A new vineyard in the Axarquía
You come to the Costa and expect to drink wine. Stunned by the low prices you bid farewell to boxes and house and splash out on Rioja, Faustino, Cava. You’ve never heard of Málaga wines though, so you leave them for tinto de veranos, sangria and sauces. Yet Málaga wines are currently recovering a reputation for excellence, as new Vintners match high-tech methods to the local high-quality grapes. They are gaining international recognition, in the upper echalons of taste, where food and drink turn from sources of sustinance to works of art!
If you are driving down to the coast from Cómpeta, just before you reach Sayalonga you will pass Bodegas Bentomiz on your left hand side. You won’t see it: nothing marks its presence, and the grape-heavy vines on the dusty hot slopes look just the same as those on all the other slopes you’ve passed. But this hidden little Bodega is getting international attention for the exceptional quality of its wine.
Its owners are a Dutch couple, Clara Verheij and André Both. André is an engineer, owner and builder of Santa Clara Construcciones, as well as the keen organiser of Santa Clara football team. Clara for years ran the Santa Clara Academia (the language school near Cómpeta’s main square, still in operation, but with new owners). I know Clara quite well, having done a course (trying to turn my pidgeon Spanish into something that could fly) and taught English at the school. So I was happy to help out in the reception in August when Clara was frantically busy with their long-term project. August is time for grape harvesting and Clara and André were making wine.
Working alongside Spaniards who had worked their own vinyards for generations, the couple had become intrigued by the variable quality of local wines. Málaga vinyards produce excellent wines, frequently but unpredictably, leaving the region a backwater in the eyes of many aficionados. Clara and André decided that a combination of their business acumen, their love of wine, and their connections with traditional producers had great potential to produce a more consistent beverage.
It is not easy to make wine here, in spite of the enthusiasm for it: steep slopes defy mecanisation; the slate bedrock embeds the soil with fragments making it hard to work. But at least having your own builder helps. André designed and contructed Bodegas Bentomiz on land below their house; they bought in the equipment required and got to work. The winery is named after a moorish fort that once existed on the other side of the valley, just as the name they chose for the wines, Ariyanas, was the name of a moorish village in the region, as well as meaning (appropriately) aromatic.
The wines they have produced are aromatic. Their whites are all from the Moscatel de Alejandría Grape, which is the Málaga grape, and grown in huge quantities here. They started with Ariyanas Naturalmente Dulce, a sweet dessert wine, followed it with Ariyanas Terruño Pizarroso, another sweet white but aged in oak for six months, then added Ariyanas Seco Monovarietal, a dry white. Last year they produced their first red, Ariyanas Tinto de Ensamblaje, a blend which includes ‘romé’ a local grape, grown near Sedella, and which they aged for six months in new French oak barrels.
It might be thought that a couple of amateurs wouldn’t be able to break into the international wine market, a complicated marketplace, in which the ratings of wine guides and a small number of famous chefs weigh heavily on commercial success. André and Clara know their stuff, though: their wines are consistently in the guides and the press; they are served in Gorden Ramsey’s in Britain and Oud Sluis in Holland. Ariyanas Dulce was served at the ambitious international ‘Wine Creator’ meeting held in Ronda earlier this year and the first Ariyanas red, which only came onto the market in September 2007 had sold out completely by April!
It was in April that I last visited them and got a look round the bodega. As a non-connoisseur, the thing I like about the bodega is André and Clara’s patent enthusiasm, their passion for their business and the wine itself. They have told me that most of what they have learnt has come from their Spanish friends and contacts, and that they have been surprised and impressed by the positive local reaction:
“If we were Spanish and started a new business in Holland on a
traditionally Dutch product, all we would get would be criticism.
But the Spaniards are really positive about what we are trying to
do here: they are happy for us to get more attention to Málaga wines.”
The couple pay attention to every detail. They were keen to avoid ‘corkage’ a problem which can occur with traditional corks, but didn’t like the ugly hard plastic stoppers either. They solved the problem with the ‘VinoLok’, a delicate little glass stopper of German design. They were the first Spanish Bodega to use this; I remember Clara examining one with delight back in 2005. Similarly, in April, I mentioned the recent rain there had been. André gleamed with delight and said, “Isn’t it marvellous?” This enthusiasm had been influenced by the decision not to use herbicides on their vinyard. The weeds needed to be kept down by more traditional methods: a row of six men hoeing for a day. But the hard-baked, shale filled soils mean even hoeing is impractical except after rain. No wonder André was pleased.
I was pleased (very) when they invited me to taste the wines. I am not a connoisseur; I can’t give any kind of accurate technical description. But they were delicious; the dry white, especially, was a wonderful wine.
Although they don’t sell them on the general market, the Ariyanas wines are available in Cómpeta from The Museo del Vino, The Swiss Bakery (El Basilisco) or from The Bodega that’s just outside Cómpeta on the road to Canillas de Albaida. At the Bodega you can also sample and buy the Jarel wines, another vintage brewed here in Málaga and other local products.
Clara and André also offer visits to the bodega, mainly on Friday afternoons. Groups of over 6 can get a guided tour of the Bodega, plus tapas, tastings and wine, for €9,00 per person, but smaller groups or simple visits for explanations and wine-tastings, are free. You can get the details by visiting their website, at http://www.bodegasbentomiz.com/, or call 952 11 59 39 or 658 845 285.
I’m delighted that the Málaga wines are getting a boost and additional prestige from new ventures like this. Next time my family visit, I plan to con them with my new-found knowlege, and top it off with a visit to Bodegas Bentomiz to really impress!
