LA RIVA – Ramiro Ibáñez y Willy Pérez
La Riva is an essential project to
understand and enjoy the news of Jerez and Sanlúcar. Ramiro Ibáñez and Willy
Pérez, their owners, are two close friends who, from their wineries Cota
45 in Sanlúcar and Luis Pérez in Jerez, have been the revulsive for today, and
in such only 5-6 years, the diversity and
quality of the Sherry wines is extraordinary.
Both are defenders of the value of terroir and of traditional and centennial practices of viticulture and winemaking. In La Riva they go even further and show that they are equally admirable a young white, a Manzanilla Pasada or an 80-year-old PX. What is really important is the concept, the objective, the permanent search for the highest quality and respect for the best terroirs, to show through different wines, the authentic character of the historical wines of Jerez.
Currently, due to the large number of changes that
have occurred and the lack of a temporary perspective, it is difficult to
properly assess all the new projects that have emerged, and they are emerging in Jerez and Sanlúcar in the last 8-10
years. But we have to try.
It happens exactly the same in other Spanish historical regions, such as Cava or Rioja. We start
that all the great wines of the world respond to the indissoluble union of Nature (soil, vineyard, climate) and the human part (viticulture, winemaking, aging). This had been thus until the 70s of the 20th century, when industrialization swept through this system, seeking the economic profitability in any way, forgetting about quality. In just 30-40 years Jerez hit bottom, they went from 20,000 to 6,000 hectares, farmers could barely survive selling their grapes at ridiculous prices, and Manzanilla wine had gone from being sold around 1950-60 at an average of € 50-100 per bottle (at today's exchange rate) at € 3-4 in the first 21st century.
It happens exactly the same in other Spanish historical regions, such as Cava or Rioja. We start
that all the great wines of the world respond to the indissoluble union of Nature (soil, vineyard, climate) and the human part (viticulture, winemaking, aging). This had been thus until the 70s of the 20th century, when industrialization swept through this system, seeking the economic profitability in any way, forgetting about quality. In just 30-40 years Jerez hit bottom, they went from 20,000 to 6,000 hectares, farmers could barely survive selling their grapes at ridiculous prices, and Manzanilla wine had gone from being sold around 1950-60 at an average of € 50-100 per bottle (at today's exchange rate) at € 3-4 in the first 21st century.
Now we are in full transformation, the vineyard and viticulture are again important, several wineries practice an ecological and even biodynamic cultivation, the sun is increasingly common, the dry palomino whites succeed and are economically decisive, the vintage wines are they open the way between so many hatcheries and soleras, the name of the best vineyards reappears on the labels, the price of the best wines is revalued.
Some people, unaware of its history and panic of the future, continue to claim that Jerez wine is made in the winery, and that the vineyard is something totally secondary. Although no one defends such weak arguments, it seems that there are great wines that their quality is due exclusively to the work in the cellar, but it is only appearance, in fact these historical soleras were formed for decades with extraordinary grapes and vineyards, sadly silenced to extol the winery . No one can doubt the extraordinary quality of a Valdespino Fino Ynocente, a Barbadillo Manzanilla Solear in Rama takes off seasonally, Osborne Solera India, Fino La Panesa from Hidalgo and many others that are part of the best history of Jerez. It is not about choosing between the new wineries (new exclusively for their recent birth) and the classic wineries, but to add and defend all the good of one and the other, and at the same time reject and extinguish all the bad that triumphed in the last decades of the 20th century.
Ramiro and Willy have demonstrated, with their respective wineries and in just 4-5 years, to be authentic masters in making great Sherry wines, new for today, but who really use the usual working methods in the nineteenth and first half of the 20th century.
Now in La Riva they go deeper, and they offer us other types of wine, from two very different Manzanilla wines to other very old soleras in danger of extinction. All La Riva wines are of outstanding quality, for many critics each one of them is the best in its segment.
With only four wines marketed in 2018, and four others that have appears recently( July 2019), very likely Riva wines are currently the most sought after by lovers of Jerez. Their offer is much lower than their demand.
We send you the technical files provided by the winery, and so we avoid repeating what they explain so well, detailing with great precision the origin, the vineyard, the winemaking, the tasting ...
I will only add a few personal comments.
La-Riva-Macharnudo-Blanco-2017.
