Navarra Revisited: A Pyrenean Odyssey

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Lacha sheep grazing in the Navarran Pyrenees.
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Text & Photographs copyright 2010 by Gerry Dawes

(Contact gerrydawes@aol.com for publishing rights.)

(Author's version of an article that originally appeared in

The Sunday New York Times - Travel Section, June 12, 1994.)

Navarra, the northern Spanish province that shares a wild stretch of the western Pyrenees with France, has long been one of my favorite places. This fascinating region has some of Spain's most beautiful scenery, important historical sights, excellent cuisine, good wine, and a recently developed network of private lodgings that makes travel there downright cheap.

Navarra's spectacular terrain runs the gamut from snowy Pyrenean peaks soaring above wild canyons and pristine green valleys to terraced vineyards and shimmering heat-baked southern hills that overlook farms growing superb white asparagus, red peppers, and artichokes. Picturesque villages, medieval castles, and major shrines on the Camino de Santiago, the pilgrim's road to Santiago de Compostela, grace this former kingdom (from 1234-1512, Navarra included part of southern France).

Castillo de Olite (Navarra).

On my forty-odd visits to Navarra since 1970, I often attended Pamplona's Fiestas de San Fermín, made famous by Ernest Hemingway; stayed in storybook Olite; made pilgrimages to Camino de Santiago sights--Romanesque Sangüesa, monumental Estella, and Puente la Reina's lovely 12th-century bridge; malingered in Jewish-Moorish Tudela; and photographed the harvest that produces Navarra's lovely dry rosados (roses) and sturdy reds.

Because of what must be an atavistic attraction to Spain's mountain villages, it was inevitable that I would re-explore those of Navarra, so when I read about a local network of family homes offering bed and breakfast for under $15 a night (mid-1990s prices!!; now they cost from $40-$60), I made plans to return. Many of these lodgings, called casas rurales after the stone village houses and huge stone farmhouses typical of this region, are in the heart of the Pyrenees, where cold trout rivers rush through mystical stands of beech trees into deep-green valleys sheltering some of Spain's least-spoiled villages - - Burguete in the Irati river valley, Ochagavia in the Salazar valley, and Roncal and Isaba in Roncal Valley.

To stimulate this isolated region's economy, which once depended on timber sales, sheep, and handicrafts, the Navarrese government made low interest loans to villagers willing to renovate their homes to accommodate tourists, mostly Spaniards who come here for skiing, hiking, mountain climbing, cave exploring, cycling, fishing, and hunting (wild boar, deer, partridge). Now that Spain's famous paradores have become expensive, casas rurales are Spain's lodging bargains of the 1990s.

Some casas rurales offer home-cooked meals. The Navarrese are noteworthy cooks and many families grow their own vegetables and make ewe's milk cheeses and cuajada (a delicious yogurt-like dessert). Even if meals aren't offered, most Pyrenean towns have simple restaurants serving such typical dishes as espárragos blancos (white asparagus), alubias (bean stew),  pochas (delectable, fat, cranberry bean-like white beans cooked with chorizo and, sometimes quail), pimientos rellenos (stuffed peppers), huevos revueltos (eggs scrambled with mushrooms, green garlic shoots, shrimp, etc.), fresh trucha (trout) from Pyreneen rivers, costillas de cordero (lamb chops), and cuajada (northern Spain's wonderful, yogurt-like ewe's milk dessert, complete only when you add wild mountain honey).  In spring and autumn, there are dishes with exceptional native hongos (mushrooms). This good country cuisine is usually accompanied by one of Navarra's first-rate rosados (rosés) or sturdy reds. And usually, for an after-dinner drink, homemade Navarrese Patxaran, a potent anís liqueur in which sloe berries are macerated for several months, sometimes with a few coffee beans. 

Navarra rosado.

I decided to begin my trip in the spring of 1994 with a nostalgic drive up to Burguete and on to Ochagavia for the night, explore the Salazar Valley the next day, and end up in Roncal the following night. I first stopped at the Tourist Office of Navarra in Pamplona (see box), where the multi-lingual staff found rooms at casas rurales in Ochagavia and Roncal.

On the road to Burguete, I saw emerald-green pastures and tawny, fresh cut wheat fields whose straw bales would provide comfort this winter to the stocky cattle the Basque farmers raise here. I passed pilgrims walking the Camino de Santiago, cyclists on mountain bikes, and fishermen heading for trout streams. I was reminded of scenes in Hemingway's The Sun Also Rises when Jake Barnes rode atop a bus up these mountain roads drinking from wine skins offered by friendly Basques. Re-reading Don Ernesto’s passages, I found his descriptions still good. In some places, little has changed.

In the 1970s my former wife Diana and I used to go to Burguete in early July with Alice Hall, the late irrepressible doyen of Spain aficionados. We would spend a quiet time in the pastoral farming villages of these verdant mountains before surrendering to the cacophonous joys of Pamplona's wild fiesta. We would read, stroll along the road to Roncesvalles picking wild strawberries, and have long talks about Spain over dinners irrigated with plenty of vino tinto.

We stayed at Hostal Burguete, which was still much in style and comfort, or the lack of, as when Hemingway stayed there in the 1920s and made it the setting for several scenes in The Sun Also Rises– Jake Barnes and Bill Gorton came here to trout fish on the Irati, a good hike east. The hostal's owners claim the upright piano is the one mentioned in the novel. Under the lid is Don Ernesto's picture and "E. Heminway" (sic) scratched in the wood.

Trout fishing in a Pyreneen river.

The Camino de Santiago crosses the French border 15 miles north of Burguete and winds through the hills above Roncesvalles where Charlemagne's nephew Roland was immortalized in the epic French poem, Chanson de Roland. The Roncesvalles woods are a mystical place haunted by the spirit of Roland and by the millions of Santiago-bound pilgrims who have tread this ground. Seeking a respite from the fiesta in Pamplona, every year Diana and I used to bring a group of San Fermín celebrants up here. In the deep-green mossy forest's icy rivulets, we cooled our wine, melons, and other picnic items for glorious camaraderie-filled al fresco luncheons.

The much restored 12th-century monastery of Roncesvalles, was a proud hospital and hospice for pilgrims, renowned for its hospitality - - good food, real beds, and a cobbler. Of interest here is the 13th-century Virgin of Roncesvalles, a Gothic cloister, King Sancho VII of Navarra's pantheon, and a treasury with several venerated objects of colorful heritage.

Roncevalles.

On this trip I could spend only a few moments in Burguete - - stopping for coffee at a bar, gazing wistfully at our old Hostal Burguete haunt and paying homage to Alice Hall, who had died in February at age 90. I had to press on to Ochagavia before night-fall. Driving along curvy, well-paved roads through rocky green forests, I passed pretty, bucolic Garralda; Arrive with its fine medieval bridge over the Irati; and Garayoa with its 13th-century Gothic church.

Abaure de Abajo in the Spanish Navarran Pyrenees.

High escarpments towered over the twisting roads to Puerto de Abaurrea pass (3320 feet), where I got my first glimpse of the dramatic, snow-capped Pyrenean peaks, now suffused with a lovely peach glow in the late afternoon sun. Several miles of hairpin turns led me down a dramatic valley past Ezcároz, an attractive village on the swift Salazar river just below Ochagavia, the Salazar valley's main town.

Quintessentially Pyrenean, Ochagavia is charming mountain-bound village of just under 800 inhabitants that is laid out along two sizeable streams, the Zatoya and the Anduña, which form the Salazar just south of town. A passerby showed me to Casa Osaba, a big stone house on a cobblestoned street. Gabriela Moso, the owner, led me up two flights to a plank-floored bedroom with an armoire, a big bed with warm coverlets, and a night stand with the obligatory Spanish dim-bulbed lamp. Down the hall, Señora Moso showed me a new, spotless bathroom with plenty of hot water. The family's second floor dining room/living room had a big table, a fireplace also used for cooking, a pair of armchairs, a television, and a few decorations including a herrada, a gleaming brass-and-steel inverted-cone shaped utensil - - once used to carry water - - that has now become an object of folk art. Gabriela invited me to return for dinner at 10 p.m.

I took advantage of the remaining light to explore the picturesque village and look for some tapas (hors d'oeuvres). Most of the houses are two- and three-story stone homes with white facades, tiled roofs, shuttered windows, and geranium-filled wrought iron balconies. The dates (1768, 1908, 1926) on arched stone portals above the wooden doors, speak for the durability of these homes. The rough streets are hand-paved with river stones.

I crossed a quaint stone bridge over the swift Anduña and found the Pension Auñamendi, whose upstairs restaurant offers an inexpensive menu, but alas, there were no tapas at the ground floor bar, where some men were playing cards. As I returned to Casa Osaba, wood smoke curling from the village's chimneys laced the fresh mountain air with a homey smell that sharpened my hunger. I hoped Gabriela was a cook worthy of Navarra's culinary reputation.

In the dining room, I met Gabriela's family: Her husband, daughter, grandson, and her son-in-law, who spends his days near Tudela tending a large herd of sheep. In front of the crackling fire, Gabriela and her daughter served us a fine salad of lettuce, tomatoes, onions, and white asparagus; garlicky green beans and potatoes; merluza rebozada (hake in batter); pork chops grilled in the fireplace; and fresh cherries. The wine was a decent rosado, purchased in bulk at Puente la Reina.  After dinner, there was coffee and homemade patxaran, Navarra's sloe berry-anise liqueur. After the pacharán and an amiable chat about life in America, I went to bed, quickly gave up reading in the dim light, burrowed under the covers, and slept soundly until morning light. I came down to toasted pan, butter, and homemade plum jam; galletas, the snap cookies ubiquitous to Spain's breakfast tables; and good coffee. Bed and breakfast was about $12).

Pacharan Navarro, homemade in most of the rural lodgings of the Navarran Pyrenees.

From Ochagavia I followed the Salazar down the valley through fresh forests punctuated by awesome cliffs, striking rock formations, and green hills with grazing sheep. The ancient stone houses, block-tower churches, cobbled streets, and rustic bridges give this valley's fifteen villages a medieval air. Below Ezparza, a pretty, photogenic village with a three-arched Romanesque bridge, an impressive 16th-century church, and a large pisifactoria (trout farm), the scenery gets very dramatic as the road goes through spectacular gorges with falcons soaring above them. Beyond the gorges, fields of flaming-red poppies lined the road to Navascués, where I stopped to admire the 12th-century Romanesque church of Santa María del Campo, which stands in ancient solitude alongside the village cemetery southwest of town.

