My hosts that afternoon were Núria Garrote i Esteve, owner and driving force behind Vinovi, and her husband, Elie Boudt, proprietor of Royal Oak’s Elie Wine Company. We were drinking Cava Vall Dolina, one of the company’s initial offerings.

Núria is a mechanical engineer by day, tending to her nascent business over lunch, at night, and during weekends. Born in Catalunya, the culturally and historically distinctive region of Spain around Barcelona, she is in many respects the perfect candidate to build an importer of Spanish wines: She’s familiar with the culture, the language, and the wines. And it so happens, the 37-year-old business owner is born of the same generation as most of the winemakers she represents.

“You cannot relate winemaking to the old guy that is on the farm anymore,” Núria says. She recounts one of the first building blocks for her business, a series of meetings in Barcelona four years ago. While the formal program showcased larger brands, informal side gatherings were commonplace, and it was there she began to identify potential partners: “I said to Elie, ‘Do you realize that like 80% of these winemakers are from my generation?”

That many of the winemakers in her portfolio are young is perhaps surprising. Arguably more intriguing, though, is that this group is re-embracing the tradition of winemaking from its very roots – farming.

“The producers, what they do, is that they are hands-on in the vineyard,” Núria explains. “That’s why you get the intensely fruity, aromatic wines.  They pay attention to the vines, they harvest at the right time, and then they don’t overdo it with the wood [barrels].”

I found it compelling to hear her speak so passionately about what younger generations are doing in Spain since it ostensibly parallels what’s happening with urban farms, upstart food companies, craft cocktails, and other aspects of the American food movement: Young people are going back to traditions long past and creating authentic, new products.

As Núria was striking out across her homeland looking for these types of producers, she had three elements in mind: uncommon vines and varieties, emerging areas that have been historically overlooked by other importers, and people who were attempting to redefine classic styles.

Starting with a clear philosophy has obvious selling points, but it also means that from a practical business angle, Núria was starting from something of a disadvantage. “It seems to be obvious, but it’s not that easy to find producers who are committed to their land,” she laments.

That commitment tends to be found in fairly tiny operations. Small production, though, isn’t always an indicator of quality. It can’t be a stepping stone to a drastically larger operation.  Rather, it has to be a consequence of focus and drive to make a heartfelt wine. That Núria’s producers focus on farming – the dirty, difficult work that is the source of every bottle we drink – is a telling sign.

But how did she secure the business of these farmers and winemakers? First, she had to find them. “[These wines,] you cannot even buy them in Barcelona,” she says, noting that all these producers are very tiny. Their products are often bought up by a handful of fashionable restaurants or may even stay within their immediate regions.

As her husband Elie pours two glasses of red for each of us, he chimes in on some of the challenges in building a relationship with these types of winemakers.

“I used to listen when customers would say to me and say ‘Oh yeah, the best stuff from Italy stays in Italy, or the best stuff from France stays in France.’” As a shop owner, he initially thought it a bit naïve. But now, he concedes, “there’s a grain of truth to it. When we talk to these people who make small amounts, they want to keep it around.”

Noting that many of the producers they’ve met in Spain want to earn the respect of their peers and their regional customers, he elaborates, “If he sends everything he makes to Detroit, we have the market to sell it, but they’re looking for that local echo.”

However, they’re also looking to make a living and to acquire the prestige that comes from being in the U.S. market.

It’s a bit of a paradox, but that’s where Vinovi & Co. has been able to connect with these Spanish winemakers. As a native who speaks Catalan and Spanish, as well as French and English, Núria was able to establish a rapport with producers hesitant to export or who were interested in the U.S. market only with the support of a trusted importer.

Elie returns from checking on their daughter and notes that several of Vinovi’s potential producers were also concerned about the United States’ penchant for heavily manipulated wines aimed at getting big scores with popular wine critics.  He motions to our glasses, pointing at Alcor – a rich, food-friendly wine made from a blend of both native and non-native grapes in Catalunya – and said, “he wasn’t even interested in coming to the U.S.”

