Part I of Navarra Blog: What’s Cool About Navarra? Just About Everything!

What’s Cool in Navarra? 

Just About Everything

By Deborah Hansen, Wine Matters, LLC

A Blog in Three, Sippable Parts

Part I:  A Nibble of Navarra’s History

Welcome to the three-part blog on my recent trip to the viticultural zone of Navarra. First, a bit of history.  Second will be the juice from the wineries I visited.  Last, the tasting notes of all the wines I tasted.

Hot sun, cool clime

The brilliant Spanish sun is the stuff of legends and songs, but in northern Spain in October, she does not rouse herself until about 8:30 am.  If you’re on a wine trip, you’ll have a glass of  wine in hand by 10:30 am.  Such were my days as I traversed Navarra recently.  In this lovely land that nestles into the foothills of the Pyrenees and extends southward to the banks of the River Ebro, and eastward to the Bardenas desert,  I was dazzled by how incredibly cool the place is, blinding Spanish sun and all.

Who and what are conferring coolness upon Navarra?  First and foremost, a new generation of winemakers.  Oh, and then there’s that Bay of Biscay (Atlantic),  those Pyrenees and that Cantábrian range (mountains), and the very latitude itself (42.78º).     The place exudes cool.

Pilgrims and pests

Officially a  D.O. since 1933*,  Navarra has been an vinicultural center since Roman rule.   Later during the Middle Ages, its locus along  the famed Camino de Santiago pilgrimage route afforded winemakers a steady stream of both customers and contributors.  Wine was a staple not a luxury, and viticulture flourished, reaching it’s pinnacle in the mid 19th century with approximately 50,000 hectares of vineyards.  A widespread outbreak of powdery mildew soon thereafter would reduce this number considerably.

*Denominación de Origen, or Designated Origin

Simultaneously,  France’s wine industry was decimated by this powdery mildew followed by a new pest from American soils called phylloxera.  Thousands of French wine folk beelined southward across the Pyrenees in search of wine, vines, and jobs.  They brought thirst and need, but also centuries of craft;  the first barrel-aged wines in Spain emerged during this heyday.

By the end of the century, phylloxera had lain waste to most of Spain’s vineyards as well, save the sandiest and most mountainous of places.  In Navarra, the replanting of the vineyards reveals an almost pure devotion to the garnacha grape and an abrupt dismissal of the mazuela (cariñena or carignan) that had been so widespread in centuries previous.

Garnacha took well to the necessary grafting onto American rootstock, and it was highly productive and resistant.  The landscape was quite literally changed in Navarra.

Garnacha rosé, long before it was cool

Dark-hued rosado (rosé), made mostly from garnacha grapes, rapidly became one of Navarra’s most noteworthy wines and to this day still accounts for 30% of the rosé sold in Spain. Sultry in spirit and far more complex than today’s ballet-slipper pink specimens, these rosados taste of  things classic and vinous: red fruits, iodine, dried roses, and sometimes of barrel.  The color palette ranges from exuberant magenta, through friend-not-lover pink roses, to a vivid copper that Crayola calls sunset orange and the Spanish call ojo de perdiz, partridge eye.

The rosado gamut is wide, reflecting the complexity of a region whose varied cuisine requires a many-splendored accompaniment; whose capital city of Pamplona is still home to the running of the bulls after 400 years yet still has no international airport; whose denizens may feel more Basque than Spanish; whose land has been trodden by traveling pilgrims for over a thousand years.  It makes sense that the traditional Navarran rosados tend more blood-hued than tutu-tinted, smacking of dark berries, ferrous earth, and ripe tannins as they do.  Now as then, they are made almost exclusively in the sangrado method (saignée, in French), whereby fresh juice is bled off after a few hours of contact with red grapes to then ferment on their own.  The maximum amount of free-run juice is 40 liters per 100 kilos of grapes.

You don’t know what you’ve got ’til it’s gone

The  late 1980’s were a time of  uprooting in Spain.  The wine-rich EC required hectares of  ‘inferior’ grapevines to be pulled, and many an old, low-yielding  garnacha vine fell into that demoralizing category.   They were unceremoniously supplanted with ‘improving’ varietals such as cabernet sauvignon, merlot, and syrah, which would show better in the newly-popular oaky, very ripe, international style of wine.  Chardonnay had been present in the zone since the 1200’s when the French King Theobold of Champagne brought vines and winemakers to his new kingdom, and it enjoyed a reawakening in this era.  Fast asleep went the tradition of  lighter-bodied, low-tannin, fresh reds so enjoyed over the centuries.

Today, the liveliest wines in Navarra are exactly those graceful garnachas.  Despite the drastic loss of most of their garnacha vines, or perhaps because of this very loss, the winemakers with whom I tasted last autumn all shared a penchant for garnacha.  Now accounting for approximately  27.5 % of the total grape production in Navarra, garnacha is seriously cool again, despite her inherent challenges.  She requires a deft hand, as she’s astringent if pressed too hard.  One needs patience and a high tolerance to risk as she is a late-ripening grape, which gives Mother Nature more opportunities to confound with rain and frost.  She’s also prone to spiking her alcohol levels, so the harvest date has to be ultra precise.  Garnacha is also highly oxidative so long barrel aging isn’t a good career choice for her.  Her thin skin means she’s not too tannic and a bit sensitive to botrytis, but her naturally high acid levels are very much in vogue and at last she is claiming the attention and fandom she so deserves.  Garnacha, like Navarra itself, is having a moment.  It’s all very cool.