North of Navascués, the road to Roncal becomes much rougher, curving up steep, craggy, pine-covered hills to the pass of Las Coronas (3120 feet), where a spectacular vista overlooks the vast Valle del Roncal and its awesome backdrop of snow-covered peaks.

After nine more miles of beautiful, but twisting, steep roads, I reached Burgui, where the excellent Roncal cheese, Larra, is made from the ewe's milk of the very photogenic Lacha breed of sheep.

Burgui.

Lacha breed of sheep, whose ewe's milk is used to make Roncal cheese.

Burgui is a dramatically picturesque river town with a Romanesque bridge and a breathtaking canyon to its south.

Along the river banks here, I saw log rafts used by modern-day daredevil almadieros (rafts are called almadías), who reenact the dangerous feat when, before trucking and a downriver dam was built, each spring daring loggers used to ride such log rafts down the swollen river to the sawmills.

At Burgui the Navacués road joins the smooth main road from Pamplona that runs up the Roncal valley, following the Esca river through picturesque gorges, where dramatic bluffs rise above the road, waterfalls gush from the rocks, and suspension bridges over the river link hiking trails.

Roncal.

The Roncal valley is famous for its cheeses, bucolic villages, splendid scenery, and colorful folklore. Every year on the first Sunday in July, the Roncalese dress in colorful regional costumes for a romería (pilgrimage cum picnic) at the mountain hermitage of Idoya near Isaba. On July 13, the mayors of Roncal valley's seven villages turn out in typical costumes to receive the Tribute of the Three Cows offered by their French neighbors from the Baretous (Bearn) valley. The event, dating to the Middle Ages, annually draws thousands to a site near the French border.

Roncalese houses, like those of Ochagavia, are of the same stout stone and timber construction, but richer Roncal has more distinctive architecture. Like most towns here, Roncal's interior streets are paved with river stones, which are like walking on a washboard and require sturdy footwear. At Roncal's northern edge, the Esca runs by a trout farm just across a small bridge from a park with picnic tables and fine views of Roncal's massive church.

Tenor Julián Gayarre (1844-1890), the greatest Spanish opera singer of his epoch, was from Roncal. Gayarre's funeral monument in the village cemetery is by Mariano Benlliure (1862-1947), the Valencian sculptor who did the equestrian statue of Alfonso XII in Madrid's Retiro Park and torero Joselito's funeral monument in Sevilla. Gayarre's home is now a museum displaying momentos from his illustrious career.

Roncal's excellent sheep's cheese, queso Roncal, somewhat reminiscent of Italian Parmesan, but milder and softer, was the first Spanish cheese to earn an official denominación de origen (like wine). Once an artisan cheese, much of today's queso Roncal is produced in a local factory and can be purchased in markets or shops all over Navarra. If you want a homemade cheese, look for signs that say "Queso Roncal del Pastor" (shepherd's cheese).

Queso Roncal, a ewe's milk cheese that is the pride of the Navarran Pyrenees.

At Roncal's southern edge, on a hill overlooking the town, I found Casa Indiano, the charming two-story fieldstone home of Ana Maria Donazar, a grandmother who dotes, with equal amounts of cariño, or tender loving care, on her young grandson and her casa's rustic pine-timbered interior. The living quarters, including a kitchen with spectacular valley views, were on the second floor. Señora Donazar put me in a small room with a double bed, a dresser, and an armoire, just across from a clean, modern bathroom.

For lunch, on the main road just below Casa Indiano, I found Restaurante Begoña, a small cafe on Hostal Zaltua's second floor overlooking the river, where fishermen cast for trout. On the wall was a "celebrity" photograph of a man wearing a huge Basque boina (beret) and displaying several trophies - - Roncal's 1991 trout fishing champ. When I asked for trout, Begoña, who answers the jangling telephone, waits tables, and cooks, informed me, "If you had told me ahead of time, I would have had trout." I settled for a salad; red beans and chorizo with guindillas (hot peppers); superb revueltos con ajos y gambas (eggs scrambled with garlic shoots and shrimp); and queso Roncal. When I ordered a bottle of rosado, Begoña handed me the corkscrew and returned to the kitchen. The bill was about $10.

Pochas con guindilla.

North of Roncal is beautiful Isaba, a village in a lush green valley below the rugged peaks culminating in the Mesa de los Tres Reyes (Three Kings' Table), Navarra's highest mountain (7984 feet). Saving a more thorough inspection of Isaba for evening, I headed north toward the high gray-stone peaks that poke up through the surrounding forests like giant teeth. On the way I saw fishermen working the picturesque Belagua, a trout stream criss-crossed by rustic stone bridges. On the high plain below the peaks were verdant pastures where herds of sheep grazed with bleating newborn lambs and mares nursed wobbly-legged foals. Signs on farmhouses offered homemade Roncal cheeses.

Beyond the plain the road climbs steeply for several miles to the heights of Belagua with its stunning views down the valley towards Isaba. Incredibly, I encountered cyclists pedaling all the way to the summit; Miguel Unduráin, the Navarrese cyclist who won the Tour de France, trains here. On the way up the mountain is the rustic Venta de Juan Pito. In the rock-and-timber dining room, one can sit in front a big fireplace and lunch on migas ("shepherd's crouton's") and grilled lamb chops.

At Belagua is a ski refuge with spectacular cross country and downhill trails, but no lifts. With the temperature in the 70s in Roncal, I was in shirt sleeves, but it was cold at these heights, where there was still snow in the high crevasses. The road climbs through increasingly rugged terrain, where lovely little clumps of intensely blue wild flowers were a strikingly juxtaposed against the rocks and snow. Finally, the road ran level through a pass where I got breath-taking airplane views of France before heading back down to Isaba.

That evening, I explored the picturesque streets of Isaba, admiring the streets and houses that seem to be made of the same rectanagular-shaped stones; the flower-festooned balconies; and quaint doorways. After inquiring, I was directed to the gift and ski rental shop at Hotel Isaba where I purchased a herrada, like the one I had seen at Casa Osaba in Ochagavia, for $130.

Since Roncal has few places to eat, I decided to stay in Isaba for dinner. Isaba has several choices including upscale Hotel Isaba's reasonably priced, Restaurante Leyre, which offers good regional fare. I chose Isaba's popular Hostal Lola restaurant, where pimientos rellenos (piquant peppers stuffed with salt cod puree), trout cooked with cured ham, superb cuajada, a bottle of rosado, and coffee came to about $20.

Back in Roncal I found a lively bar that served homemade pacharán. The place was packed with young people eating, drinking, and listening to music. A sign on the wall, translated, said "If bullfighting is art, cannibalism is gastronomy."

Tired, but exhilarated from my day in the mountains, I returned to Casa Indiano and spent a restful night. The next morning, Señora Donazar and her husband, with "help" from their grandson, gave me a breakfast of cafe con leche, pan tostado with homemade mermelada (jam), and galletas (thin Spanish cookies). I paid my bill, which was about $14 with breakfast. As I was loading my car, I saw the little boy and his grandmother waving from an upstairs window. I waved back and reluctantly began the day-long drive out of these splendid mountains to Madrid and the plane ride back to New York.

- - End - -

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About Gerry Dawes  

Gerry Dawes's Spain: An Insider's Guide to Spanish Food, Wine, Culture and Travel  

Gerry Dawes was awarded Spain's prestigious Premio Nacional de Gastronomía (National Gastronomy Award) in 2003. He writes and speaks frequently on Spanish wine and gastronomy and leads gastronomy, wine and cultural tours to Spain. He was a finalist for the 2001 James Beard Foundation's Journalism Award for Best Magazine Writing on Wine, won The Cava Institute's First Prize for Journalism for his article on cava in 2004, was awarded the CineGourLand “Cinéfilos y Gourmets” (Cinephiles & Gourmets) prize in 2009 in Getxo (Vizcaya) and received the 2009 Association of Food Journalists Second Prize for Best Food Feature in a Magazine for his Food Arts article, a retrospective piece about Catalan star chef, Ferran Adrià. 

In December, 2009, Dawes was the subject of the Food Arts Silver Spoon Award in a profile written by José Andrés. 

". . .That we were the first to introduce American readers to Ferran Adrià in 1997 and have ever since continued to bring you a blow-by-blow narrative of Spain's riveting ferment is chiefly due to our Spanish correspondent, Gerry "Mr. Spain" Dawes, the messianic wine and food journalist raised in Southern Illinois and possessor of a self-accumulated doctorate in the Spanish table. Gerry once again brings us up to the very minute. . ." - - Michael & Ariane Batterberry, Editor-in-Chief/Publisher and Founding Editor/Publisher, Food Arts, October 2009. 

 

Mr. Dawes is currently working on a reality television series 

on wine, gastronomy, culture and travel in Spain.

Experience Spain With Gerry Dawes: Customized Culinary, Wine & Cultural Trips to Spain & Travel Consulting on Spain  

Gerry Dawes can be reached at gerrydawes@aol.com; Alternate e-mail (use only if your e-mail to AOL is rejected): gerrydawes@gmail.com

Sherry Primer - Part Two With Gerry Dawes - Bodegas Hidalgo Sherries

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Sherry Primer - Part Two

Explaining Sherries with poet Robert Balun. Tasting and descriptions of a range of Bodegas Hidalgo La Gitana Sherries with Spanish wine expert, Gerry Dawes, Founder & Jefe of The Spanish Artisan Wine Group - Gerry Dawes Selections. (Hidalgo Sherries are imported by Classical Wines (Seattle, WA), not The Spanish Artisan Wine Group.) Gerry Dawes©2013; gerrydawes@aol.com

_________________________________________________________________________________________________

About Gerry Dawes  

Gerry Dawes's Spain: An Insider's Guide to Spanish Food, Wine, Culture and Travel  

Gerry Dawes was awarded Spain's prestigious Premio Nacional de Gastronomía (National Gastronomy Award) in 2003. He writes and speaks frequently on Spanish wine and gastronomy and leads gastronomy, wine and cultural tours to Spain. He was a finalist for the 2001 James Beard Foundation's Journalism Award for Best Magazine Writing on Wine, won The Cava Institute's First Prize for Journalism for his article on cava in 2004, was awarded the CineGourLand “Cinéfilos y Gourmets” (Cinephiles & Gourmets) prize in 2009 in Getxo (Vizcaya) and received the 2009 Association of Food Journalists Second Prize for Best Food Feature in a Magazine for his Food Arts article, a retrospective piece about Catalan star chef, Ferran Adrià. 

