attempts to school me on the relationship between yeild and wine quality. For the record, I've contributed articles on viticulture regularly to Vineyard & Winery Magazine since the early 1990s and irregularly to Wine Business Monthly and Practical Winery and Vineyards. All, I'm sure you will all agree, terrible publications. Before I was into wine criticism, I was writing technical articles.

    So Joe M, get your notebook out:

    Spain's "low production" was a function of vine and row spacing -- not yeild. In the past (notice everyone I said "past") the majority of Spanish vineyards rows had incredibly wide spacing to accommodate out-dated vineyard equipment, even horse-drawn wagons!! Add to that very wide vine-spacing -- the distance between vines within the rows -- and you get very few vines per acre compared to rest of the world. (I'm being very general to pre-empt another lecture on this board.) So few vines per acre meant that Spain, which long has more ACRES of vineyard than any other country, didn't even make the top 5 when came to PRODUCTION (ton per acre/hectare.) The majority of Spain's vineyards were yeilding less than one-ton per acre and it sure as hell wasn't going into luxury wines.

    So Joe, at this point you are probably scratching your head and asking "what happened out there in those Spanish vineyards?"

    Well, you know that "new generation" everyone talks about? They replanted. They put rows much closer together since new tractors and mechanical harvestors are much narrower. Also, they planted vines more densly, you see, because now we know that closer vines actually increases below ground competition for water and nutrients, providing its own deterent for vigor and yeild. Add to that the cutting-edge application of VSP training, balanced pruning, a tight leaf pulling and hedging regime and more awareness and care of what's happening to the vineyard -- it's a revolution.

    What do we have now? It seems counter-intuitive, to people like you Joe, but Spain's per acre yeild is way up but so is the fruit quality. It's because they added vines, they didn't diminish quality.

    Joe, I didn't come on this board, like you, pretending that I knew enought to speak authoritatively about the Spanish industry or criticize other for their impressions. I wanted to explain my views to fellow wine drinkers out of respect for Ryan and his work on this board. You, whoever you are and whatever you do, and some others, turned this into a ad hominem attack.

    That's sad, Joe. I hope wine brings you more joy in the future.

    David.
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    David,


    Thanks for clarifying and providing the history above. What I was trying to point out in my critique of your article, is that old vines and low production are not necessarily indicative of poor quality wine. Which, to me any, is what your article suggested. Your article also seemed out of step with the way that a lot of people view Spanish wine these days. Therefore many people on this site, myself included, thought it worthwhile to point this fact out to you. Including one of catavino's founder, Ryan Opaz, who originally offered his critical opinion of your findings. I do not pretend to speak authoritatively on the Spanish wine industry, which is why I consult this website and others like it to increase my knowledge.



    David - I regret that you consider tough, constructive criticism an 'ad hominem attack.' And I regret that all of this needed to happen on what is typically a very civil, informative blog.
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    Debating in this format really is the Special Olympics. I'm trying to resist this "bait."


    But I think I have to clarify something for the Joe M up there who attempts to school me on the relationship between yeild and wine quality. For the record, I've contributed articles on viticulture regularly to Vineyard & Winery Magazine since the early 1990s and irregularly to Wine Business Monthly and Practical Winery and Vineyards. All, I'm sure you will all agree, terrible publications. Before I was into wine criticism, I was writing technical articles.



    So Joe M, get your notebook out:



    Spain's "low production" was a function of vine and row spacing -- not yeild. In the past (notice everyone I said "past") the majority of Spanish vineyards rows had incredibly wide spacing to accommodate out-dated vineyard equipment, even horse-drawn wagons!! Add to that very wide vine-spacing -- the distance between vines within the rows -- and you get very few vines per acre compared to rest of the world. (I'm being very general to pre-empt another lecture on this board.) So few vines per acre meant that Spain, which long has more ACRES of vineyard than any other country, didn't even make the top 5 when came to PRODUCTION (ton per acre/hectare.) The majority of Spain's vineyards were yeilding less than one-ton per acre and it sure as hell wasn't going into luxury wines.



    So Joe, at this point you are probably scratching your head and asking "what happened out there in those Spanish vineyards?"



    Well, you know that "new generation" everyone talks about? They replanted. They put rows much closer together since new tractors and mechanical harvestors are much narrower. Also, they planted vines more densly, you see, because now we know that closer vines actually increases below ground competition for water and nutrients, providing its own deterent for vigor and yeild. Add to that the cutting-edge application of VSP training, balanced pruning, a tight leaf pulling and hedging regime and more awareness and care of what's happening to the vineyard -- it's a revolution.