If the 2016 vintage has already reached a very high quality, freshly bottled this 2017 exceeds it, not so much in intensity, but in balance, being equally deep. Macharnudo is a very large vineyard, 700 hectares, but there are plots and plots, and El Notario is one of the mythical. It is the best dry wine of Macharnudo, and it lives up to the best white wines in the world. Its price does not correspond to its quality, it is well below. Favorable evolution in the bottle for 10-20 years (and who knows if even 30-40 years).
La-Riva-Manzanilla-Fina.
It is very difficult to make a Manzanilla wine of this quality in this segment, aged 3-3.5 years old, where mediocre Manzanillas abound. And this is done evident when doing a horizontal tasting with other similar Manzanillas. Ramiro's great work is appreciated, handling the hearth of a small storekeeper, in order to define a own style of a great balance. A wine to enjoy, to start in the heads of quality. Favorable evolution for at least 6-8 years.
La-Riva-Manzanilla-Pasada.
Perfect to drink after the Manzanilla Fina, to get excited about its evolution, its life, seeing how some sensations disappear and appearing others, how “she” resists to remain Manzanilla and not an Amontillado ... A great wine to think about. A large vineyard on the Cerro de los Cuadrados, in Balbaina Alta, which sadly it was “dead” in 2012. Luckily the Solera has survived and found its Guardian, Ramiro Ibáñez, with which all wine lovers can be calm.
It will evolve (getting older) very well, it will be transformed into other great wines throughout its life, at least for 30-50 years.
La Riva Oloroso Viejísimo.
Marketed in 2018, we liked it so much that we bought more than 120 bottles, of which we will have 25-30 left. It was my best wine of 2018, I drank several bottles, and I enjoyed it very much, I could not imagine such an old wine, 70-80 years, so
La-Riva-Pedro-Ximenez-Very-Old.
Wine in extinction, the last 300 bottles of 0.375 cl. Despite being such a small bottle, it can be shared perfectly between 30-40 people. It is so concentrated that a sip equals a magnum bottle of champagne. A PX from a Sanlúcar vineyard uprooted in 1972, now at 80-90 years rejuvenates and is full and powerful, and in 1000-2000 years, when it dies, we do not know if the planet Earth will exist.
In summarize, this is a “must” for our friends who loves Jerez and Sanlúcar.
Chronicle of the historical wine tasting made
by them in the last edition of Vinoble
Brief comment of my last visit to Ramiro Ibáñez
in Sanlúcar de Barrameda.
Less veil and more land ...
Less "charm and magical
mystery" and more humanism, coherence and deep knowledge of the greatness
and miseries of our beloved Jerez, dean of the thousand apogees and crisis ...
in their historical contexts, in their different conjunctures, but they counted
by scholars with the old maps in one hand and the hoe in the other ... not by
the "minstrels of the kingdom", not the version of the story told by
the winners shift, which arrives distilled for years and that it just
represents a bias ...
It is not a
"post-truth" in a "post-Jerez", nor a posture or pose ...
it is not a "trend" ... it simply IS.
... in those taverns, the wine
was more expensive the less in the barrel there was...
The masterclass that Ramiro
Ibáñez Espinar gave me a few months ago about Jerez in general and Sanlucar in
particular, stepping on the Sanlucar's vineyard and undoing the
"floury" diatoms in my hands, while I was machine-gunning with a
clear, documented, coherent and pedagogical human, absent from all
"Andalusie magic and mystery" and overflowing with logic and
processes, historical contexts and "why, when and how" ... next time
I'll take a tape recorder.
It is not a "post-Jerez",
nor the revolution of rebels who want to "kill the father" to
"perform" ... no ... but the man remained on the ground, knowing his
surroundings, studious and passionate , fighting against everything that is the
dogma, especially against its own demons and assimilating the "why"
of each stage, of each critical moment or each decline in the whole extension
of its historical context and conjuncture, as what they are ...some processes.
A good friend commented in a
lunch "how arrogant who thinks to invent something!" ... true. In
addition to the rewarding that is to be able to "reinterpret", from
the holistic knowledge of an area, a culture and a historical process, with the
means at your reach in your time, all that legacy.
It is just the
peak of the iceberg of the next Jerez, which is already here, to stay.
Salvador Lopez
Sun, salt, life and light…SPAIN
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