In December, 2009, Dawes was the subject of the Food Arts Silver Spoon Award in a profile written by José Andrés. 

". . .That we were the first to introduce American readers to Ferran Adrià in 1997 and have ever since continued to bring you a blow-by-blow narrative of Spain's riveting ferment is chiefly due to our Spanish correspondent, Gerry "Mr. Spain" Dawes, the messianic wine and food journalist raised in Southern Illinois and possessor of a self-accumulated doctorate in the Spanish table. Gerry once again brings us up to the very minute. . ." - - Michael & Ariane Batterberry, Editor-in-Chief/Publisher and Founding Editor/Publisher, Food Arts, October 2009. 
 

Pilot for a reality television series 

on wine, gastronomy, culture and travel in Spain.

Experience Spain With Gerry Dawes: Customized Culinary, Wine & Cultural Trips to Spain & Travel Consulting on Spain  

Gerry Dawes can be reached at gerrydawes@aol.com.

Sherry Primer - Part One With Gerry Dawes - Bodegas Hidalgo Sherries

* * * * *

  Sherry Primer - Part One 

Explaining Sherries with poet Robert Balun. Tasting and descriptions of a range of Bodegas Hidalgo La Gitana Sherries with Spanish wine expert, Gerry Dawes, Founder & Jefe of The Spanish Artisan Wine Group - Gerry Dawes Selections. (Hidalgo Sherries are imported by Classical Wines (Seattle, WA), not The Spanish Artisan Wine Group.) Gerry Dawes©2013; gerrydawes@aol.com

_________________________________________________________________________________________________

About Gerry Dawes  

Gerry Dawes's Spain: An Insider's Guide to Spanish Food, Wine, Culture and Travel  

Gerry Dawes was awarded Spain's prestigious Premio Nacional de Gastronomía (National Gastronomy Award) in 2003. He writes and speaks frequently on Spanish wine and gastronomy and leads gastronomy, wine and cultural tours to Spain. He was a finalist for the 2001 James Beard Foundation's Journalism Award for Best Magazine Writing on Wine, won The Cava Institute's First Prize for Journalism for his article on cava in 2004, was awarded the CineGourLand “Cinéfilos y Gourmets” (Cinephiles & Gourmets) prize in 2009 in Getxo (Vizcaya) and received the 2009 Association of Food Journalists Second Prize for Best Food Feature in a Magazine for his Food Arts article, a retrospective piece about Catalan star chef, Ferran Adrià. 

In December, 2009, Dawes was the subject of the Food Arts Silver Spoon Award in a profile written by José Andrés. 

". . .That we were the first to introduce American readers to Ferran Adrià in 1997 and have ever since continued to bring you a blow-by-blow narrative of Spain's riveting ferment is chiefly due to our Spanish correspondent, Gerry "Mr. Spain" Dawes, the messianic wine and food journalist raised in Southern Illinois and possessor of a self-accumulated doctorate in the Spanish table. Gerry once again brings us up to the very minute. . ." - - Michael & Ariane Batterberry, Editor-in-Chief/Publisher and Founding Editor/Publisher, Food Arts, October 2009. 
 

Pilot for a reality television series 

on wine, gastronomy, culture and travel in Spain.

Experience Spain With Gerry Dawes: Customized Culinary, Wine & Cultural Trips to Spain & Travel Consulting on Spain  

Gerry Dawes can be reached at gerrydawes@aol.com.

Galicia’s Green Gold: White Wines from Native Spanish Grapes

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by Gerry Dawes

(An abridged version of this article first appeared in Wine News)

The best areas in Spain to discover just how sublime Spanish native varietal white wines can be is Galicia, encompassing the northwestern provinces of Lugo, A Coruña, Ourense and Pontevedra. In addition to the now-well-known Rías Baixas Albariños, currently de rigor on most serious stateside wine lists, white wines from the other Galician regions, such as Valdeorras, Ribeiro, Ribeira Sacra and Monterrei, are vying to become international white wine contenders. Although some of the blends include albariño grapes, many producers are increasingly confident with their home-grown varieties, such as treixadura (Ribeiro and Rías Baixas), godello (Valdeorras, Ribeira Sacra and Monterrei) and loureiro (Ribeiro and areas of Rías Baixas along the Miño River), all of which contribute to some surprisingly refreshing, often terroir-laced, high quality white wines that can be exceptional food companions.

Because it is rainy and emerald-green for part of the year, has deep Celtic roots (folk festivals feature bagpipers and all the associated trappings), is seamed by stacked-granite walls that surround lush fields and boasts a very long, often breathtakingly beautiful Atlantic coastline notched with deep, fjord-like inlets, Galicia is often billed as the Spanish equivalent of Ireland. Its people even share the Irish love of potatoes. But unlike the Emerald Isle, Galicia’s more southerly latitude affords the sunshine necessary to properly ripen wine grapes, at least in most years.

Because of its high rainfall--some 63 inches annually in Rías Baixas; just under 40 inches in most other Galician D.0.s--there is considerable humidity, however vines are trained on tall wire trellises anchored by granite or concrete posts. Growing grapes several feet off the ground, high enough for vineyard workers to stand upright beneath the clusters, also allows for air circulation that ameliorates the effects of humidity-nurtured diseases such as mildew. The leaf canopy shades the grapes from over-exposure to the sun as well, a practical expedient because Galician summers historically can bring some surprisingly hot days — now being exacerbated by global warming. Even though Atlantic waters can be quite bracing and bring refreshing breezes to the vineyards, the climate is actually warm enough to support some very popular summer beach resorts.

A tasting trip through Galicia in early August provided a refresher course on the progress of the native varieties in each of Galicia’s five denominaciones de origen: Monterrei, Ribeiro, Rías Baixas, Ribeira Sacra and Valdeorras. I encountered considerable progress since my last major trek in 2002 and a Rías Baixas sortie in 2004. In the case of several estates, I was pleasantly surprised by either world-class "made" wines or evolving wines that would soon fulfill that promise. On my previous visit I flew into Santiago de Compostela, the famous monumental city at the end of the Camino de Santiago (the medieval pilgrimage route that runs from France down into the Iberian Peninsula and then some 500 miles across northern Spain.

Monterrei

This time, however, I opted to drive in from the Ribera del Duero in Castilla y León to for a first visit Monterrei, a small DO comprising some 1,650 acres of qualifying vineyards located just north of the Portuguese border in the eastern mountains of Orense province. I was drawn to Monterrei by one particular adega — as bodegas are called in Galicia — Gargalo, the producer of Terra do Gargalo, a light, racy, mineral-laced, but nicely fruity wine that Iberia Airlines serves its business class passengers. Gargalo is located in Verín, a quaint, sprawling town that is watered by the Tamega River and located less than ten miles north of the Portuguese border. Mountainous terrain, denuded of vegetation by widespread fires of suspicious nature that have plagued Galicia for the past several summers, surrounds the town. On a high promontory outside of town, with spectacular views overlooking Verín, the vineyards and the sweeping Val de Monterrei, sits the striking Acrópolis de Verín, a complex that includes the 15th-century Castillo de Monterrei, a Renaissance palace and the medieval Gothic Santa María church. A few hundred yards away, on the opposite promontory with superb views is the rustic former Jesuit convent that is now the comfortable Parador de Turismo, the hotel where I make base while touring the region’s vineyards.

Adegas Gargalo is a small winery with a chic, modern cubist design that befits owner Roberto Verino, a Spanish fashion designer and Verín native. Located just down the hill from the castle and the parador, Gargalo is set amid sloping vineyards planted primarily with the native white grapes treixadura, godello and dona blanca; and native red varieties arauxa, mencia and bastarda (some wineries here also have the equally ill-named monstruosa, a white grape).

There is also a fascinating experimental vineyard planted with a wide variety of primarily white grapes that are described to me by Rosa Salgado, Gargalo’s shy, but informative enologist, who leads me on a tour of winery and vineyards. She explains that the trellised main vineyards, now some 20 years old, are predominately planted in treixadura, godello and mencia. Back in the winery, Roberto Verino’s status as a top designer is underscored by the large blowups of models wearing his clothing juxtaposed against horizontal Bucher presses and large blowups of Gargalo wine bottles.

Although I had tasted a couple of previous vintages of the Terra do Gargalo white wines at 35,000 feet, this would be my first encounter with them on terra firma. In the tasting room, Salgado pours two whites that had been opened the day before and refrigerated (I wonder if American wine writers don’t rate freshly opened bottles?). The Terra do Gargalo 2005, a 50/50 blend of treixadura and godello that is left on the lees to pick up flavor, was still fresh, however, and showed some sweet floral, tropical fruit and baking spice flavors, balanced by palate cleansing acidity and moderate alcohol (12.5 percent); Terra do Gargalo Clásico 2005, a blend of 50 percent treixadura, 30 percent godello and 20 percent dona branca, was still fresh and lively, too, with even more bracing acid and distintive spice, almond and mineral notes. (A Terra do Gargalo 2004 tinto, made with 50 percent mencia and arauxa, a grape Salgado calls "tempranillo de Monterrei," was a spicy, raspberry- and currant-laced, serviceable red in need of a few more months bottle aging.)

Ribeiro

About an hour northwest of Monterrei lies the Ribeiro DO, with its production of 85 percent whites, made from 7,500 acres of vines in 13 municipalities in western Ourense province. Some of the best producers are located around the captivating medieval town of Ribadavia, located some 20 miles southwest of Ourense, the provincial capital. Ribadavia is a fascinating trip back in time that counts among its attractions the 14th-century castle of the Counts of Ribavia, a 12th-century transitional romanesque church, an evocative medieval former Jewish quarter and substantial remains of the town’s old walls overlooking the Avia and Minho rivers, the latter of which, a few miles to the southwest, flows on to form the border with northwestern Portugal.

