Star Tasting: Read the secrets of wine in the stars

Juanje Valdelana (62) takes in his hand an object that looks like the hilt of a Han Solo lightsaber, presses the switch and voilà! A blue laser beam, powerful, rises towards the night until it stops at Altair, "in the constellation of the Eagle, a very young star for which the day lasts six hours," explains the winemaker, educated in the strict discipline of the Monastery of San Millán de la Cogolla, cradle of Castilian and Basque.

There, during the long nights of the four years he spent with the Benedictine monks, the ever-elegant Juan Jesús learned the principles of catasterism, a brilliant way of relating the figures of Greek and Roman mythology to stars and constellations. Many years later, he uses that cosmogonic knowledge to identify and narrate the legends invented by the Achaeans about Arthur, Vega, Altair, the Corona Borealis, and the North Star that shines in the Milky Way. Meanwhile, his son Juan, a fifteenth-generation winemaker in this borderland, explains and describes the five wines served to the guests that evening.

The colorful glasses—red, blue, orange, green—that glow upon contact with the wine form a string of light. The attendees, lulled by the music in this gigantic open-air tasting room, smell and taste five wines from the family: the Rosé; a spectacular white with Atlantic influences; Vi-Ve, the carbonic maceration wine with its unique "sticky" flavor; Agnus Crianza; and the semi-sweet wine that Juan Valdelana Villuendas (32) made at home after working in Californian wineries.

For my group (about 130 people attended, including a large number of winery workers and their families), it all began at 7:15 p.m. with a guided tour of the family winery. Alongside antiques, relics (the tanks and cellars are accessed through a confessional), vats and large containers, archaeological and geological remains, farming implements, and agricultural machinery, the memories of a family that came from the Lana Valley and whose roots in this land date back to 1583 unfold.

Then, the caravan of cars heads after traveling along a path of cypress trees, that tree "upright fountain of shade and dream that pierces the sky" with its lance (in the poetry of Gerardo Diego), to the experimental vineyard where a hundred different varieties of vine grow, with its excavated rock-cut wine press, its millstones and the shed with the stage where they will perform their repertoire (they will dominate songs by Amaral) Silvia Gutiérrez, a nurse, with her husband, Manolo Fernández, on the guitar, both from Rincón de Soto.

Beside the giant cross, next to the stone arch salvaged from the neighboring riverside mill—one of whose jambs displays a mezuzah with verses from the Torah placed there by the Israeli archaeologist Avi Gopher—couples, groups, families, and solitary individuals take photos and ask others to take pictures of them on the swing overlooking the Ebro riverbed. A few savor the fleeting nature of the moment, the beauty, in tranquility, with a glass of wine in hand.

Elena Gandía, a lawyer who works at a notary's office in Vitoria, gifted the sunset wine tasting experience to Raúl Sáez, who worked for 17 years for Julián Chivite's family in Cintruénigo and helped create the Las Fincas Garnacha rosé. "It's a complete surprise; a great way to unwind," she summarized. "We came completely unprepared; honestly, until I met Raúl, I had no idea about the world of wine. It's a very different experience from a typical winery tour," Elena pointed out. For Piluca Uyarra, from Logroño, the tasting was "a gift from two people who make my life more beautiful and easier." "Here, they make you understand from the very beginning the hard work involved in obtaining this 'Rioja gold.' There's also a romantic touch with the orchestrated dinner in the background, the carousel, and the swing that seem straight out of a fairy tale. This sunset by the river bend makes you wish the day would never end," she emphasized.

Eider Barambio and Marc Moreno, from Durango, visited the winery four years ago, and three weeks ago they treated Eider's parents to a spectacular wine pairing. "Now we're here; it's a spectacular moment. We're drawn to the world of wine, the culture and effort that surrounds it, the atmosphere that's created in settings like this."

"We want attendees to have a special experience. Unique bonds and relationships are formed at these gatherings, which we've been celebrating for ten years. The most important thing about wine is the company," explains Juanje Valdelana, wearing blue patent leather shoes, as he launches into explaining the myth of regeneration through the myth of the golden eagle and the constellation of the same name, where Altair twinkles.

Jovial, cheerful wines

“On the seventh day of the seventh month, Altair and Vega are together. Seven months, the same amount of time wine needs to exist,” remarks Valdelana Sr. Later, his son speaks of Rioja Malvasías, of the wines' “joviality,” of aromas and flavors whose mere names allow us to recognize them with every sip (identifying them, knowing what they taste like, which is the foundation of tasting). Although, as a winemaker and agricultural engineer with extensive training, he incorporates words and compounds like 3-ethyl butyl or whisky lactone or methyl octalactone, which, generous as he is, he then “translates” and attributes to the aromas of coconut or vanilla (tonight, Professor Peña Navaridas is among his listeners). Listening to him attentively is an absolute immersion in the best of recreational viticulture. A very spirited visitor, who has come from Valencia, toasts even the moon.

Juanje points his laser at the sky again. They used to have to call Agoncillo Airport to get permission to illuminate the sky. Now, they simply consult apps like Flightradar24 to check air traffic and avoid disturbing the pilots.

I met Juan Valdelana, nicknamed "El Pequeño" (The Little One), last summer in Samaniego. I tasted his Tronco Negro (one of the five Singular Wines he works with, from the family's eleven special vineyards) and discovered that he's one of those young winemakers destined for great things in Rioja, thanks to their training and ambition. He helped recover lost species in Tenerife, was "adopted" by the Gallo family (the world's largest winery, with 8,000 employees, producing top wines in Sonoma, Napa, and Central Valley) because of his habit of taking the stairs "two at a time!", and returned home to chat with his grandfather Isidoro and, together with his sister Judit, begin rebuilding the Valdelana Winery of the future. "To make a good wine, with the touch of a surgeon, you have to be very, very well. Calm. I avoid soulless wines," he told me.

That's why it occurs to me (I'm sure good old Juan is already on it) that a sparkling wine would be the perfect ending to this stellar tasting. Enough to make me exclaim, like that good Abbot Dom Pérignon, "I'm drinking stars!!!"