We Need More Winemakers Like This...

Here's a dynamo winemaker from Spain who is truly the people's winemaker. He makes wines that are $80 a bottle and he makes wines that are $8 a bottle, and he's psyched about the $8 ones. Food & Wine's editor-du-vin, Lettie Teague, spends a week with Spain's "Driving Winemaker" Telmo Rodriguez, criss-crossing the Spanish countryside and documenting gems like:

"Every place I make wine, I work with a family....I deal with so many different types of people I should be a psychologist."

"I think the architects of Spain should go to jail. They are destroying the landscape."

This guy is a firebrand, and seems to approach his vocation with a spirit and energy that I find admirable and unfortunately not as common as it could be here in California as well as elsewhere around the world.

Read the full article here.

Posted by: Alder on January 11, 2005 5:42 PM: Share this post elsewhere Digg it! - Add to del.icio.us - Add to Stumbleupon - Add to Reddit; Filed under: Ramblings and Rants

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Comments (5)

jens wrote:

01.11.05 at 6:44 PM

The Dehasa Gago "little G", the Gago "big G" and the Lanzaga are very good wines. Tha Basa as I remember it is good. Great story!

beau wrote:

01.11.05 at 10:01 PM

I recently had Telmo's Moscato (exact name escapes me). It was a little springtime in a bottle....really!

Hector Hill wrote:

01.12.05 at 8:29 AM

â€¦and more things Spanishâ€¦recently my loving brother-in-law, knowing that I like Spanish wine, broke out a bottle from Pago de los Capellanes (pagodeloscapellanes.com)â€¦one of the very best wines I had in 2004 (and under $30)â€¦two of the major wine stores in So Cal do not put it on their website as they canâ€™t keep it in stock (Wine Exchange and The Wine Club)â€¦speaking of So Cal wine stores, after reading in Vinography about the most wonderful Feudo Arancio, I called Wine Expo and asked if they possibly had something by Feudo Arancio, preferably the syrahâ€¦from the other end I received a most terse â€œNOâ€â€¦I asked if they had ever heard of itâ€¦the responseâ€¦Yes, of courseâ€¦.was the answerâ€¦as I paused he continuedâ€¦And it is a wine we donâ€™t encourge people to drink,especially with all the good indigenous wine availableâ€¦from there he rattled off several varietal names from Sicilyâ€¦at that point the conversation just endedâ€¦OUCHâ€¦

Alder wrote:

01.12.05 at 9:41 AM

Oh NO !

Hector, so sorry that they gave you the cold shoulder. They are definitely opinionated as all heck over there at Wine Expo, but I've never had an experience like that. Shame on them.

I'll check out Pago de los Capellanes.

Jill Murphy wrote:

01.13.05 at 3:29 PM

From a mountainous region of California and a great wine growing region and made by the same winemaker, Bill Easton:

2001 TERRE ROUGE Ascent Syrah @ $75 a bottle.
EASTON "H" House - Lot 0102 @ $10 a bottle for this blend of Cabernet Sauvignon and Syrah.

There are good values in California wine also. People need to be less Napa and Coastalcentric. You don't have to go to Spain to find wine values nor romantic wine regions.