As close as any Galician wine to being the Spanish equivalent of France’s Muscadet, the wines of Ribeiro, because of the climate, which averages 37 inches of rainfall and just over 1,900 hours of sunlight annually, have historically been lean and razor-edged; recently they have become increasingly richer, but still never overblown or heavy. Grown in granite-laced soils, often with alluvial deposits of stones and gravel, Ribeiro’s officially "preferred" white grapes are treixadura, godello, albariño, jerez and torrontés, yet loureiro, macabeo (viura), albilla, and the experimental variety, lado, are also permitted.

Treixadura Grapes 

In the past, overcropping for high production levels, not necessarily the quality of the native grapes, kept these reasonably-priced wines from achieving their full potential. In recent years, the rising quality levels of Spanish white wines have begun to lift all the vino blanco boats to higher level, Ribeiro being a notable example. In addition to racy acidity and better fruit flavors, many of these wines are also express a classy mineral quality. They are delightful with moullucs (especially raw oysters and clams), crustaceans and fish. On this trip (and in Madrid and New York), I tasted and accompanied meals with several very accessible reasonably priced Ribeiros, all of which were delicious, balanced and with refreshingly low (for these times) alcohol levels.

Emilio Rojo, a former engineer with a reputation for eccentricity, is generally recognized as the star of the Ribeiro. Several years ago, Rojo returned to his native Galicia to make some 9,000 bottles of wine from two hectares of old, low yield vines on terrace hillsides. A blend of 55% treixadura, 15% loureiro, 10% lado, 10% albariño and 10% torrontés, Emilio Rojo’s wines have racy acids, moderate alcohol, show exotic flavors (orange, lime, tropical fruits and spices), have haunting finishes laced with minerals and are, thankfully, unoaked.

Viña Meín, made from 80% treixadura, 10% godello, 5% loureiro, plus traces of albariño, torrontés, and lado, is a bracing wine with substantive pear and melon flavors and a long mineral finish that was a fine companion for grilled prawns and small, flash-fried red mullets at Rafa restaurante in Madrid. Bodegas Campante Gran Reboreda (80% treixadura, 10% godello, 10% loureiro), made by the same company as Morgadio Albariño in Rías Baixas, is inexpensive, fresh, lively, minerally and a perfect food companion for people tired of palate taxing, high alcohol wines. Even the wines from the region’s very large Vitivinicola del Ribeiro, the 70,000-case Viña Costeira and the 85,000-case Pazo, can be delightful with tapas and seafood dishes such as pulpo a la gallega (Galician steamed octopus with Spanish paprika, olive oil and sea salt).

Galicia's Ribeiro & Sanclodio, The Wine of Spanish Art Film Maker José Luís Cuerda



Just before this article went to press, at the Encuentro Verema (verema.com) wine convention in Valencia, I met Spanish award-winning Spanish art filmmaker Jose Luís Cuerda (Bosque Animado, La Lengua de Las Mariposas, Educacion de las Hadas ), who recently began producing Sanclodio, a delicious, complex, delightful white made with five native Galician grapes: treixadura, albariño, loureiro, godello and torrontés. In 2002, Cuerda bought several hectares of vineyard land and XV-century wine cellar near the historic Cisterican San Clodio monastery in the prime Gomaríz region of Ribeiro, one of the best wine growing areas of Galicia in northwestern Spain.

The production of Cuerda's impeccably tended, terraced vineyards is strictly limited in order to insure the highest quality wine, resulting in a crisp, fruity, mineral-laced wine with a lingering sense of authentic terruño (terroir) that could come only from this region and these grapes. He makes about 2,700 cases off six hectares and just about 10% of his production is destined for the U.S. market. The grape composition is treixadura (67 %), godello (15 %), torrontés (12 %) loureira (5 %) y albariño (1 %).

Only the fact that Cuerda's vines are still young and thus don't exhibit quite the intensity of terroir that they will undoubtedly show as his viñas get older, keeps this superbly balanced wine from being one of the great white wines of Galicia (some would say it already is, quite remarkable for young vines, but he has an excellent vineyard man working for him. Like any great white wine, Sanclodio will improve with bottle age when stored in a cool environment. Drink from release date up to four years from the harvest. 

Sancolido and José Luís Cuerda were featured in a three-page, front page lead article in The Sunday's New York Times Travel Section on August 27. http://travel.nytimes.com/2007/08/26/travel/26galicia.html

The wine was also a big hit at the Sonoma Napa Wine Country Film Festival, where, according to the Festival organizer, everyone was saying that it was the "best Spanish white wine they had ever tasted." It was served under the stars to accompany the showing of his film, La Educacion de las Hadas.

Sanclodio is imported by European Wine Cellars - Eric Solomon Selections.

All around the old Galician Ribeiro town of Ribavia, which has a charming old Jewish quarter, are picturesque wine-growing hamlets surrounded by rustic, trellised, small plot vineyards planted long ago on granite-butressed terraces. These vineyards are of another age and are among of the most picturesque in Spain.

On this trip, when I was looking for the vineyards of Emilio Rojo in the hamlet of Arnoia, it was disconcerting to happen upon yet another suspicious Galician forest fire raging southeast of town and potentially threatening a particularly beautiful spread of old vineyards and the houses built among them. The scene became totally surreal when helicopters and fire planes began to fly overhead, racing back and forth over the vineyards to the Minho river and a nearby reservoir to collect water for bombing runs on the raging fire.

Unfortunately, this would not be the last time I was to see such a scene on this trip in early August, since there were scores of arsonist-set forest fires everywhere we went in August 2006 (not the case of in August 2007). Seriously, if one tastes a smoky quality in some Galician whites from 2006, it will not be from a toasted barrel.

Ribavia is dotted with charming, old wine-growing villages hemmed by rustic, trellised small plot vineyards planted long ago on granite-buttressed terraces. These viñedos are of another age and are among of the most picturesque in Spain. While looking for the vineyards of Emilio Rojo in the hamlet of Arnoia, it was disconcerting to happen upon a forest fire, thought to be set by an arsonist, raging southeast of town and potentially threatening a particularly beautiful spread of old vines and the quaint stone houses that stood among them. The scene became totally surreal when helicopters and fire-fighting planes swooped in, flying back and forth to the Minho river and a nearby reservoir to collect water for "bombing runs." Unfortunately, this was not be the last time I came upon such a scene during this August trip. (If one tastes a smoky quality in some 2006 Galician whites, in all seriousness, it will not be from a toasted barrel.)

Rías Baixas

Pazo de Señorans

To the west of Ribeiro lies Rías Baixas, characterized by the southern Galician Baixas, or "lower," fjord-like inlets that mark the Galician coast and from which both the area and the DO take their names. The albariño grape reigns supreme in Rías Baixas, and the luscious, fruity, but nicely balanced, food-friendly wines produced from it have propelled Galician whites into both the national and international spotlight. Indeed, Rías Baixas whites are some of the most versatile and least intimidating in the market; its Albariños typically exhibit lovely, green-tinged straw or light gold colors and exude typically fruity albariño aromas reminiscent of pear, white peach, pineapple or apricot; racy acid underpinnings shore up the same often luscious fruit flavors found in the nose and balance harmoniously with delicious, complex, dry mineral-laced finishes.

This attractive combination of fruitiness and dryness makes Albariños ideal as apéritif wines and equally suitable mates for a range of modern dishes, as well as for Galicia’s legendary seafood classics. Because of their inherent versatility, Albariños have become so popular with American consumers that the United States is now its most important export market (the only Spanish wine region that can claim that distinction).

Five designated winegrowing areas make up the Rías Baixas DO: Condado de Tea, O Rosal, Val do Salnés, Soutomaior and the relatively new Ribeira do Ulla. In each of these subzones, a wine must be 100 percent albariño to use the Albariño monovarietal designation on the label. This is often a moot point, since 95 percent of Rías Baixas’s more than 7,500 acres of registered DO vineyards are planted to albariño. Yet there are some very high-quality, noteworthy whites that cannot be labeled as Albariño, but can be designated Rías Baixas as long as they contain at least 70 percent albariño. In Condado de Tea and O Rosal some very interesting, sometimes very high-quality versions of these wines are made (by long-standing tradition) with up to 30 percent of the DO’s other preferred varieties — treixadura, loureira and caiño blanco (some godello, torrontés and marqués are also authorized). Small additions of these varieties to the albariño deepens aromas, adds body and, often these blends show more complexity than many 100% albariño wines.

With more than 60 percent of its vineyards registered, Val do Salnés, surrounded on three sides by the Atlantic and the inlets Ría de Arousa and Ría de Pontevedra), is the most important Rías Baixas subregion, followed by Condado de Tea and O Rosal, both in southernmost Galicia along the Minho. Several major producers in Condado de Tea, along with their 100 percent Albariño wines, also make intriguing albariño-treixadura-albariño blends; most prominent are Marqués de Vizhoja’s Señor de Folla Verde, Adegas Galegas’s Veigadares and Valmiñor’s Dávila. Farther west, in the O Rosal subregion at the mouth of the Minho, Terras Gauda, Santiago Ruíz and Pazo de San Mauro are all marked by loureiro in the blend, along with smaller percentages of treixadura and caiño blanco that promote an attractive complexity and demonstrate the significant potential of these lesser-known grapes when blended with albariño.

In the literal rather than figurative sense, Rías Baixas wines are likely the most feminine in Spain. Many of the country’s wine regions have female winemakers and winery owners, but not in the numbers working in Rías Baixas, where the president of the Consejo Regulador for the past 21 years has been the dynamic María Soledad Bueno, owner of Pazo de Señorans (in 2007, she relinquished her position to grateful kudos from producers, press and a host of admirers).

Among the female enologists responsible for some of the region’s top wines are María Luisa Freire (Santiago Ruíz), Pilar Jiménez (Pazo de Barrantes), Cristina Mantilla (Veigadares, Pazo de San Mauro, Valminor Dávila and Couto), Ana Martín (Condes de Albarei), Angela Martín (Casal Caiero), Ana Oliveira (Terras Guada), María del Ana Quintela (Pazo de Señorans) and Isabel Salgado (La Granja Fillaboa).

