Editors note: Starting today, we will be highlighting an Iberian wine, or winery, every Friday. It may cover a single one, a project or a winery. We’ll try, in most cases, to choose wines that are widely distributed, but this will not always be possible. Hope you enjoy.

About a year and half ago, I stumbled across a wine website that had a link to an Iberian winery blog. Clicking the link, I was taken to a page with about three posts and no comments enabled. At the time, there were approximately three other winery blogs out there, and I was excited to see another pop up. However, this “blog” didn’t allow comments. Thus, in my world, it wasn’t a blog. Long story short, earlier this month, I made contact with Andrew McCarthy through a friend, and was able to help him with a little Blogspot coding to remedy this problem. Today Castro Martin sits at the 8th place in our sidebar list of Iberian winery blogs, and I’m glad to have them there. I have loved Castro Martin’s wines for quite some time, and today, both Gabriella and I would like to recommend their great Albarino’s from the popular region of Rias Baixas.

Seriously, these are some nice wines: full of body and pure fruit, they are both complex and easy to understand. The Castro Martin Albarino is straightforward pure flesh fruit with some zesty acidity. It is a 2006, and if you noticed, we’re almost to the end of 2008; meaning that for it to have this kind of zestiness is a credit to the winemaker or the grape. I’ve been lectured by winemakers who work with Albariño that contrary to popular …

Don’t let the title deceive you, because this post is not what you think it’s going to be about. We at Catavino have already laid out our rules of disclosure, and hope that we’re abiding by a code of conduct that is both fair and even handed. But ironically, this is not the type of disclosure I want to talk about. What I want to ask everyone is this: should a winery be honest with the consumer about their winemaking practices? Should they honestly tell us how a wine is made? Should they honestly tell us everything they do? Does it really matter? And if it doesn’t matter, why bother telling us anything at all?

I ask this question after coming off three weeks of wine tasting, while listening to over fifty wineries try and convince me that what they do is different and sets them apart from others. I’ve heard how they use X type of oak on there wines in various combinations and with various ages of barrels. I’ve listen to the way they gently set their grapes in boxes of no more than 12-15 kgs, restricting themselves to only one layer, or maybe two at the very most. How they cold macerate their wines for 1, 2, 3…day, or that handpicking grapes is ideal, but adjusting acidity is bad. Don’t forget that pumping over is also bad(sometimes), but of course, gravity is good. Etc..etc…etc…snore………………………

The truth is, I’m sick of it!!! Not because I’m bored with the process, but rather I don’t know what to believe. Every winemaker I meet seems to have a new and revolutionary way of draining their wine from one barrel to the next in hopes of causing less trauma. One day I expect to hear that some new winery will …

Just to preface this article, we decided a few weeks ago to dedicate a large chunk of our trip to Rioja to figuring out what the difference is between modern versus traditional Riojan wines. Now, I could easily say that we both have a relatively good understanding, but I think it’s important to differentiate the perspective of the consumer from that of the winemaker. Hence, we sent out an email to several Rioja wineries last week asking their winemakers how they would personally respond to said question. What I’ve included below are the responses from both Bodegas La Rioja Alta and Bodegas Martinez Laorden, and you’ll have plenty more in the weeks to come by both video and written; but for now, you can at least gain a little taste as to what we’re experiencing on our journeys here!

Question: How do you differentiate between a traditional verses a modern wine of Rioja and what do you feel is both positive and negative about each style?

First off, I’m not sure if I necessarily understand the difference between traditional Rioja versus modern Rioja winemaking, unless we say that traditional Rioja hasn’t evolved over time. I believe that wine has suffered from constant evolution, adapting to the current tastes of the consumer. What we have always tried to avoid are the fads with an expiration date. I’d like to believe that we represent classic wines, where elegance, subtlety and complexity of aromas and flavors are the keys to a great wine: wines that are balanced, pleasant and allow for a long persistent finish.

The new trends, which appeared to be influenced by wines from California, Australia, etc, are wines, at least in their early years, were seeking quality in power, strength and big structure. …