Núria mentions that the other wine we’re drinking, Sot Lefriec, was imported by a different company and scored well with the U.S. press. But the winemakers were unhappy. Speaking more generally, Núria continues, “They’re not going to bring their wines here to have them sit in Virginia in a warehouse… but if they feel like they have the right importer, well, we didn’t have any problems.”

Traveling to Spain 4 or 5 times each year, she’s in touch with her winemakers often. And she maintains trust by keeping a close eye on their products: “I keep everything temperature controlled when I bring it on the boat to all the way when it gets here.”

Beyond that, Elie underscores the importance of her multi-lingual background – the insight it provides. “People ask me why I specialize in French and Spanish wine, and I say ‘because that’s all I can wrap my mind around.’ I have to know the culture, the language, and everything that really contributes to what the wine is.”  He continues, “I’m not saying I’m an expert, but I’m always learning all these things. I mean, here I am and I don’t speak Spanish, but I’m hoping to do so.”

Quickly, Núria interrupts, “Ha! We’ll toast to that!”

Jokes aside, that simple conversational ability is an important foundation. Núria’s work on the other side of the Atlantic was “a lot of visits, a lot of reading, but a lot of conversation, you know?”  But she never forgot her principal commitment to farming, “Every time visiting the vineyard, not necessarily the winery.  We don’t pay much attention to the winery – but the vineyard.  And to the people.”

Those people are a diverse, interesting lot. And they produce a diverse, interesting group of wines.

That fruity, dry, biscuity, bright, delightful Cava we were drinking, Vall Dolina’s Naturally-Brut Reserva, was made by two men in their early 30s using organic farming methods with vines about 25 years of age – one of only a few “grower Cavas” available. She imports a beautiful, edgy, dry Riesling, Ekam, from Raül Bobet, an outspoken winemaker with a PhD in chemistry who spends his weekends tending to what Núria believes may be the most elevated vineyards in Spain.  Then there’s the expatriated Englishwoman Charlotte Allen, whose brand “Pirita” is named for the Spanish word for pyrite, so abundant in the relatively barren soil of her western frontier vineyards that the ground shimmers.

Some of these wines are treated to oak; others are fermented in 12th-century stone vessels. Some are raised in heirloom plots; others are grown in inhospitable areas that have gone virtually ignored by other winemakers. But all of these wines are vinified by growers who care about their crops, harvesting by hand from vines with low yields.

Núria searched for years to find these producers and their wines, but surprisingly – to me, at least – there weren’t many bureaucratic hurdles stateside.

“Nothing was difficult…  It’s lengthy in terms of time and if you go in blind and you underestimate their procedure, you’re gonna fail. But there are manuals online for everything. It’s a matter of knowing what it takes and just following.” she reveals. That’s not to say everything always goes smoothly: Núria has been waiting for about six months for Michigan to approve the label for a product that she’s hoping to debut in metro Detroit this spring.

They open a wine that they hope will be available in a couple of years – Pirita Blanco. Ripe but explosive, it’s a beautiful, balanced wine, and like her red, it’s made from indigenous, unheralded grape varieties and fermented using native yeast.

This bottle prompted Núria to relay a quick story about the winemaker and the nature of her tiny, remote operation. “She came driving a car with a French plate because she had lived in France,” Núria continued, “and she was speaking English because she’s British.  People in town there are very isolated, mostly old people. So they call her la francesa, which is ‘the French woman,’ because they recognize the plate but they don’t recognize the English language.”

I’ve purchased some of Núria’s wines from Elie’s shop in Royal Oak, including a few bottles of Pirita, but I asked how business has been going otherwise. Thus far, she’s brought in more than 25 pallets totaling about 15,000 bottles of wine, and of the 17 labels currently in her portfolio, many of them have been placed in local restaurants.

In particular, she cites Joseph Allerton of Roast (Detroit), Christian Stachel at Café Muse (Royal Oak), and Antoine Przekop of Tallulah Wine Bar and Bella Piatti (Birmingham) as sommeliers who have embraced her approach.

Retail customers looking to try her wines will find a wide array of prices – from around $10 to upwards of $100. “The price structure was not intentional at all,” she explains. But in cases where she was genuinely interested in a winemaker that made multiple wines, she was careful to select at least one that fit lower prices.

