The art of the transgressive blend of wines

Is a vintage and zone wine better than a blend? If it is understood that wines from different varieties, soils, barrels, yeasts and aging are combined, why not mix vintages and even places?

This article is about the first wine made in Spain by mixing vineyards from Portugal and Galicia with a mixture of Galician Albariño and Portuguese Albariño vineyards. It is called Mixtura 2019 and honored as a Revelation Wine by the Peñin Guide 2022. Another example is Melangé "bajo velo", a white from the Recuero winery in La Mancha that blends Tempranillo from Sierra de Gata in Extremadura with malvar from Toledo. This same experience was carried out by the Master of Wine Andreas Kubach and Tao Platón with their red wine Peninsula Vino de Montaña Sierras de Gata & Gredos 2018 that mixes rufete from the aforementioned Sierra de Gata with Garnacha from Gredos.

As for the mix of vintages, this does have a history. We have the paradigm of Vega Sicilia Selección Especial (in most tastings the most highly rated in its catalogue) that blends the values ​​of three vintages in such a way that the vintage does not appear on the label. As well as the superblending of Bodegas Sierra Cantabria CVC., which began its journey in the autumn of 2017 with a composition of the 2008, 2009 and 2010 harvest sanctified with 70 months in barrel and at a price of more than 600 euros per bottle. Quite a challenge when these initials (Group of Various Harvests) corresponded to low-grade wines in the Eighties. In that same year, the Penfolds g3 red wine was born in Australia in the iconic Penfold's winery, which sold for 2,200 euros per bottle, designed for the new Asian rich than for a European culture. It is the old oenological practice of combining youth with seniority. Even in the regulations of all the D.O. Mixing 15% of another vintage is allowed without affecting the year of the majority wine on the label.

The blend in history

The most exquisite work of a winemaker or consultant is the assembly of wines. The selection of new or used barrels, jars, cement or steel vats, wood toasting and different aging processes puts the tasting ability of these professionals to the test. These practices are not usually public, it is the kitchen work or back room of a winery.

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The coupage or the mixture of wines and vintages have had a sinful treatment in our recent history if we refer to great wines, since the term was linked to the mixture of current wines, the coupage, that semantic Gallicism that names cheap bulk blending while blending refers to the same operation with quality wines.

We cannot forget that this skill as "art" has been a distinctive Spanish, or better said, Iberian. In the first exports of Jerez in the 16th century and in the following, the wines were mixed in English ports stored due to the different behavior of the butts during the sea voyage. Years later this practice was carried out in the Jerez wineries with the sophisticated solera procedure that we all know. Likewise, mixing as art was also a practice among the rancios of Catalonia, Levante, Málaga, Jumilla and Rueda. In La Rioja it was also a common practice until the eighties when wines were sold without mentioning the vintage on the labels. Only the reference of second, third, fourth and fifth year appeared, which allowed all sorts of combinations between wines from different vintages and aging. It is possible that those historical blends were due to the need to maintain a wine model that could be altered by climatic differences between vintages.

Abroad as well

Not only in Spain it was a common practice but also in Champagne that even today continues with cuvèes from different vineyards (crus) and vintages with no vintage on the label. Only the year appears in the millesimes when it comes to a quality vintage. Another example is the Portuguese formula of the rubí, colleita and tawny of port wine, which is still a regulated blend of wines defined by the "provadores" of the Douro.

The most transgressive blend I have seen in my professional life was 12 years ago in Long Island, the wine country in upstate New York, where I met James Christopher Tracy at his Channing Daughters winery, a true wine designer more than oenologist. Character capable of raising the "blending" with his red Over and Over Variation 7 by mixing the content of 4 barrels of 2004 Merlot with the same amount of the 2006 vintage in full malolactic fermentation, which causes the previous vintage to be influenced by malolactic of young wine. This mixture is aged for 10 months. Half is then bottled and half is blended with the same amount of the 2007 vintage during its malolactic, and so on. The trick is to provide complexity with the sum of the richness provided by the lees during the successive malolactics of the different additions of young wine and its fruity identification. Today this wine is in Variation 13.

In summary, today in blends homogeneity or balance with the blend of cheaper origins is not sought as was the case in the past. The most daring oenologists are capable of producing goldsmith wines, better revealing the identity of an area or a vintage, even if they come together with each other. They can only do so under the condition of Table Wine, the category of freedom.