I had two wine epiphanies on my seven-week trip to Spain. The first was at Bodegas Pérez Pascuas Viña Pedrosa in Pedrosa de Duero in the Burgos Province uplands of the Ribera del Duero. In my opinion, this winery, which I have been visiting for more that 40 years is now likely the greatest winery in the region. For years I have been close friends with the family, especially Manolo Pérez Pascuas, one of the brothers who own the winery and vineyards. And for decades, I have complained to Manolo about the oak in the Viña Pedrosa, oak that I felt had obscured the greatness of the family’s vineyards, which are some of the best in Spain. Then I found out that they had had a major falling out six years ago with their winemaker José Manuel Pérez Oveja, son of the older brother Benjamín, who was named Spain’s Viticulturist of the Year in the 1990s.
I have known José Manuel Pérez Oveja since I begin visiting the bodega (founded in 1980) in 1984. He began making the wines in 1989 and a few years later I began to notice the marked influence of new oak on the wines. In those days, the winery made a Vino Joven, an unoaked young Ribera de Duero Tinto Fino wine that was delicious and after I had tasted all their current release and we were having dinner, usually chuletillas al sarmiento, baby lamb chops cooked over grapevine cuttings, I would ask to return to their lovely un-oaked wine to finish the meal.
Over the years, I tasted at Pérez Pascaus more than a score of times and noted how much the new oak had masked the character of what may be the greatest vineyards in the Ribera del Duero. One day, I was with José Manuel Pérez Oveja, with whom I had a good relationship, in the bodega amongst rows of new oak barrels, which is all I could smell. We were tasting a wine together and he told, “See, you can’t smell the new oak in this wine.”
That is all I could smell and I suddenly realized that he (and others who crucify wines on the Parkerista new oak crosses) work in these sawmill redolent parques de barricas (stands of new oak barrels) and have been inoculated against the smell of new oak, a flavor that in my humble opinion after more that 50 years of tasting wines as a wine writer and wine professional, is the grossest adulteration of the flavors of wine I have ever encountered during my career in the wine world (at least Greek retsina announces what it really is).
On April 25, I brought six people along with me to visit my old friend Manolo at Bodegas Pérez Pascuas Viña Pedrosa in Pedrosa de Duero to visit the winery, taste the latest releases and have lunch, on great chorizo, spears of espárragos blancos de Navarra in Spanish extra virgen olive oil, ensalada de lechuga, tomate y cebolla, morcilla de Burgos and those wonderful chuletillas al sarmiento.
As we began the meal, Manolo served us Bodegas Pérez Pascuas Viña Pedrosa Crianza 2022 and I found that I was drinking it faster than usual, despite its 14.5% alcohol, which is at least a degree too elevated for my liking. He followed with Viña Pedrosa Reserva 2019 and Gran Reserva 2018, both of which, I suddenly began to realize had followed the same pattern as the Crianza, showing all the fruit from the great Viña Pedrosa and none of the oak domination.
As we began the meal, Manolo served us Bodegas Pérez Pascuas Viña Pedrosa Crianza 2022. Photo by Kay Balun.
As the last wine, Manolo Pérez
Pascuas, treated us to winery’s flagship wine, their super Ribera del Duero Pérez
Pascuas 2016, which of the wines we drank today, as it turns out was the only
one made while José Manuel Pérez Oveja was still making the wines. This wine sells on some wine lists for up to €300! Unlike the previous three wine, there it was, harsh new oak obscuring
the finish of what should have been a great, great wine.
It was a very clear, very stark demarcation and an epiphany for this taster who had tasted and drunk Pérez Pascuas from their first vintage in 1980. I commented to Manolo about the marked difference in the wines and he nodded his agreement to what I was detecting.