Of course, as Vinovi & Co. grows, its pricing structure is bound to change. And while Núria intends to retain her principled approach, plans to move beyond Spain are already in process: She’s working with winemakers in France and Portugal to bring in their products, hopefully as soon as this year.

Regardless of what the future holds, don’t expect Núria’s approach to change. She’s after quality that comes from commitment, and there’s no way to fake that: “You look for small production, hands-on in the vineyard, and a strong personality putting a vision into what they do.”

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Vineyard and winemaker photos courtesy of Núria Garrote i Esteve.

Tonight, it’s a Rioja, Castillo Ygay Gran Reserva Especial from the 2001 vintage, a year that was regarded favorably in the wine press. I’d never even heard of the wine let alone tasted it, but I bought a bottle on recommendation from Elie in Royal Oak.

Blood red with barely a hint of browning from age, it’s youthful despite its 10 years of life. And that shows on the nose: While it displays some rustic, meaty qualities, it’s initially a bit closed. Eventually, it opens up to show some tart raspberry jam aromas. Similarly, it starts out quite tannic, though not so much so as to be unenjoyable. Quite the opposite. There are hints of a minty Bordeaux quality and rough, oaky flavors along with plenty of fruit. Over time, layers build: licorice, plums, berries, spices.

All the somewhat superfluous wine media jargon and descriptors aside, this is delicious, dry, meat-friendly, powerful, age-worthy wine. “Masculine” in its youthful astringency and “feminine” in its somewhat mainstream elegance.

It stands in marked, stark contrast to a lot of the rustic wine I drink on a regular basis, but I find it captivating.

Ygay is only made in the “best” years in Rioja — 1978, 1998, 2001, etc — using 93% Tempranillo and 7% Mazuelo from the producer’s prime vineyard sites. It ferments in stainless undergoing daily remontage (circulating the wine from bottom to top of the vat) and pigeage (punching the “cap” of grape skins down into the wine) to ensure lots of skin contact, and undergoes at least 10 months of aging in new oak.

The 2001 spent a few additional years in older barrels and then spent another 3 years in the bottle before being released to the market. (The 1978 spent 18 years in the barrel before moving to the bottle!) These guys clearly are in no rush to get their product to market.

As I’m writing this tasting note, I’m finishing the last of the bottle, and there’s a strong acidity at the finish. It’s remarkable how much this has changed after 100 minutes or so and how many different aspects there are to this wine.

I often talk about how much I dislike oak, but while that flavor is present, it’s done so very thoughtfully here — and it’s where I find myself really puzzled by this wine. The barrel is present, but it’s not as though it’s overpowering, despite all the time in American oak, widely used in Spain and known for contributing powerful vanilla flavors. There’s barely a whiff of vanilla here. With age, that oak has already settled out or been buried behind all this tannin, and there’s at minimum another decade of improvement in this bottle.

This quite successfully walks a thin line between a fruity, oaked, international style of wine and a traditional Rioja with a pure red color and big, burly tannins. There’s no hint of purple hues in the glass or vanilla extract aromas in the nose, but they’ve managed to get intense extraction and fairly high alcohol (14%-ish). It sees new oak, but by the time it hits the market, most of that flavor is gone. It’s kind of a paradox, but it’s a fun paradox to unravel and enjoy on a rainy Monday night.

If you’re in the mood for a bit of a splurge but a lot of age-worthy bang for your buck, consider picking this up. It’s a delicious bottle.

The most recent brand is Alion, which is managed more scientifically to be drunk younger.  Not really the sign of a wine that I’d be excited to try.  I sometimes judge a book by a cover — or at least I sometimes pre-judge wine.

Except here’s the thing:  It’s pretty damn good.

