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Day two in Rioja has been another day of contrasts. Three very different wineries, reflecting the spread that you find in this region.

First up, La Riojanas  - with a production of 4.2 million bottles, a large-ish winery. A mix of traditional and modern styles, with the highlight being a 1964 Gran Reserva that was truly elegant and had aged beautifully. It wasn’t just ‘old wine’, but had some real personality.

Next, Remirez de Ganuza. One of the stars of Rioja. Thrillingly good wines, including the dense, tannic 2004 Reserva and the beautifully supple 2001 Gran Reserva.

I was initially worried when I found out that this winery had been blessed by a 100-point Parker score (albeit administered by Dr Big Jay), and that they only used each barrel once. But there was nothing spoofy about these wines. Serious.

Finally, a slightly unusual venture – Ontanon. The focus here was primarily on the art of Miguel Angel Sainz, who has been quite an important connection for the family who own the winery (the Perez Cuevas family), but the wines were impressive too – modern-styled yet fresh, with lovely forward fruit.

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Dinner last night was at Asador el Tahiti in Logrono. It’s a traditional Riojan restuarant and we ate and drank well. Particularly interesting was Morcilla, which is pig’s blood and rice, and, in this case a thin pastry case. It was delicious.

Wine of the night was the Remelluri Rioja Reserva 2005. For just 18 Euros on the list, this was brilliantly dense and deliciously savoury, with a Bordeaux-like character, but I mean this in a good way.

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First day in Rioja. Three very different wineries visited. First, Finca Allende: modern, terroir driven, with lovely wines, including the brilliant Calvario, a single-vineyard offering. Good white, too. Aurus, their top wine, a little too rich and oak-influenced for me.

Second, La Rioja Alta. One of the traditional Haro wineries, making older-styled wines. But these are excellent older-styled wines, with some elegance. Lovely Arano 2001, sturdy but delicious Ardanza 2001. Gran Reservas – 1997 904 and 1995 890 – both brilliantly aromatic.

Finally, Valdemar, whose star turn is working with the ‘alternative’ Rioja varities. Conde de Valdemar Garnacha is brilliantly fresh and focused with nice pure fruit. Well priced at £10. Inspiracion Graciano is a superb interpretation of this variety that’s dense, focused and structured with fresh, spicy fruit tempered by nice acidity. Graciano rocks! White Tempranillo is really interesting – a new variety just approved, which makes very rich, fruit-laden whites. The oddity here is the Maturana, a new old variety rediscovered. Their Inspiracion Coleccion Varietales is 100% Maturana, and it tastes like a really good Carmenere.

The pictures. Top, inside a basket press. Below this is the view of the vineyards over the roof of the Allende winery in Briones. Then some harvesting of high-end grapes at Allende – this is probably going to be Aureus. Directly above and bottom, racking the barrels at La Rioja Alta. There are 43 000 of them – and they are racked by gravity into a clean barrel. Below: grapes at Allende. Looking good.

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Travelling again. Just for a few days.

One of the aspects of my ‘job’ (I’m embarrassed to call it that, even though I work very hard) that I most enjoy, is the ability to travel to new places, meet new people, and learn quite a bit in the process.

I’ve been to Rioja before, but just for a day. It will be nice to get a proper feel for the region. My preconceptions are, from tasting widely, that Rioja is capable of greatness – it possesses some superb old vine vineyards, and lots of them, planted in places that are good for growing wine grapes.

The reality, though, is that Rioja is dining out on its reputation. Most of its wines are pretty industrial concoctions, made in large wineries, and aged for far too long in poor quality American oak barrels.

Amid the sea of mediocrity, there are a number of ambitious producers. Some of them have gone down the path of spoofiness, making very sweet red wines from too-late-picked grapes, and then using too much new oak. Some are ultratraditional, and make interesting if difficult wines. Some have found the path of enlightenment, making serious wines with a sense of place.

I also suspect that serious white Rioja is a story yet to be told.

It will be interesting to see these preconceptions challenged on this trip. Pictured is an old Graciano vine in Rioja Alavesa.

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After a difficult tasting yesterday, a nice afternoon’s tasting at Majestic’s press event today. I liked lots of the wines, many of which I’d be happy to buy. Perhaps my favourite was the following gem from the northern Rhone. This is everything I look for in northern Rhone Syrah.

Yann Chave Crozes Hermitage 2008 Northern Rhone, France
This is just lovely. Beautiful aromatic nose is perfumed, meaty, fine, spicy and peppery. The palate is open and balanced with fresh, elegant cherry and berry fruit with some nice pepperiness. Just beautifully poised. 93/100 (£17.49 Majestic but will be on offer at £13.99 from November 2)

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So I was at the Tesco press tasting today. It was held in a new location: floor 31 on Centrepoint, the large concrete tower at the intersection between Tottenham Court Road, New Oxford Street and the Charing Cross Road in the centre of London. The views were quite spectacular.

The wines? Well, Tesco have a large range and they have to focus solidly on the bottom end for much of this range. I found some nice wines, but far too many were just rather ordinary, and they weren’t particularly cheap. So many wines are now coming in a pound or two more expensive than their quality justifies, presumably to protect margins and give some room for promotional activity. I came away thinking that Asda and Waitrose offer more in that £4.50-£7 range than Tesco do.

One sign of hope is that Tesco are increasing their online range, with an expansion of their fine wine offering from 50 to 200 lines due next month. They showed a selection at the tasting. This means that they can buy in 5 or 10 case quantities, although purchases have to be in multiples of six (Waitrose Wine Direct allow mixing and matching of single bottles).

