Wine of the week
Phil Mugford goes in search of the truest expression of Airén and, somewhat appropriately, finds it at Bodegas Verum (scholars of Latin need no explanation).
Verum Las Tinadas Airén De Pie Franco 2019 (Bodegas Verum)
D.O. VT Castilla
Variety: 100 Airén
ABV: 12%
€16.01 direct from Bodegas Verum
€14.99 from Simply Spanish Wine
Airén, as synonymous with its native land of La Mancha as Quijote, has been the lifeblood of Manchego winemaking for decades.
Drought-resistant, hard-as-nails and seemingly impervious to any blight you’d care to mention, Airén is the Mad Max of Spanish grape varieties; born to survive and prosper in an arid wilderness.
But, to paraphrase Churchill, has so little ever been known about so much? I won’t bore you with the statistics, but suffice to say that Airén is the world’s third-most planted variety in terms of surface area, and yet, despite its prodigious yields, one of its least known. This is largely due to two factors: its relative concentration not just in a single country but in a single region, namely Castilla-La Mancha, and local winemakers’ reticence when it comes to crafting a fine wine from the variety.
Certain landscapes define a region, and any drive through the provinces of Albacete and Ciudad Real will give rise to the sight of seemingly endless, sprawling vineyards, often dissected by a somewhat incongruous motorway, before you enter the neighbouring province of Jaén and its equally ubiquitous rolling hills of olive trees.
Airén has always been perceived as a workhorse grape. Its phenolic properties made it perfect for use as a base wine in brandy production in the Jerez area and for bulk wine production in the domestic market and for export. Few winemakers had aspirations to create anything beyond basic table wine, and consumers of Airén were often more likely to be found propping up lamp-posts or sleeping under bridges than dining at La Mancha’s finer tables.
But here is where Bodegas Verum come in. I first tasted this wine in Madrid, at the now sadly defunct Lavinia outlet, back in 2018. An unassuming stand set away from the rest of the producers seemed to be generating a hubbub that obviously required further investigation. They were pouring their Las Tinadas Airén Pie Franco (pie franco being an ungrafted vine in Spanish) which contained grapes from their plots planted in the 1950s. I was left incredulous, as were the fellow tasters. Was this really Airén? Surely not! The wine had personality; a strong spine, an immersive mouthfeel and a decent finish. In short, it was bloody good. A wine with a mineral base from the chalky soils, but with enough peach and herb to satisfy not only the stone-lickers.
Fast forward six years and Las Tinadas, thankfully, still has the same profile. The ageing is done in clay and stainless steel over a 12-month period, so there’s no intrusive oak here to mask the terroir. It’s pure and fresh. There are now more Airén wines on the market as other bodegas have come to realise that the variety, if handled well, does have potential, but in my opinion Las Tinadas is the standard bearer and Verum have coaxed the absolute maximum from this much maligned grape. And that, my friends, is the gospel truth.
