Torres novelties
When people talk about combining tradition with innovation, they are usually lying through their teeth and sacri- ficing one to the other — the latter to the former in the case of the Headmaster in Lindsay Anderson's If. . ., the former to the latter in most other cases, such as that of a garage I pass every weekend which Offers 'Old-Fashioned Service Combining Computer Technology'. The Spanish, or Maybe I should say Catalan, wine firm of Torres seems to me a very successful example of this difficult marriage. It is perhaps helpful to start off with a tradition which does not set too daunting a standard of past achievement: the Spanish Wine industry in 1939, when Miguel Torres senior started to rebuild the family firm which had been largely destroyed in the civil war, offered considerable scope for im- provement. Torres was not even based in One of that industry's few famous areas, Jerez or the Rioja, but in the Catalan region of Penedes, known abroad only for its sparkling Cava. Penedes is not in fact a ne:growing area of great antiquity: cul- tivation of the vine only got seriously under %Ivalr there in the late 19th century, stimu- ated by demand first from colonial Cuba and then from phylloxera-stricken France. The firm of Torres was founded in 1870 by miguel Torres senior's grandfather, Jaime, Who worked his way across to Cuba as a cabin boy and invested in some oil shares Which made him a fortune. He returned to Vdafranca and built the original Torres bodegas, He might be surprised to see the latest additions to what is now the largest Privately-owned winery (the American term is not inappropriate) in Spain. The tt.ew fermentation-cum-cellaring installa- tion built on a bare slope looking down over Vilafranca resembles a cross between a Petrochemical plant and a nuclear bunk- This is the brainchild of Miguel Torres Ju._,Itior, who is in charge of the technical Side of wine at Torres and is generally recognised as Spain's most innovative %vIne-maker. He is constantly ex- Perlmenting with new ideas and techni- ques, many drawn from California, with Which he has close links.
Of these new ideas, the most important ,are to do with grape varieties, vineyard location and temperature-controlled fer-
Mentation, and.great rewards have already been reaped from them. Cool fermentation
of white wines is a technique developed in the New World which has come to the aid of the Old, not part of it more than Spain. Torres Villa Sol is a crisp, dry, aromatic white, somewhere between Muscadet and Sancerre you might say, certainly nothing like the flat, heavy Spanish white wines of the bad old days.
Vina Sol is made entirely from the local Parellada grape, and proves that it can produce most attractive wine, whose only drawback is that it must be drunk young. A 1980 half-bottle of Villa Sol tasted in April 1984 in the eerie frontier town of Port-Bou had long given up the ghost. Gran Villa Sol contains 30 per cent Chardonnay, matured for a short time, unlike the Parellada, in oak, and providing a welcome addition of richness and depth. Gran Villa Sol Green Label, the top white wine of the range, is Parellada with 30 per cent Sauvignon, and matured for five months in new oak, a wine of impressive complexity. Miguel Torres junior may have adopted Californian ideas, but he has not gone overboard for the New World fetish of 'pure' varietals, whose flavours are often so pronounced that they resemble cooking essences. , I have not mentioned two of the most interesting Torres experiments: Vina Esmeralda, a dry but intensely scented blend of Gewurztraminer and Muscat d'Alsace and a good wine to try in a blind tasting, and Vina Magdala, just over 50 per cent Pinot Noir. If you imagined that Miguel Torres senior was a traditionalist, you might be surprised to learn that this unusual, lightish wine is his everyday tipple.
Torres also combines tradition with in- novation on a more human level. I spent a day there in January, when snow lay on the vineyeards, being shown round by the erudite public relations man, Albert Fornos. All sense of business and promotion evaporated as the conversation ranged from Catalan poetry to the history of Gibraltar. We had a very good, unpreten- tious lunch in a 14th-century farmhouse owned by the firm, the Mas Rabell de Fontenac, after which one of their better brandies is named. A pottery stove with a Heath Robinson air vent stood in the centre of the room, radiating an impressive amount of heat. `Ah yes,' Albert com- mented, 'we tried more modern technolo- gy but found it wasn't nearly so effective.'
Ausonius
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