Blog: Wednesday, June 9, 2010

Abadia Retuerta

Last year I was invited to visit three great wineries in Spain, in the Ribera del Duero region.

The first winery I visited was Abadia Retuerta. This was certainly the most advanced winery in terms of technology. It seems to be built into Abadia Retuerta's DNA; the winery is owned by Novartis, one of the largest pharmaceutical companies in the world.

Abadia's winemaker is Angel Anocibar. At Wine Future, I heard him referred to as an "egghead" by someone who had heard him speak before. I think it was meant as a compliment. Either that or jealousy. Once you've tasted their wines you'll realize that there is a lot to be jealous of.

Angel has a lot of advanced chromatography equipment from Agilent. The team uses it for many things, including to examine the quality of the barrels they bought. They then feed this information back to the barrel makers - ensuring Abadia Retuerta always gets the best barrels. I am sure that the barrel makers have nothing like this in their own factories.

Speaking of barrels, Abadia Retuerta does something else I've never seen before. They never move their barrels. Instead, the barrels are uniquely stacked. The wine goes in and the wine goes out, without ever having to move the barrel.

Using this much oak is fairly unique for Ribera del Duero. It's definitely not the normal style you find in the region.

The property has a twelfth century abbey that is absolutely stunning. They set up a wonderful private tasting for me inside.

Abadia Retuerta is in the process of turning the abbey into a twenty-two room hotel. This project should result in one of the nicer hotels in Europe. I've stayed at several top "Relais & Chateau" properties, but can't think of any that are really this nice structurally.

Abadia Retuerta's wines are very reasonably priced. All of their wines were great. I particularly liked their Cabernet Sauvignon, which is not a varietal I normally associate with the Ribera del Duero. Unfortunately, I can't seem to find that wine for sale in the United States. Luckily my local Costco has Abadia Retuerta's Seleccion Especial.