WINE COMMUNICATION & HISTORY | WINE EDUCATION
  • Home
  • Leary's Global Wineology book
  • Services
    • Wine Writing, Content Creation, SEO
    • Historian of Wine
    • Wine Education Consultant
  • Leary Wine Blog
  • Contact
  • Global W/ineology on Substack
  • Panama Cooking & Wine Classes
  • Recent wine writing
  • Press
  • About

Retama and regeneration: a memory of the desert of Almeria appellation

8/6/2022

0 Comments

 
PictureRetama with grape vine
We all stared, fixed on the computer screen displaying the rural Andalusian landscape – in Lucainena de las Torres, to be particular – from an aerial photograph. “This is protected forest,” declared the official from the environment department. The image exhibited in fine detail my farm’s long-treeless slopes pockmarked with occasional bushes, called retama, and lower vegetation, including fragrant native thyme and sage. “No, this is agricultural land, classified as vineyard,” shot back the agriculture official, whose office lay a few doors down the corridor in the squat, 1980s Junta de Andalucia government building. As far as I could tell, the two bureaucrats had never met before. 
I had just delivered the paperwork declaring new vine plantings, an integral part of capturing a few approved hectares of Andalusia’s quota of Spain’s quota of the European Union quota for vineyards destined for wine production. Mine was one of two official Protected Designation of Origin sites in the perhaps ironically-named “Desert of Almeria” viticulture region of Spain’s most arid province. I had provoked the inter-departmental consultation and at that moment hoped that my over-cautiousness did not spell disaster for the first-year garnacha bush vines flourishing there.

Please read more at JancisRobinson.com . . .



0 Comments

    Author

    Charlie Leary earned his PhD in history at Cornell University. He has served as a wine director for restaurants in New Orleans, southern France, Canada, Costa Rica and Panama since 1995. He is a certified Spanish Wine Specialist, Cava Educator and Expert and has studied wine through Washington State University, the Wine Scholar Guild, California Wine Institute, and the Rioja Academy. Charlie is a member of the Circle of Wine Writers. 

    Archives

    February 2023
    January 2023
    November 2022
    September 2022
    August 2022
    July 2022
    April 2022
    March 2022

    Categories

    All
    2022 Wine Glasses
    Bodegas Muga
    Bodegas Ysios
    Cava
    Climate Change
    Desert Of Almeria Wine
    Eco Friendly Wines
    Eco-friendly Wines
    Enology
    Finger Lakes Wine
    Green Viticulture
    Hybrid Grapes
    Leary's Global Wineology
    Marques De Riscal
    Nova Scotia Wine
    Organic Viticulture
    Regenerative Viticulture
    Ribera Del Duero Wine
    Rioja
    Sommelier Certifications
    Spanish Wine
    Sparkling Wine
    Universal Wine Glasses
    Viticulture
    Wine Books
    Wine Business
    Wine Education
    Wine Glasses
    Wine Marketing
    Wine Regions
    Wine Studies
    Wine Tourism

    RSS Feed

Charlie Leary, PhD
Panama & Central America

Wine Education Expert - Wine Historian & Writer
Tel.  +507 6590 5017
EMAIL
  • Home
  • Leary's Global Wineology book
  • Services
    • Wine Writing, Content Creation, SEO
    • Historian of Wine
    • Wine Education Consultant
  • Leary Wine Blog
  • Contact
  • Global W/ineology on Substack
  • Panama Cooking & Wine Classes
  • Recent wine writing
  • Press
  • About