Navarra, in northern Spain, is one of the country's 17 first-level administrative regions (comunidades autónomas) and a fairly prolific, if lesser-known, wine region. Traditionally associated with the production of Bright, Fruity rosé, Navarra is beginning to attract attention for its high-quality red wines, mainly from the Tempranillo, Cabernet Sauvignon and Merlot grapes, after years of being overshadowed by its southern neighbor, Rioja. The first evidence of wine-making in the region dates back to Roman times, but it is almost certain that Vines were growing here Long before that. It was recently discovered that vines of the prehistoric species Vitis sylvestris - the predecessor of the beloved Vitis vinifera - were still growing in Navarre.
After the Romans, vine cultivation continued under the Moors and then expanded considerably under Christian rule. The demand for wine was boosted by Catholics making the Camino de Santiago pilgrimage to the shrine (now a cathedral) of Santiago de Compostela in Galicia, where, according to tradition, the remains of the apostle St James are buried. The 14th century was a period of prosperity for Navarre and the number of vineyards multiplied to the extent that restrictions had to be imposed to ensure that enough land was given over to cereals to feed the local population. Demand received a further boost at the end of the 19th century when France was hit by Phylloxera.
Layers of colour in the sky before me: indigo, peach, salmon. In the rear-view mirror, the gold was catching fire. As I drove down through the lonely, Mistral-chilled vines of Babeau-Bouldoux towards nearby St-Chinian, I was thinking about what Christine Deleuze of Clos Bagatelle had just said. ‘When you came to visit 10 years ago,’ she reminded me, ‘you said we needed to wait another decade for a market breakthrough. Today you’ve said we need to wait another decade or two. So when, exactly, wil ...
The focus of the symposium, unsurprisingly, was on the challenges posed by climate change. As if to illustrate the immediacy of the threat, the symposium took place during a heatwave, with temperatures of over 40°C in Bordeaux and extreme weather events recorded across the coountry: parts of southwest France saw violent storms and winds of 112kph on the evening of 20 June, while vineyards across the Médoc and St-Emilion were damaged by hailstones ‘the size of golfballs’. As Olivier Bernard of D ...
Layers of colour in the sky before me: indigo, peach, salmon. In the rear-view mirror, the gold was catching fire. As I drove down through the lonely, Mistral-chilled vines of Babeau-Bouldoux towards nearby St-Chinian, I was thinking about what Christine Deleuze of Clos Bagatelle had just said. ‘When you came to visit 10 years ago,’ she reminded me, ‘you said we needed to wait another decade for a market breakthrough. Today you’ve said we need to wait another decade or two. So when, exactly, wil ...