My thoughts on "Sideways"

The enormously successful movie "Sideways" opened in Spain about a week ago and has been enjoying a good box-office here, too. My wife and I managed to get to the theater last weekend to see it. We both really enjoyed this very human look at wine geeks and their friends.

Its always interesting to see how local distributors translate the names of movies and this one is no exception. The direct translation of the Spanish title "Entre Copas" is Between Glasses, which, as I see it is a commentary on the challenge that the lead character, Miles, has living his life when he's not talking about or tasting wine. If he has a glass of wine with him to focus on and obsess over, he's OK. Without it, he becomes depressed. I have seen some reviews that suggest this is alcoholism. I disagree. It is wine-geek-ism, or in Miles' situation, Pinot Noir-ism.

Above all, it is Maya's description of wine as a living thing that really comes closest to capturing the mysterious allure of wine and all that goes with it - great entertainment.

Worldwide Tempranillo Competition

Earlier this month, the first international competition of Tempranillo wines took place in Copenhagen.

Over 300 wines were entered in competition, the vast majority coming from, of course, Spain. However, there were several entries from around the world. The predominance of this grape variety in Spain was reflected in the number of award-winners, but there were also Tempranillos from Australia, Argentina, Portugal and Mexico that received high marks from the judges.

The top prize-winner was Contino Viña del Olivo 2001 from Viñedos de Contino of the CUNE wine group of La Rioja. The top non-Iberian Tempranillos at the competition were:
Stella Bella of Australia and Santa Julia Fuzion Tempranillo 2004 of Argentina.

See the full list of award-winners at http://enologo.com/tempranillo/uk/premios.html

Protos breaks out

The Protos winery of the Ribera del Duero D.O. is in the midst of a major expansion.

The winery, founded in 1927, sold more than 236,000 cases (9 liter) of wine in 2004, a 15% increase from the year prior. Work has recently begun work on a new 14 million euro extension of the winery, which was designed by renowned architect Richard Rodgers. The new facility will be linked underground to the current one, providing much greater capacity for aging wines, making available wines of greater complexity and refinement.

Presently 80% of the sales of Protos are within Spain, with most exports destined for northern Europe and Latin America. In a recent interview in "El País" newspaper, winery President Miguel Ángel Carrascal made plain his intention to look for new business, particularly in Russia and Asia. Making the bet that consumers there will be looking for higher quality wines, Mr. Carrascal has set a goal of raising export sales to one third of total company sales.