Many of these producers were showing their wines at the colorful annual Festa do Albariño held every August in Cambados, the main town of the Val de Salnés district. As the first American invited to help judge this Albariño competition at this event, I was privileged to sample more than 70 wines over the course of the competition, the public tastings, official meals and impromptu gastronomic excursions around Cambabos.

Do Ferreiro and Galician Oysters, a Superb Marriage

Gerardo Méndez of Do Ferreiro

Many superb, small-producer, 100 percent Albariño were among my favorites: Cabaliero do Val, Rozas, Avo Roxo, Lagar de Broullon, O Forrollo, Gerardo Méndez's Do Ferreiro (one of the region's best producers), Granja Fillaboa, Lusco, Palacio de Fefiñanes, Pazo de Barrantes and Pazo de Señorans (fortunately, most are currently exported to the United States).

Judging, tasting and drinking these wines, often with those supernal shellfish of Galicia — ostras (oysters), almejas (clams), cigalas (langoustines), nécoras (small crabs), vieiras (sea scallops) and zamburiñas (similar to bay scallops, served with their coral) — underscored the excellence of Spain’s best-known white varietal wine.

Cigalas (Dublin Bay Prawns)

Galician Shellfish, some of the best seafood in the world

  Albariño Do Ferreiro

Dry, lively, fruity and complex, Palacio de Fefiñanes is one of Rías Baixas’s greatest wines and one of the best Spanish whites I have ever encountered. Founded in 1904 and housed in a baronial palace on a charming plaza in Cambados, Palacio de Fefiñanes makes albariños aged in large, used oak vats (a la Alsace), which have minimal impact on the flavor, but contribute greatly to the age-worthiness of the wines, which I have beem tracking since the 1994 vintage). Fefiñanes, owned and produced by Juan Gil de Araujo (not to be confused with the Juan Gil of Jumilla), is on par with some of the finest Chablis.

Ribeira Sacra

After several days in Rías Baixas marked by some lovely wines, but also plagued by arson (fire destroyed some of Do Ferreiro’s vines, among others), I turned west toward Ribeira Sacra and Valdeorras. The former has some of Spain’s most spectactularly beautiful vineyards, which are planted on terraces along slate-strewn hillsides that plunge steeply to the banks of lakes created by the dammed-up north-south-flowing Miño and east-west-flowing Sil rivers. The Ribeira Sacra DO has 3,000 acres of the vineyards that snake through the Galician provinces of Lugo (in the north) and Orense (in the south) and is divided into five subzones: northernmost Chantada and Ribeiras do Minho (along the Minho River) [Use Minho, which is Gallego and Portuguese, essentially the same language], and Amandi and Quiroga-Bibei (along the Sil) — all in Lugo province — and Ribieras do Sil (along the Orense portion of the Sil).

Ribeira Sacra is producing some surprisingly good, terroir-laced red wines from mencía, Spain’s most exciting rediscovered red variety, but several promising, still little known, godello- and albariño-based whites also are grown here. Abadía da Cova, Ribeira Sacra’s top bodega, offers a delicious, complex Albariño accented by the addition of 15 percent godello and treixadura; a fine Godello, with 15 percent albariño added, is also made here. José Manuel Rodríguez, president of the Ribeira Sacra Consejo Regulador (regulatory council), makes the excellent Décima Godello, which, with its white peach and mineral flavors, is reminiscent of viognier. The Godellos of Donandrea Toxeiro y Peza do Rei are also delicious.

Great Red Wine Hope from Ribeira Sacra

Ribeira Sacra, “Vinos del Cielo” (The Wines of Heaven) reads a sign overlooking a heaven’s view of perhaps the most strikingly dramatic and stunningly beautiful wine region in the world (from a writer fresh off a trip to Portugal’s Douro River Valley, this is not hyperbole). The Ribeira Sacra Vinos del Cielo sign is also a tie-in to the origin of the region’s name, which comes from the profusion of ancient sacred (sacra) monasteries and churches in this region. Some are more than a thousand years old and several are Romanesque churches founded in the 12th and 13th centuries by Burgundian Cisterican monks, who were the “Johnny Grapevines” (instead of Appleseeds) of their epoch. They established vineyards all around France, Spain, and Germany, many of which are still the basis for some of the world’s most famous wines (Clos de Vougeout, Beaumes de Venise and Vega Sicilia to name a few).

“Heavenly” Riberia Sacra is the land of mencía par excellence, but two other preferred minority varieties, brancellao and merenzao; some beefy garnacha tintorera; two other obscure red grapes; and a sextet of Galician white varieties, the most promising of which is the superb godello, are all grown here. Ribeira Sacra, a snake-shaped denominación de origen with 3,000 acres terraced along the spectacular slate-strewn hillsides of the dammed-up Miño (flowing north-to-south) and Sil (flowing east-to-west) river valleys. Ribeira Sacra is shared by the Galician provinces of Lugo in the north and Orense in the south and divided into five subzones: northernmost Chantada and Ribeiras do Miño along the Miño, Amandi and Quiroga-Bibei along the Sil (all four in Lugo province) and Ribieras do Sil (along the Orense portion of the Sil).

More than five years ago, I began visiting Ribeira Sacra, still practically unknown in this country. I found single row terraces of old vines mencía (with some garnacha tintorera and the white grapes, albariño and godello), growing on incredibly steep slate hillsides first planted by the Romans that plunge precipitously down to the dammed-up Sil and Minho rivers, making for some of the most spectacularly beautiful vineyards in the world (surpassing even the beauty of the Douro and Germany’s Moselle wine growing regions). These vineyards are so steep that steel railings have been placed at strategic points to allow the grapes to be hauled up and some, like a Cividade, are so precipitously steep and isolated that they can only be reached by boats, on which the grapes are placed during harvest to transport to the winery.

On that first visit, I was immediately awestruck by the region’s magical landscape and after a number of tastings and a few dozen bottles that I drank during meals in Galicia, I found some of the same promising black ruby-red, raspberry-flavored fruit and mineral elements in these mencía-based wines as those in Bierzo. I loved the fact that Ribeira Sacra reds were fresh, light (some only 12% to 12.5% alcohol, a welcome relief in this epoch), deliciously fruity and laced with the same graphite-slate mineral characteristics as the wines of Bierzo and Priorat. (For the “there is no such thing as mineral terroir current wisdom,” those mineral tastes are getting into these wines somehow, because all three regions have the same Galician food and in tastings in the region, I tried a number of wines that were pleasurable, even fascinating because of their raspberry and red currant flavors and distinct mineral stamp, but few them were more than quaffable, rustic country wines.

I felt too many of the wines were way too unsophisticated, not well made and often obviously overproduced, a fact underscored by Adegas Alguiera’s Fernando González, when he showed me heavily laden vines from one of the multitude of small minifundia grower vineyards that sell their grapes to the larger Ribeira Sacra wineries and to others outside the region. However, as 50-something former banker-turned-bodeguero, González has shown--with the winemaking expertise of the peripatetic, talented Raúl Pérez to bring out the best in his wines–that these small, old vine plots, with careful vineyard practices, reduced yields and a good winemaker can produce world-class wines practically overnight. This is relatively easily acheivable and means that there can be quantitative and qualitative quantum leap in the wines of Ribeira Sacra within a very short period of time.

In early August 2007, José Manuel Rodríguez, President of the Consejo Regulador (regulatory council) of Ribeira Sacra took me to Pradio, a new, but very isolated hill country winery overlooking the spot where the Sil River pours out of its “throat” (Gargantuas del Sil) into the Minho River, which flows down past Ourense and becomes Galicia’s southern border with Portugal. Twenties-something owner, Xavier Seone Novelle, who owns a whole hamlet where he renovated some old houses and built a winery, hotel and facilities for mountain tourists, poured his Pradio 2006 carbonic maceration red wine along with some of his mother’s excellent tapas. It was evident from the first sip, that at least at this winery, something was changing in the right direction in Ribera Sacra. Pradio was deliciously fruity, moderate in alcohol and had seen no wood except the trees around the property.

That night with tapas at O Grelo restaurant, just down the road from the hilltop Parador de Turismo where I was staying in the Ribiera Sacra capital of Monforte de Lemos, José Manuel Rodríguez tasted me through his own wines, the juicy, complex Décima 2006 and the Décima 2005 (a year he says was espectacular for his wine), both of which were delicious and full flavored, neither of which topped 12.2% alcohol! Then he served an unusual and unusually good Décima 2006 tinto that was delicious, silky, easy drinking blend of mencía, garnacha tintoera (30%) and godello (10%), the white grape. The garnacha tintorera boosted the alcohol level to 13.5%, but that is low by today’s standards. I now had tasted four superb wines from two small producers. Were there more good Ribeira Sacra wines where those came from?

A day later, after having toured some incredible mencía vineyards with Fernando González (and almost having a heart attack when I peered out the window of a van too large for the cliffside vineyard road we were on and saw a vineyard 100-feet below me, at the bottom of a sheer drop!), we returned to Alguiera, where Raúl Pérez, fresh off a flying enologist run from Bierzo in his Mini-Cooper, had just arrived. Pérez led me through an eye-opening lineup of wines ranging from the Alguiera 2006, which should be superb with bottle age, back to the 2001, one of the best Mencía-based wines I had ever tasted, certainly the best Ribeira Sacra wine perhaps ever made. As if to underscore that where there is smoke, there’s fire, as we were drinking the wines with some tapas from Alguiera’s own small restaurant, José Manuel Rodríguez showed up with Dona Das Penas owner Antonio Lombardía, who produced a bottle of juicy, white peach- and honeysuckle-flavored, mineral-laced Alma Larga Godello 2006, which clearly showed that Ribeira Sacra was capable of producing a world class white as well. (In a previous Wine News article, I wrote about the quality of Abadia da Cova’s godello-albariño white wine blends.)

The next morning, at the Parador of Monforte de Lemos, Antonio Lombardía brought me his Verdes Matas Mencía 2006, which despite just having been bottled and marked by new oak, showed excellent potential with rich, sweet red raspberry and red currant fruit, mineral flavors and just 12.5%.

