Wine & Spirits - August 2020 - 13

RIBERA CLARETE

Ribera del Duero's clarete is a hidden gem, a wine
that would cause a stir in most hipster bars in New
York. And its history runs deep.
"Clarete is something that we will always value
because it is the wine that has brought us to where
we are today," Enrique Pascual García, the president of the Ribera del Duero Denomination, tells
me over the phone, explaining why the Consejo
decided to add clarete to the list of authorized
wine styles. "It is what allowed all those vines not
to be uprooted when the economic situation was
very difficult in the region, before the creation of
the DO."
Now that local law permits the use of the word
clarete on labels, other producers have also started
producing their own claretes, each with their own
recipe. Goyo García Viadero is one of them. He
makes his version by bleeding the tempranillo
grapes from a 56-year-old vineyard in the heights
of Villanueva de Gumiel, in Burgos. His clarete is
easy to drink and full of fruit.
You might get a similar sensation from the
clarete of Dominio del Aguila. Winemaker Jorge
Monzón chooses his grapes from a very old vineyard, a field blend of around 20 varieties, among
them tempranillo and albillo, but also airén,
moscatel, pirulés, monastrell, garnacha and bobal.
He waits for the albillo to ripen, and then harvests
everything together. The result is another shining
beauty, filled with refreshing red fruit.

crunchy fruits. Its soft, refreshing sensation in the mouth
makes it impossible not to give the wine a second sip, and
then another, until the glass is empty. I have admired the
wines of Ribera del Duero for decades. I have fallen to my
knees before the complexity and depth of some of them.
But, as far as I can remember, I have never felt what I feel
there, with the wine from this old, soft-spoken man. "And
could I taste the wine from that other barrel, Hilario?"

e leave Carazo and his friends to continue on to the López's winery, two
or three streets away, in the silence
of Villálvaro. Compared to Carazo's
cave, López's operation looks like
something out of a science-fiction
movie. Everything is shiny, even
that imposingly thick beam that
once served to press the grapes of a
town that had many wines. Before
the Lópezes launched Señorío de Villálvaro in 2017, they
made wine for their own consumption, like everyone in
town. Now, their winery is registered with the Denomination of Origin. The wines they produce are like nothing
their neighbors have tasted before, such as a tempranillo
aged in barrels for a year. It's a good red wine that the DO
council has approved without hesitation. But the wine I'm
most impressed with is their clarete.
Until 2018, they called it rosé, but a change in the D.O.
now allows "clarete" to be included on the label. Their
blend is 50-50 albillo and tempranillo. As in Carazo's wine,
the grapes are cofermented, but the proportions are different. "It is my grandfather's recipe," López says. "We
wanted to make it this way to continue his tradition, so
that it wouldn't get lost." The clarete he makes is almost
the same in character as Carazo's-that same simplicity of
fruit and freshness-and it evokes in me the same desire
to continue drinking it as if it were juice.
After we leave the winery, the three old men are still in
town, waiting for us. "Now it's my turn," Anastasio Romero
tells me, seeming almost grim. We head to his cellar, a much
neater place than Carazo's, the walls painted white, the barrels perfectly arranged on pedestals. "He is the mayor's husband," Carazo jokes, and we all laugh as Romero offers a
taste of his wines. He cuts some chorizo, although he warns
us that he will not give us more because his friends have
already eaten almost all of it. The juicy clarete awakens all
the spices and herbs of the chorizo, as if a light was pointed
at that meat. Romero's rough and serious manner changes
a bit when we all celebrate his wine. Even Ezequiel de Blas,
the quietest of the three old men, smiles with his head down.
De Blas's winery is in the upper part of the town, a dark
shed with high ceilings and adobe walls. In it, there are all
kinds of things in various states of disrepair and, separated
from all that disorder, in a corner, are his barrels. De Blas's
face is tanned, with deep wrinkles from years of work under
Villálvaro's intense sun. His clarete is the most fragile of the
three, the lightest but also the most perfumed. He does not
remember what percentages of albillo the blend has, but
he does know that all his friends like it and drink it easily,
that they spend hours there, sitting in those rickety chairs,
in the darkness of the cellar, only illuminated by the wine's
glowing fruits. n
WINE & SPIRITS

AUGUST 2020

Wine & Spirits - August 2020

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