Amo el buen vino y hoy el New York Times publica una noticía que no es común, sobre un viñedo en Baja California del que nadie pensaba encontrar, uno con uvas zinfadel, el tipo de uva que los vitinicultores de California se pasan buscando durante años. En medio de una zona desértica se encuentra esta uva, en un lugar apropiadamente llamado Rancho Escondido, propiedad de L.A. Cetto. Para los estadounidenses fue una sorpresa mayor. La marca Turley, que hace vinos boutique, compró una cosecha pequeña en 2004, y en un mes están listas las botellas... Un fragmento del texto del NYT:
"... How did this precious old zinfandel vineyard, the kind that California winemakers spend years seeking out, come to be in this valley hidden from view in a place that nobody knows? Winemakers scour the back roads of Sonoma, of Paso Robles, of the Sierra Foothills, of Arroyo Grande, looking for old vineyards, peering into fields overgrown with blackberry vines and decrepit refrigerators, talking to old-timers, poring over county records, but why would anybody think of looking in Mexico, of looking here?
“You think you’re just being led on a chase, and then you crown the hill, and, my God,’’ said Ehren Jordan, the winemaker for Turley Wine Cellars, which makes burly, voluptuous much-in-demand zinfandels from old vineyards all over California, and now, from Mexico, too. Next month it will release its 2004 Rancho Escondido zinfandel, made from this vineyard, appropriately named Rancho Escondido, or hidden ranch.
The story of Rancho Escondido parallels the story of Mexican viticulture, which nowadays is thriving in Baja California but which practically didn’t exist in 1930, when a farmer named Leonardo Reynoso first planted what would eventually become the 200-acre Rancho Escondido vineyard.
Why there? “Who knows,’’ said Camillo P. Magoni, the chief enologist of L. A. Cetto, a big Mexican winery that purchased the vineyard in 1968. “Because it was cheap? Because he found a remote area for quiet living? Or he had the perception that this hidden valley had special conditions for zinfandel grapes?”
Whatever the reason, the old farmer made a fine choice. “The fact is, Escondido Ranch has a particular soil that I haven’t found elsewhere in my 40-plus years in Baja,’’ Mr. Magoni said. “I classified it as eolic, moved by winds through the millenniums, because of its fine texture. Of course, the base is mostly decomposed granite from the surrounding hills, but it is so deep that we found roots at 30 feet. That is the secret.’’..."
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