The disappointment of the tasting? Guigal Cote-Rotie 2005. This tasted like a mediocre Cotes du Rhone, without any of the personality or character of Cote-Rotie. It was light, simple and berryish. If you offered it to me at £10, I’d not be in the slightest bit tempted. At £34 a bottle it’s a bad joke.

The highlight? A pair of beautiful sherries from Gonzalez Byas. Apostoles is a VORS Palo Cortado with amazing complexity and freshness, and Matusalem is a VORS Oloroso in a sweet style, with a mindblowing array of flavours. £19.99 each for half a bottle, and at that price brilliant value.

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This is an interesting red from the lesser known Spanish region of Arribes, on the international Douro with Portugal sitting over the river. In fact, if you head further into the Douro Superior, this is where you end up. It’s a warm region, but the altitude of the vines (500-800 m) helps moderate this.

I visited earlier this year, but only made it to one producer. This wine is from a small, organic, semi-biodynamic producer called Almajora, and is the work of English girl Charlotte Allen (you can read more about her here, on Jancis’ site).

Almaroja Pirita Roble 2007 Arribes, Spain
14.5% alcohol. Made from the Juan Garcia variety, this is a ripe, rich wine with the fruit initially showing a slightly baked quality, which disappeared after a while. There’s some lovely spicy, mineral complexity on the palate under the sweet cherry and plum fruit. Currently it comes across as just a touch too ripe, and maybe a little too oaky, but it should settle down with another few years in bottle. Lots of interest here. 91/100 (£17.99 Ballantynes – UK importer is Richards Walford)

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One of the issues about wine that really interests me is this: who gets to decide what is good?
This touches on aesthetics, and also definitions of quality, and there are a number of ways of addressing the subject. Suffice to say, a discussion on this topic could make a small book, so here I’m just sharing a few thoughts.

At one level, you could say that tasting is all subjective, and it is up to each individual to decide what is good. Or, a subtle twist: the market decides what is good.

But that’s a bit of a cop out. There’s an objective dimension to wine quality. The wine trade has continual discussions about quality, and wine education and writing separates wines out continually along a quality spectrum.

In some ways, there is a shared aesthetic in the wine trade about what represents quality, and – to a degree – this is self-referential. It is an aesthetic system that people are schooled in, and like the English language, there are subtle modifications with time, but it remains largely the same.

As we taste together, we find ourselves mostly in agreement about broad-stroke judgements of quality. Even so, there are situations where experienced professionals with a good reputation end up disagreeing about certain wines. I find this disagreement among experts fascinating.

I’ll be candid. In my experience, most wine journalists (and there are quite a lot of us) are good at separating out bad wines from good wines. We generally perform well, but only up to a certain level. There are still many who fail where I think it matters most: distinguishing the exceptional and ‘serious’ from among the merely excellent. Some have a tendency to be fooled by spoofiness more than they really should be.

This comes, I think, from a failure to understand wine at a very high level. I’m not talking new world versus old world palates – that’s too simplistic. I’m talking about the ability to separate out, for example, spoofiness in classed growth Bordeaux from serious Bordeaux, or the ability to distinguish wines that possess true elegance from those that rely too much on fruit, or the embellishment of oak.

With tasters, it’s not just an age thing. Young and old alike either lack or possess the ability to understand wine at a high level. Some people seem to have the ability to get it; others probably never will. Nor is it simply elitist: many non-serious wines cost a lot more than much better serious wine.

I’m sure that this all sounds incredibly arrogant, because I’m inferring that I’m one of this select band who really get wine. I’m also suggesting that my interpretation of what is serious and non-serious when it comes to wine is correct. But I think it’s important to get over the fear of being interpreted wrongly in order to make the statement that there is a level of wine that is serious, and that some commentators simply don’t understand the difference between very good commercial styles and spoofy high-end wines, and serious wines.

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Garnacha, aka Grenache, is a variety that can tend to soupy lushness when it’s grown in warm climates. Here, in Spain’s Navarra, from old vines, it has produced a really fresh, peppery, full flavoured example that’s just brilliant value for money. In fact, at the multibuy price of £6.99, it may be my best value red of the year.

El Chaparral de Vega Sindoa Old Vines Garnacha 2008 Navarra, Spain
14% alcohol. Very fresh nose with a distinct peppery edge to the sweet cherry and raspberry fruit. The palate shows lovely spicy, peppery savouriness as well as ripe red fruits, supported by some tannin and good acidity. A brilliant example of old vine Grenache, with real personality and admirable balance and restraint. 92/100 (Majestic £9.32, but £6.99 if you buy more than one Spanish wine priced £5+)

Find this wine with wine-searcher.com

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The last leg of my South African adventure saw me heading south, to the southernmost tip of Africa itself. The Elim wine region is just 20 km from Agulhas, and it’s an interesting place for growing wine grapes, with a chilly climate (by South African standards) and plenty of cooling breezes from the ocean.

I visited with a group of Elim producers – in fact, it represented most of the producers in this rather new region: Strandveld, Black Oystercatcher, Berrio, Quoin Rock and Zoetendal.

I’m pictured (top), with Francis Pratt (The Berrio), Dirk Human (Black Oystercatcher) and Johan de Kock (Zoetendal)

We took a drive through the vineyards, and then visited a joint conservation venture. The Elim growers have set aside 22 000 hectares from their farms to form the Nuwejaars Wetland Special Management Area initiative, which has been restored to pristine fynbos, with clearing of invasive aliens. They also have some red hartebeest, and have a disease-free buffalo breeding program.

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