Paco Garcia – The Way Rioja Should Be

I remember asking the chairman of Spain’s biggest sherry producing company recently if he thought that over the last two decades wines from Rioja had become too mundane and commercial (he also owns a winery in Rioja) as I have got little to no excitement from the producers of wines I used to drink there in the 1990’s. His answer was a simple “no” and that the reason there was so much similarity between Rioja wines these days was due to restrictions the ways they can make their wines.

So, I have to admit that I was more than just pleasantly surprised with I met up with Ana Fernandez Bengoa, export manager of Rioja winery Paco Garcia recently to taste her wines with some of the food in local Spanish restaurant Fofo by El Willy. The wines hark back to an era of Rioja wine producing where quality not quantity was key and where simply making wines as they should be was the mantra for winemakers.

Paco Garcia Seis 'Joven"

In this commercial world we all live in it’s all about production numbers and I have often believed that the larger the production, the less the winemakers influence shows up in the wine and the more the operation is one that focuses on the economics of wine making, rather than the integrity of it.

Paco Garcia is a small winery, (I hate the expression boutique – it’s a place that middle aged women shopped in during the 1980’s), a winery that is a ‘champion winery’, a place that focuses on the vineyard, champions the grape and lets the winemaker put his mark or signature on the wine.

The winery has only four employees and they are all family. Ana’s husband is the oenologist and they only make three very good wines; a Joven (or half Crianza), a Crianza and a superb wine called Beautiful Things of which only around 3000 bottles are made each year.

Paco Garcia Crianza

“Beautiful Things is certainly our top wine”, Ana tells me. “We started off just making it for ourselves, making something different; a modern wine with a new image”. But I figure they realized they had an exceptional wine and thus put a small amount onto the open market of which we are fortunate enough to have a small allocation here in Hong Kong.

The wine itself is 90 per cent Tempranillo and 10 per cent Graciano and is made, in Ana’s own words using “the best grapes, from the best vineyard using the best oak. The name itself sounds better in English than it does in Spanish, hence the English name, and it really reflects what we think about the wine”.

The Joven and the Crianza too are very nice wines and a surprisingly good pairing with some of the classical Spanish seafood dishes we had over the lunch. Spain consumes a vast amount of seafood and a vast amount of red wine – 90 per cent of Spanish wine consumption is red – and thus the wines, albeit red, are meant to pair with seafood. Fish and red wine is not uncommon in the country and it may have something to do with the texture of their wines or the way that they prepare the food – either way, it worked with Paco Garcia!

Paco Garcia Beautiful Things

The Crianza had amazing dark fruit and chocolate and was very easy drinking, in a sense that it’s addictive rather than light and simple drinking. The Joven is a wine I could drink easily and pair with almost any food as it’s one of those versatile wines that’s almost new-world in style with fruit-forwardness and easy going tannins.

It’s always a pleasure to talk and enjoy wines with fellow minded people and Ana is certainly one of those who has a real passion for the wine business. It also helps when you have the quality of wines she does to back her up. Many of you in Hong Kong may have had the pleasure of tasting the wines at the Rioja Grand Tasting last month, but if you didn’t they are available in Hong Kong from Victoria Wines (www.victoriawines.com.hk) – Wine Times readers can get 15 per cent off these wines by buying on line throughout the month of April, just go to the website and, when ‘checking out’, simply enter code WTHK01 to receive the discount.