On earlier trips to Ribeira Sacra, I had seen glimpses of future greatness in the meager production of José Manuel Rodríguez’s Décima and in Abadía da Cova, which had been on the market for some time, but had seemed to have lost focus under the interventionist winemaking market urgings of their former American importer. But now, after the remarkable tasting at Alguiera and the tastings of Décima, Pradio and Pena Das Donas, I had seen the future of Ribeira Sacra come together in just two days. And, there are other wines like the unusual, but exotic and intriguing (are you ready for cherry and chestnut wood, instead of oak?), Enológica Thémera and a trio of wines–Lacima, Lapena and Lalama–from Priorat husband-wife team, Sara Pérez (Clos Martinet) and René Barbier, Jr. (Clos Mogador). With Pérez-Barbier, what I fear is not invasion of the “L”s, it is the Priorat invasion, which I hope does not bring in its wake Mediterranean climate style wines with 14% - 15% alcohol levels.

My prediction is that within two to three years, this region will suddenly vault onto the wine stage to join the new Spanish red wine chorus line that already includes Bierzo, Priorat, Toro and Jumilla, but Ribeira Sacra, if it stays true to its own regional style, will be the lightest stepping dancer in the line and may find an important market as the antidote to the beefy 14% to 16% alcohol wines that seem to be dominate today. The challenge will be to maintain the lovely raspberry, red currant and light black raspberry mencía fruit, minerality and reasonable alcohol content (12.5% to 13%) that makes these wines so engaging, plus resist the temptation to submit the wines to the ubiquitous abuse of new oak, which overwhelms both the fruit and the terroir. If these first few wineries entering the American market are an indicator, they may prove to be Spain’s antidote to all the overblown “blockbuster” wines out there–an antidote which a multitude of protesting wine lovers are fully ready to embrace. Maybe their bigger sibling to the East, Bierzo, will even follow Ribera Sacra’s lead and mencía may turn out to be Spain’s new Great Red Wine Hope.

Valdeorras

Just east of Ribeira Sacra, with 3,700 acres of DO vineyards along the Sil valley is Valdeorras, which is showing excellent potential for fine godello-based whites that reflect their particular terroir. Valdeorras, which could very well be Spain’s Burgundy, is attracting more serious winemakers, such as peripatetic Telmo Rodríguez and Rafael Palacios (brother of Priorat-La Rioja-Bierzo winemaking star, Álvaro Palacios). They have come here to make rich, fruity, but well-balanced wines laced with mineral finishes from old vines godello vineyards terraced on well-drained slopes; the results are reminiscent of the best white wines of France.

After making wines for several years in his family's Palacios Remondo winery in La Rioja Baja, including the very well-regarded Placet, one of the best 100% viura wines ever made in La Rioja, Rafael Palacios burst onto the Galician white wine scene in 2005 with As Sortes Godello white, which was in instant sensation. After a rumored family rift and, perhaps a desire to make his own mark free of the shadow of his superstar brother, Álvaro, Rafael moved to Valdeorras (Palacio's cousins are also making wine there and in neighboring Bierzo) and procured some high altitude, terraced old vines godello from which he crafts his signature. When first released As Sortes will score in the low 90s on just about anyone's scale. It is cask fermented in foudres (again, a la Alsace) and the wine is left on the lees for several months in the cask. The resulting wine is Burgundy weight, richly fruity, mineral-laced, leesy and without marked oak characteristics, but early on it exhibits a slightly cloudy, too-deep green-gold color, which, if it were a sweet wine would not cause concern, but in a dry white it often means that after a year the wine may be an downhill oxidative spiral, which I have seen in several other Spanish white wines vinified this way. One hopes that Palacios will master his superb godello raw material, because tastings of his first efforts show the potential to make one of the great white wines of Europe.

Rodríguez is the former winemaker of Rioja’s Remelluri, where he made some memorable, highly rated reds and one of Rioja’s most interesting whites from a blend of several native and foreign varieties. He now makes Telmo Rodríguez y Cia wines in such far-flung areas as Ribera del Duero, La Rioja, Alicante and Málaga. Two years ago, he introduced his first Valdeorras wine, an old vines godello called Gabo do Xil. The 2004 was already showing an advanced deep, green-gold color, but was somewhat out of balance; it did possess a promising character that made it a wine worth revisiting in vintages to come. Rodríguez admits that he considers Gabo do Xil an entry-level Godello, but the 2005, which I tasted over dinner with young star chef Vicente Patiño's food at Sal de Mar restaurant in Denia (Alicante) in January, was silky, spicy, delicious and performed well above Telmo's own advance billing for the wine.

A Valdeorras godello-based wine with a longer history is Godeval, which shows the flinty, mineral terruño (terroir) from the pizzara- (slate) strewn slopes around a refurbished old monastery that is the winery. In its early years, Godeval reached depths of flavor and complexity that few other native Spanish whites achieve. It has become quite popular over the past few years, however, and, though still quite good, it may have slipped slightly as its production has grown to meet demand. Godeval also makes a more expensive barrel-fermented godello, but the oak obscures the wine’s nuances and haunting mineral flavors.

La Tapada, which produces Guitian, uses godello grown on vineyards around the winery that are distinctly less rocky than those at Godeval. José Hidalgo, winemaker at La Rioja’s Bodegas Bilbaínas, is La Tapada’s consulting enologists. Guitian is a pleasant, rich, glossy mouthful of tropical fruit, but it does not achieve Godeval’s complexity. I tend to discount the barrel-fermented version, because of its overtly butterscotch flavor and a surfeit of oak, but I recently had to amend that opinion when I tasted the 1997 and found it surprisingly good. Other Valdeorras 100 percent godello-based wines of interest are Galiciano Dia, Joaquín Rebelledo, Viña Somoza and Pezas de Portela.

After this article was almost complete, I tasted the latest vintage of Pezas de Portela, the 2005, at the trendy Urban restaurant in the Hotel Urban, perhaps the hottest new hotel in Madrid. It was simply stunning, easily as good as many white Burgundies. Two days later, at Mari Carmen Velez’s superb La Sirena restaurant in Petrer, outside Alicante, I had the 2002, which showed some of the same fruit and terroir, and was tasting a lot like aged Burgundy.

There is no doubt that Galicia is turning out truly fine whites from native grapes. These refreshingly different varieties — albariño, godello and treixadura, especially — are proving themselves capable of producing memorable wines that are fruity, spicy, often complex, dry, mineral-laced and excellent companions to food. That is a revelation in a country thought as little as decade ago incapable of making world-class white wines.

– The End –

Postscript

The range of my dining experiences while in Cambados in Rías Baixas, which spanned modern Spanish cuisine and regional specialities, underscored the versatility of Albariño, and tastings of several wines, particularly those of Pazo de Señorans and Palacio de Fefiñanes, reinforced my faith in the age-worthiness of this native white in the hands of the best producers. Yet several barrel-fermented Rías Baixas whites sampled on this trip reconfirmed my belief (formed on earlier visits) that fermenting such wines in new oak fails to enhance their natural flavors and often masks their freshness, fruitiness, charm, nuances and any terroir they may possess.

In this new oak-demented age, mercifully, the majority of Rías Baixas whites are spared brutal lashings of oak that many other Spanish wines suffer. Three of the very best, Pazo de Señorans (unoaked), Do Ferreiro and Do Ferreiro Cepas Vellas (old vines) and Palacio de Fefiñanes (used barrels), see no new oak, yet age well, particularly the latter. Pazo de Señorans Selección de Añadas Albariño, a stellar wine made only in the best Rías Baixas vintages, is aged on the lees in stainless steel for three years.

Warning: Beware of Rental Car Deals That Seem To Good To Be True

A warning about rentalcars.com.  There prices seem to good to be true.  They are.  They have you pay up front for what looks like a great deal.  I reserved and paid for a car to pick up at the Vigo airport in Galicia.  I was told it would be Europcar and it was.  When I got to Vigo and went to the counter to pick up my car, the lady at Europcar was very nice and very apologetic. She informed me that there would be a $70+ airport pickup charge that had to be put on my credit card.  So I paid the normal price and got no deal at only.  Also, it is very easy to get upgrades to a better, bigger car this days, since all the car companies are getting stuck with cars that use more gas or deisel, so they are glad to give you one.  The catch is it will cost you a chunk more in gas money!

A Morning's Pleasure: Running the Bulls at Pamplona (An Excerpt from Homage to Iberia: More Spanish Travels & Reflections by Gerry Dawes)

* * * * *
(All material, except for black & white photographs, copyright 2010 by Gerry Dawes.)

Nearly forty-five years ago on July 8, 1970, I ran the bulls in Pamplona and became entangled in on of the most memorable montones, or pile-ups, in the history of the encierro (running of the bulls.)   This is my story of what happened to me and my friends that day.

Running the bulls on the Estafeta.

Photo by Gerry Dawes©2010.

The first year I lived in Sevilla, to make ends meet, I began to sell paintings for John Fulton, the American Matador who lived in Sevilla for decades, made his living as an artist and was featured in James A. Michener's best-selling book on Spain, Iberia.  In early July 1970, Fulton and I found ourselves flat broke and itching to go to the Fiestas de San Fermín in Pamplona, a place I had only read about in Ernest Hemingway's The Sun Also Rises and in Iberia. On July 6, as I was walking through the narrow corridors of Sevilla’s Barrio de Santa Cruz, where I was renting an idyllic apartment, I encountered an affluent-looking group of American college students. As they filed by me in the narrow street, I couldn’t help thinking that many of them had undoubtedly read Iberia and, if only there were a way to introduce them to Fulton, I was sure they would at least buy some lithographs and books and we could possibly finance our trip to Pamplona.

 Gerry Dawes (circled, left center) & American Matador John Fulton (arrow, center)

in the famous montón, the pileup, on July 8, 1970.

Fulton had printed some little cards with a picture of him in his traje de luces (suit of lights). It had some “propaganda” inside about being the American matador-artist featured in Iberia. As the one of the last students in the line passed me, I handed him several of the cards and told him if the group was interested in meeting John to call me. Within the hour, they called, asking if they could meet John Fulton. I bought some cheese, chorizo, olives, and bread and several bottles of red wine for 10 pesetas a liter, made sangría, and got Fulton and the students together for a party in the open-air patio at my house in the Barrio de Santa Cruz, where I kept a display of Fulton’s art. The students were thrilled to meet the famous matador. They purchased so many of his lithographs and books that we earned enough money to leave for Pamplona the next afternoon, July 6, the day before the first of the eight San Fermín encierros was to be run.

