If I were a French wine producer it would not be Australian but Spanish rivals who featured in my nightmares. The Australians are the marketing devils we know; the treasures hidden away in Spain's vineyards, the most extensive in the world, we can so far only guess at.
Here's a portent though, a wine to send shivers down the spine of anyone with a domaine in Châteauneuf-du-Pape. Raices 1 is a clever blend (cooked up by Frenchman Jean-Marc Lafage of Mare Nostrum of all people) of 40 per cent Monastrell (= Mourvèdre = Beaucastel's distinguishing mark) from the warm Yecla region, 30 per cent Garnacha (Grenache, the southern Rhône grape) from warmish Campo de Borja and, the saving grace, 30 per cent Tempranillo from the cool, 700m-high vineyards of Calatayud. Monsieur Lafage's team treated the fruit to all the fanciest tricks: pre-fermentation cold maceration to intensify flavour; malolactic in (French) barrel for the Monastrell and Tempranillo; the heaviest of bottles eventually. Three years in oak has been quite enough to blend this cocktail into one integrated whole. You wouldn't exactly call it smooth – more of a hairy monster – but you could hardly reproach it for lack of character or drama. The wine is still very much alive.
I happened to taste it at the same time as Murrieta's new pedigree Rioja release Dalmau 1999 which is fine, subtle wine that needs a bit more time but has a truly sumptuous palate and is a massive leap ahead of the previous vintage. But it costs about £40 a bottle in the UK while our hairy monster, our hirsute mongrel Raices 1, is being sold for only £12.99 by 28/08/03