    What do we have now? It seems counter-intuitive, to people like you Joe, but Spain's per acre yeild is way up but so is the fruit quality. It's because they added vines, they didn't diminish quality.



    Joe, I didn't come on this board, like you, pretending that I knew enought to speak authoritatively about the Spanish industry or criticize other for their impressions. I wanted to explain my views to fellow wine drinkers out of respect for Ryan and his work on this board. You, whoever you are and whatever you do, and some others, turned this into a ad hominem attack.



    That's sad, Joe. I hope wine brings you more joy in the future.



    David.
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    True, Constellation won't destroy the little guys. And their brands get a lot of folks into wine. I mean how many folks out there can point to Manischevitz as their first sip of alcohol?

    I don't think I'd be too surprised to hear which wineries use mainly new French oak, micro-ox, and others because with some experience these are techniques which can readily be identified in wine. As for mechanical harvesting for 'old guard' estates, no surprises there. Especially in Rioja, I'd imagine.
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    True, Constellation won't destroy the little guys. And their brands get a lot of folks into wine. I mean how many folks out there can point to Manischevitz as their first sip of alcohol?


    I don't think I'd be too surprised to hear which wineries use mainly new French oak, micro-ox, and others because with some experience these are techniques which can readily be identified in wine. As for mechanical harvesting for 'old guard' estates, no surprises there. Especially in Rioja, I'd imagine.
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    Red guitar, Hogue, Escudo Rojo, Ravenswood, Kim Crawford and others not bad, maybe boring for you but in reality they fill a niche very well. I sold wine in the states for many years and I'll say the that while a Parker score could sell out a stack of wine quick it never made me the money or got as many people as internested in wine as the solid stack of quality middle of the road wine did!

    Without COnstellation brands and other like them there would be a very small market, and it would be an elistist one(more than it already is). They helped convert a lot of people I know to wine that didn't drink it before, I'm glad I moved on but they aren't goinig to destroy the little guys like so many predict.

    BTW, I could give you a list of wineries here in Spain that use new oak, micro-ox and other techniques you might shun and I think you might be surprised with the names on it. Oh and the ones that are lauded as the old gaurd with "classic Wines" that use mechanical harvesters, that list is long!! But I ty to not gossip, it's their image and I just like hearing people say "They would never use....x...y...or .....Z!" ....

    All is not what it seems...the old gaurd often falls victim to the new ways
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    Oh, and I don't doubt that LRA, LdH and Fernandez have benefitted from new techniques and equipment in the winery. But they certainly are not using 100% new French oak, using reverse osmosis, micro-ox or anything like that, either. They are of the old guard, but make authentic, excellent, typical wines of their region. And I did not feel that the author had mentioned that these types of wineries exist in Spain.

    Good point on the vines. Of course, old vines do not equal good vines. But old vines do necessarily mean that they are worthless and need to be replanted, either. Look at Toro, Jumilla, Barossa, Lodi, and many other regions producing good wines from 50+year old vines.
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    I would downgrade Red Guitar from 'very good' to 'ok.' Just my opinion....

    Constellation is reponsible for these 'fine wine' wineries: Hogue, Escudo Rojo, Ravenswood, Kim Crawford. Bad - maybe not. Boring, safe and branded - absolutely.

    Constellation also markets an assortment of cheap booze such as Arbor Mist, Paul Masson and Almaden. I don't trust a company who is pushing these types of drinks to produce and market fine wine.
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    Red guitar, Hogue, Escudo Rojo, Ravenswood, Kim Crawford and others not bad, maybe boring for you but in reality they fill a niche very well. I sold wine in the states for many years and I'll say the that while a Parker score could sell out a stack of wine quick it never made me the money or got as many people as internested in wine as the solid stack of quality middle of the road wine did!


    Without COnstellation brands and other like them there would be a very small market, and it would be an elistist one(more than it already is). They helped convert a lot of people I know to wine that didn't drink it before, I'm glad I moved on but they aren't goinig to destroy the little guys like so many predict.



    BTW, I could give you a list of wineries here in Spain that use new oak, micro-ox and other techniques you might shun and I think you might be surprised with the names on it. Oh and the ones that are lauded as the old gaurd with "classic Wines" that use mechanical harvesters, that list is long!! But I ty to not gossip, it's their image and I just like hearing people say "They would never use....x...y...or .....Z!" ....



    All is not what it seems...the old gaurd often falls victim to the new ways
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