Alion is 100% Tempranillo, aged in 100% new oak, so it’s a robust wine.  But it’s in the barrel for four years, and even the younger vintages are fairly accessible upon release.  Retail is around $60, and I don’t know that I’d routinely pay that much for this wine — there are far, far more special wines for less money — but it’s an enjoyable drink.  And I happened to receive an older vintage as a gift in the past few months as well, so this past week, we did a little tasting…

• Alion 2004 – Lots of cherry and plum.  A very fruity wine without ever verging on sweet.  The finish is really, really long.  There’s a lot of tannin here, though it’s not wildly astringent.  More woody or herbal.  Plenty of oaky wines have pushed me away from contemporary wine making, but if every “manipulated” wine were this good, I’d have little problem with it.  It’s a very broad sip of wine that really gets itself into every corner of your palate.  I purchased this bottle from Elie Wine Company in Royal Oak.
• Alion 1996 – Supposedly all the higher-end Vega Sicilia wines like Unico receive a pretty traditional and rigorous treatment from vine to bottle — low yields, multiple harvests, long aging in older barrels, et cetera.  I can’t find any information online about harvests at Alion, which is in a different location from Vega Sicilia itself, but if this vintage is any indication, they’re doing something right.  This wine has years left on it, but it’s open and full of cool stuff even now.  There’s some toasty oak qualities that are subtle and pleasant.  There’s still a lot of fruit, though it’s gotten a bit more acidic and much less jammy than the 2004.  A really very elegant wine and a hell of a nice gift.

“Enough,” he said; “the cough is a mere nothing; it will not kill me. I shall not die of a cough.”

“True — true,” I replied; “and, indeed, I had no intention of alarming you unnecessarily — but you should use all proper caution. A draught of this Medoc will defend us from the damps.”

Here I knocked off the neck of a bottle which I drew from a long row of its fellows that lay upon the mould.

“Drink,” I said, presenting him the wine.

He raised it to his lips with a leer. He paused and nodded to me familiarly, while his bells jingled.

“I drink,” he said, “to the buried that repose around us.”

“And I to your long life.”

Until a few years ago my sole exposure to sherry came via the pages of an Edgar Allan Poe short story wherein Montresor lures his fellow noblemen Fortunato into the catacombs of his palazzo with the promise of sampling from a rare cask of Amontillado. It’s a story of revenge, memorable for a tight, driven plot and insights into character rarely found in the short fiction genre. Though I have always wondered what that cask might have contained.

It was at lakeside gathering of friends that I had my first taste. Putnam Weekley passed around appetizers of sardines and almonds to pair with tastes of Tio Pepe Fino. He offered it again once at his house. I admit I wasn’t impressed. It tasted narrow and odd but not forgettable.

Months later it came to me suddenly. At Michael Symon’s Roast Restaurant in downtown Detroit where the clouds parted and heavenly light shone on a post-meal Palo Cortado. The seal was broken. I purchased several bottles of Tio Pepe in the summer months with a newfound appreciation and subsequently pushed full glasses towards my closest friends. I’ve heard that Fino is an even better match for raw oysters than Muscadet. I look forward to testing this for myself.

As the days shorten I’ve turned to bottles of Lustau Los Arcos dry Amontillado. I buy this brand mainly because the wine stores I frequent don’t offer much else in the way of sherry. The others are either cheap swill for $5.99, or semi-dry, or both. I’m not complaining. Lustau is a fine drink of sherry. With a nose of raisins and dried leaves and a rich, nutty flavor tempered by a bracing acidity it pairs well with everything from nuts and cheese to root vegetable stew. It is a most food-friendly wine. I could drink a bottle in a sitting though 17%ABV tends to make me feel a little funny. But I generally throw the bottle in the refrigerator, where it keeps, opened, for weeks. I occasionally take a nip while cooking dinner. Plus, it makes a fantastic pan sauce and works well in Asian stir-fry gravies and various soups beyond the classic French onion.

Evidently, there’s a marketing plan in the works to get folks drinking sherry again. But as Dr. Vino describes, considering its reputation and the sort of intense flavors that are alien to most wine drinkers, it’ll be an uphill push. It is said that it takes a full ten tries before one acquires a taste for olives. Yet you’ll find that just about every decent market now offers a self-serve olive bar with several varieties these days. If my own experience is any measure, it should only take a few drinks in the right setting to grow a sherry drinker.

My own humble palace has no catacombs nor a rare cask of Amontillado, and I don’t want to kill you (probably). But follow me inside anyway, there might be a glass of sherry waiting for you.