Man of La Mancha… couldn’t resist (Valdepenas, Spain)

Madrid is everything that a capital city should be; it’s big, busy, historic, cultural, classy and teaming with life. In late June it is also scorchingly hot. It would have been at least 38 degrees in the shade, almost 10 degrees higher than only two hours north. On the Friday night of the weekend I was invited to have dinner with Didier Belondrade, his partner and a friend, where I enjoyed one of the finest meals of my trip and made me miss Melbourne a lot. Madrid is certainly a party town, and I didn’t get much sleep so on the Sunday evening when I got to Valdepenas I flicked on the Italy England Euro 2012 match and fell asleep after only ten minutes. Valdepenas is town that the DO takes its name from, and is the part of the La Mancha DO, the largest producing wine region in the world. Many in the Spanish wine industry look down on La Mancha as a low-quality commercial area, blaming it for the ills of the wine glut. There is however much quality to be found here providing that the price is right, and it is thanks to this region that so many consumers are drinking Spanish wine around the world. Valdapenas is the premium area of the region, and I wanted to find out what the best this wide, dry and healthy part of Spain had to offer.

Traditional fermentation vats in Valdepenas

Even better than the real thing (Ribera del Duero, Spain – Day Three)

I’d like to take this opportunity to talk about the complexities of communication. A significant amount of the worlds problems can be traced back to a failure to communicate, through misunderstandings, misrepresentations or ignorance. In daily life it can be so difficult to get your message across and understand your opposite within your native language, let alone some else’s. It is my firm belief that the major thing holding wine back in the world is communication, rather than economic, political or social barriers. Wine is such a unique product that it is futile attempting to market it in my opinion, all you can do is communicate it. Some might argue that this is the same thing, but communication is only one element of marketing that is the most complicated in relation to wine. In my experience one of the hardest things to convey about wine is more than quality, it is personality, context and the overall mystery of wine. I have always endeavoured to improve the way I communicate about wine, dependant on the audience, and I will continue to do so in the future. When you consider that in todays global wine market there are hundreds of different language and cultural barriers, this further adds to the complexity involved. On my journey I have had several instances of misunderstanding and miscommunication, but my experience today was one of the most frustrating.

Barrels in the cellars of Vega Sicilia