Fulton, Bill Cimino (an aspiring young American bullfighter Fulton was tutoring), and I piled into John’s little green Seat sports car and left Sevilla in the afternoon, intending to drive all night and arrive in Pamplona in time to run the bulls on the morning of the seventh. We drove across the scorching plains of La Mancha and into the highlands of Castile. Fulton took the mountain roads via Soria to Logroño in the darkest hours of the night and the predawn of July 7 found us racing around curvy roads that followed trout streams rushing through tall woods. On bicycles, fishermen in hip boots with fly rods and wicker creels slung across their chests pedaled out to fish them. A family of bright-eyed foxes scurried across the road in front of us and disappeared into the woods.

It was just past six as we drove through Romanesque Estella. The sun was rising from the direction of Pamplona and it came up over the hills in a bright ball. A few clouds drifted over the sun. At first Fulton and I teased them into cloud sculptures with our imaginations, then they began to take on shapes of their own.

“Christ, would you look at that one?” I said to John Fulton, “I don’t believe it!”

“How about the one in front of it?” Fulton pointed out another shape and the images grew more lifelike for a few brief moments and then began to break up, but not before they had been engraved in my mind. First we had seen a runner in the sky, then the cloud behind him become a bull, his head down, his horns searching. I told Fulton this would make a fantastic lead for a story on San Fermín.

“Don’t ever try to write about it,” he told me, “No one would ever believe you.”

The elation I felt at having what bordered on a mystical encounter faded in the face of the experienced matador’s logic. After all, I had never even set foot in Pamplona, and I was ready to let a trick of my imagination lure me into conclusions about an event I had never even seen. It was still half an hour before the bulls for the encierro would be released from the corrals at the bottom of Santo Domingo hill in Pamplona.

We wanted to reach Pamplona in time to run, but we were behind schedule. Even so, I urged Fulton to make a quick stop at the first open bar we saw.  I had already figured out that one must be very brave, very crazy, or very drunk to get into the streets with a string of fighting bulls. I also calculated that, not only was I lacking in the first category, I was not far enough along in the second, so I decided a bottle of brandy might help me emulate some of both qualities.

We drove on through Puente la Reina, Legarda, and Astrain without seeing a bar open. My nerves were rapidly failing, when Fulton announced that it would be impossible to reach Pamplona in time to run in the encierro. Suddenly, I felt I could run with the bulls. Now I lamented our being late.

Just minutes before seven o’clock, the hour the bulls were turned loose in those days (before national live television coverage required an eight o’clock start for more light), we reached the area near the legendary teléfonos dogleg, parked the car, and ran toward the encierro route. We were able to climb up on a truck just in time to watch the tail end of an uneventful run. A mass of runners, bulls, and steers swept past our vantage point and it was all over in a few seconds. The whole thing looked simple, but I was far from convinced that anything involving hundreds of alcohol-fortified runners being pursued by a pack of fighting bulls could be that easy.

After the encierro, we walked over to the Plaza del Castillo and within five minutes I found myself sitting at the same table at the Bar Txoko with the legendary Matt Carney. Carney was as handsome as Michener had described and he was in fine spirits. I was excited to meet Carney after all I had read about him in Iberia, but I was a little apprehensive about his reputation as a brawler. When Fulton introduced me to him, Carney flashed his famous Irish grin and something about him made me feel I belonged, that I was no newcomer, no outsider, at his table. Over the years, I would subsequently observe Matt welcome other people to the fiesta in much the same way. Carney had a big heart and his idea of San Fermín was a fiesta of sharing, not of exclusion.

But, today, my first day at San Fermín, I was going to see both sides of the coin. Within ten minutes after we had pulled up chairs around Matt’s table, his demeanor suddenly changed. “That’s a lie,” I heard him say. Then he shouted, “You’re a goddamn liar. Take that back, I said, take it back!” He jumped up and hit the spectacle-wearing man sitting beside him.

“Wow,” I thought, “Carney sure lives up to his reputation. Michener was right; Hemingway, Basque woodchoppers. . . and now, right in front of me, he’s slapping the hell out of someone named David Black. I’m going to be damned careful what I say in front of this guy.”

I was sure that Carney regularly blew up like Old Faithful and that after Iberia was published, he must have thought it was his duty to keep up his brawling since, along with his bull-running, broad Irish smile and gravelly jota singing, his whole persona now bordered on a conjunto artistico-folklorico, an artistic-folkloric ensemble on the verge of being declared of touristic merit.

Nothing could have been further from the truth. I subsequently knew Matt Carney for another 18 years and spent parts of ten sanfermines with him. Other than the slapping around of David Black, known far and wide as “The Dirty Old Man” and a man so contemptible, obnoxious, and purposely provocative that there are few regulars at Pamplona who had not hit him, I saw Matt Carney in just one other fight—during the legendary night of the giant Angelino at the Bar Txoco about which we will hear more later. But first I had my date with the encierro.

Hemingway wrote about Pamplona’s running of the bulls, the encierro, in the Toronto Star Weekly in 1923: “Then they came in sight. Eight bulls galloping along, full tilt, heavy set, black, glistening, sinister, their horns bare, tossing their heads . . . They ran in a solid mass, and ahead of them sprinted, tore, ran, and bolted the rearguard of the men and boys of Pamplona who had allowed themselves to be chased through the streets for a morning’s pleasure.”

Unlike Hemingway’s “men and boys of Pamplona,” I was not out for “a morning’s pleasure” when I ran the bulls. And unlike most of the foreigners—many of them American college students who read The Sun Also Rises in American literature classes or Iberia in Spanish classes—who had come to Pamplona on a lark to run the bulls, I had seen enough bullfights, more than one hundred at the time, to have developed a very healthy respect for the Spanish fighting bull.

But, since every man who goes to Pamplona—except for the very crippled and very old (and even some of them run)—is expected to run the bulls at least once, I felt I had to, especially since I had come to Pamplona with John Fulton and Bill Cimino, who called himself León Camino.  He was as brave as a lion—in fact, maniacally brave.

After we had missed running in the encierro that first morning, I felt like a kid whose dental appointment had been canceled. Yet the inevitable had merely been postponed. Still, I kidded John Fulton all morning in the Bar Txoko, claiming the brave matador had caused us to arrive late so he wouldn’t have to run the bulls. Fulton reminded me that the bulls to be fought in each afternoon’s corrida were run each morning of the fiesta.  He would have several more opportunities to prove himself, he said, and so would I.

Early on the morning of the eighth of July, Fulton aroused me from a restless sleep. Bill Cimino was having no part of the encierro. He groggily informed us that if he were to die on the horns of bull, it would be in the glory of the bullring, not in the anonymity of the street. He rolled over and went back to sleep.

Shortly before seven a.m., we crawled through the double row of heavy timbers that are put up each morning to barricade the citizenry from the mayhem and clustered at the traditional gathering place in front of Pamplona’s storybook ayuntamiento (city hall). We were six: Fulton, the late writer Toby Williams, Ron Vavra (the twin brother of Iberia photographer Robert Vavra), U.S. Navy Commander Dennis Fish from Rota, a Marine captain, and me. Only Fulton and Williams had ever run the bulls.

I entertained no illusions of glory. I wanted to run far enough ahead of the bulls to say out of danger, but close enough to get a glimpse of them behind me, then sprint into the bullring at the end of the course and vault over the fence to safety. This little romp would earn me my imaginary bull runner’s merit badge, lend credence to my claims to manhood, add a few lines to my dinner party repertoire, and gain me acceptance with the Pamplona regulars, that international group of Hemingway’s spiritual descendants who return to San Fermín each July to revel in the light of a sun that for them always still rises.

Hundreds of runners and thousands of spectators were converging along the 850-yard course that runs uphill from a corral at the bottom of Santo Domingo hill through the barricaded streets of Pamplona’s old town. At the bullring every morning, a packed house awaits the exciting entrance of bulls and men as they come pouring through a narrow passageway.

The plaza in front of city hall was filling with runners—men and boys, not just from Pamplona, but from all over the world. Many appeared to have been drinking all night; their white fiesta costumes were soiled from sleeping, and often wallowing, in the streets and from poorly aimed botas, the ubiquitous wineskins that fuel the fiesta. Even at this hour they staged impromptu drinking contests, seeing who could take the longest draughts of Navarra wine arched from botas held at arm’s length. Others danced the jota and the riau-riau, the infectious folk music of Navarra, which blared from poorly wired loudspeakers.

From behind polished brass lions gracing the balconies of the fairy-tale façade of Pamplona’s city hall, the city fathers surveyed the bacchanalia with an air of paternalistic tolerance. Wives, daughters, and nuns watched with demure amusement from their privileged perches. Pretty Basque girls looking for their favorites leaned out from the balconies of the houses lining the narrow streets. Tourist and native alike strained for a better view or camera angle from the timbered barricades surrounding the plaza.

The crowd of runners grew larger. Our group waited, close-knit and nervous. We mangled the rolled-up newspapers Fulton had advised us to bring. Tradition has it that one is supposed to be able to ward off an imminent goring by whacking a bull on the nose with a newspaper. As we waited Fulton told us about the runners down on Santo Domingo hill—the “crazies” who run toward the bulls. They work up their courage by singing to a statue of San Fermín which occupies a special niche overlooking the street. As they sing, they thrust their rolled newspapers skyward to the image, invoking the saint’s protection. San Fermín is said to intervene on behalf of fallen runners, suddenly appearing with a cape to distract a bull about to spike an endangered mozo, as the Navarrese affectionately call those who run. It was of no solace to me that San Fermín was unable to intervene in time in 1969, just a year earlier, and two runners were killed at Jim Michener’s feet as he stood in a doorway on Santo Domingo.

Fulton, professional matador and veteran runner, had volunteered to initiate us into this time-honored fraternity. Scared, but trusting as Boy Scouts on our first hike, we listened intently as Fulton explained how he runs the bulls for maximum effect and minimum risk. He encouraged us to pace ourselves and stay with him. We were to arrive at Teléfonos, the telephone office corner, at the top of the hill where the street doglegs left into the bullring. We would stop there and wait for the bulls to come up the famous canyon-like street, calle Estafeta. Each of us could then decide just how close he wanted the bulls to get before running for the bullring.

The hands on the city hall clock inched inexorably toward what the Spaniards call la hora de verdad, the moment of truth. The crowd of runners was straining against the line of police who were keeping them from moving into Doña Blanca de Navarra (now named Mercaderes) and Estafeta. Shortly before seven, they allowed the mass of runners to move into the empty streets ahead of them and many began running. I stayed close to Fulton, as did most of the rest of our group. We walked and half-jogged along the cobble-stoned Estafeta, which is the long uphill straightaway on the course.

At 7:00 a.m. sharp, a rocket streaked into the sky above the old quarter and a loud report signaled the release of the bulls. At that moment, several steers and seven fighting bulls were pouring into Santo Domingo, some 500 yards down course from our position and out of sight because of turns in the street. When I heard the rocket, I was ready to streak for the bullring, but Fulton encouraged me to wait. By the time we reached Teléfonos, runners were flying by us like proverbial bats out of hell. We looked back down the Estafeta, but we still couldn’t see the bulls. The confusion of noise, motion, and dust from the rush of runners caused a further drain on my rapidly diminishing supply of machismo. I decided I was quite ready to follow the last of Fulton’s instructions: Run like crazy into the bullring, break off to the
left, and vault over the bullring fence to safety.

I started to take off. A familiar voice—Fulton? Williams?—shouted, “Hey, don’t you even want to see them?” In the confusion, I actually paused to consider the question—a big mistake. It was like being on the way to an air raid shelter and having some fool ask you for the time. I actually turned to say, “No!” As I looked back, I saw a mass of runners stampeding toward me. Behind them was an ominous space, a swath being cleared by the bulls. I raced for the tunnel leading into the bullring. I intended to get into the ring and over the fence—fast.

The rest was a nightmare. Reaching the tunnel, I found a montón, a pileup. Several runners had fallen and others had tripped over them as they frantically tried to get through. The pile was building; the entrance to the bullring was blocked. The bulls would be on us in seconds.

My first impulse was panic. I tried to climb over the pile like everyone else, but it was futile, so I chose the only alternative: I would have to take my chances in the pit with the bulls. I withdrew from the pile with the irrational idea of spreading myself along the wall of the tunnel like a coat of paint.  Unfortun-ately, other people had similar thoughts, there were already making like coats of paint two and three deep along the wall. We pressed against one another hoping that we could somehow fuse and become indistinguishable from the concrete.

Matt Carney at Bar Txoko, San Fermín, early 1970s. 

Photo by Gerry Dawes©2010.

The bulls charged into the tunnel and ran into the pileup. They were stopped by the human barricade and began to mill about in the confusion. I found myself being jammed against the runners behind me by a huge brown fighting bull from the ranch of Juan Pedro Domecq, one of the most respected ranches in Spain.  Luckily, I was left standing along his flank when he stopped. For now, at least, his horns could not reach me and his body was shielding me from other bulls. For some reason, I thought I might be able to push the half-ton plus animal aside so I could get out. I put my hands on his massive sides and shoved. He didn’t budge an inch. I remained trapped for several moments. It seemed an eternity.

El encierro, Pamplona, July 8, 1970.  I (circled) am looking towards a toro suelto (a bull separated from the herd and thus, very dangerous, since he will often attack anything that moves or go along the fence hooking anything in his path with his horn--called "limpiando la pared" ("cleaning the wall").   The animal in the picture is a steer (there is a cowbell around his neck), not a toro bravo.  Luckily, the loose bull did not hook everything he saw along the fence.

The lead bulls struggled like floundering swimmers through the pileup.  Fortunately, they were so disoriented that they were not trying to gore anyone, but they were trampling the fallen. When the first bulls broke through into the plaza, they attacked and several people were gored. 

Finally, the big brown bull moved. I freed myself and followed a group of runners heading back down the course to escape the bulls. We knew that if the remaining bulls were frustrated in their attempt to go forward, they might turn and wander back into the street. I got out of the tunnel and ran for the nearest fence, but dozens of people were already up on the barricades. They climbed just high enough to save themselves. Once out of danger, they stopped to enjoy the spectacle. 

Since I couldn’t get up the fence, I positioned myself against it. There was an animal in front of me, but I saw the bell around its neck and realized it was one of the steers that run with the bulls to help keep them in a pack. Then I saw the most frightening thing a runner can experience outside of a pileup: A toro suelto, a bull that has become separated from the herd. Such loose bulls often take the offensive, attacking anything that moves, sometimes “cleaning the wall,” going along a wall or barricade hooking everything they encounter.

I froze, peering out from the line of men along the fence, hoping the bull wouldn’t go for us. He turned and glared at us for a long moment, but no one moved enough to provoke a charge. He suddenly wheeled and ran toward the bullring in search of his brothers.

Now, my thoughts turned to my friends. I saw Fulton on a barricade across the street. After the bull passed, he climbed down and ran back into the tunnel. I foolishly followed him. As I caught up with him in the bullring, he ordered me to stop in my tracks. The last bull, the toro suelto, was still loose in the ring. We stayed still until one of the official ring attendants lured the bull into the corrals with a cape. A rocket signaled the end of the encierro.

The normal run lasts from 2 ½ to 3 minutes from the time the bulls are released from the Santo Domingo pens until they are herded into the bullring corrals a half-mile away. We would find from reading the local newspapers, that today’s encierro had taken 6 minutes, 41 seconds (they are officially timed), one of the longest in history. One reporter wrote that the only other pileup to rival ours occurred in 1947 (another legendary pileup happened a few years later and that I will touch on it with a humorous story about Noel Chandler).

Our group had been lucky. None of us wound up in the hospital. Later, we read that nearly 50 runners had required medical attention and that one man, first reported dead, was critically injured. We found Ron Vavra bleeding from a long scrape on his nose. A bull had shoved him face-first against the concrete wall of the tunnel. Fulton and Vavra had been trapped on the opposite side of the tunnel from my position fighting off horns and hooves for several minutes. At one point, Vavra had looked at Fulton, a yard away through the common frame of a pair of horns, and said, “Man, we are in trouble.” Fulton had a long, painful bruise along his thigh, where a huge steer had mauled him with its hooves.

The other members of the group were unaccounted for, but I had seen the Marine captain go up the fence, so I was sure he was all right.  Dennis Fish soon joined us; he had avoided the pileup. Later, we found a slightly battered Toby Williams sitting in the Bar Txoko, drinking a double brandy.

I remained in the bullring with Fulton for the morning capea, or amateur bullfight. To the delight of a capacity crowd, cows with leather caps over their horn tips are turned loose to wreak havoc on a mob of daredevils.  The cows, vacas bravas of fighting stock, are two to three years old; they are strong and charge ferociously.

Before the toril (gate to the bull pens) is opened to let one of these cows into the arena, a group of demented young men gathers in front of the gate to take the first fresh charges of the animal with their bodies. After the cow tears into the pile, she races around the ring smashing “the men and boys of Pamplona” (and not a few foreigners) like figurines in a china shop. Fulton unfurled his newspaper and managed to get off a nice pass to one of the cows. When they let out a particularly large animal with no protective leather on its horns, I decided enough was enough and vaulted over the fence to safety.

When the capea was over, we strolled over to the Plaza del Castillo, where Williams was holding a table for us at the Bar Txoko. The cheap, coarse brandy we ordered was bracing; it steadied nerves and loosened tongues as we recounted our adventure and basked in the glory of having been in the breach.

As I listened to the retelling of the morning’s events and added my own embellishments to this colorful tapestry of personal legend that we were all weaving, I sensed that something very important was missing from our descriptions: It was the powerful animal smell in the close air of the tunnel that was the most realistic element in the dreamlike sequence of events. That detail had been lost amid the surreal mix of noise, dust, fear, confusion, and excitement in the tunnel. But the smell of the big brown juanpedro bull was still on my jacket and on my hands.

As the others ordered fresh croissants for breakfast, I went down to the lavatory in the basement of the Bar Txoko and, in the cold water of Pamplona, I washed my hands of “a morning’s pleasure.”

As the years went by, I would claim that I had made a deal with that bull in the tunnel, “If you let me out of here alive, I will never came back to molest your brothers,” I told listeners when the subject came up.  The legendary English bullfight aficionado Michael Wigram says that I also made another declaration, “If I am going to die on the horns of a bull, I would prefer it to be in an Andalucian bullring with several thousand Spaniards clapping palmas por bulerias, not after being trampled by some sophomore from the University of Nebraska.”

I never ran the bulls again.

The End

__________________________________________________________________________

About Gerry Dawes  

Gerry Dawes's Spain: An Insider's Guide to Spanish Food, Wine, Culture and Travel  

Gerry Dawes was awarded Spain's prestigious Premio Nacional de Gastronomía (National Gastronomy Award) in 2003. He writes and speaks frequently on Spanish wine and gastronomy and leads gastronomy, wine and cultural tours to Spain. He was a finalist for the 2001 James Beard Foundation's Journalism Award for Best Magazine Writing on Wine, won The Cava Institute's First Prize for Journalism for his article on cava in 2004, was awarded the CineGourLand “Cinéfilos y Gourmets” (Cinephiles & Gourmets) prize in 2009 in Getxo (Vizcaya) and received the 2009 Association of Food Journalists Second Prize for Best Food Feature in a Magazine for his Food Arts article, a retrospective piece about Catalan star chef, Ferran Adrià. 

In December, 2009, Dawes was the subject of the Food Arts Silver Spoon Award in a profile written by José Andrés. 

". . .That we were the first to introduce American readers to Ferran Adrià in 1997 and have ever since continued to bring you a blow-by-blow narrative of Spain's riveting ferment is chiefly due to our Spanish correspondent, Gerry "Mr. Spain" Dawes, the messianic wine and food journalist raised in Southern Illinois and possessor of a self-accumulated doctorate in the Spanish table. Gerry once again brings us up to the very minute. . ." - - Michael & Ariane Batterberry, Editor-in-Chief/Publisher and Founding Editor/Publisher, Food Arts, October 2009. 
 

Pilot for a reality television series 

on wine, gastronomy, culture and travel in Spain.

Experience Spain With Gerry Dawes: Customized Culinary, Wine & Cultural Trips to Spain & Travel Consulting on Spain  

Gerry Dawes can be reached at gerrydawes@aol.com.