Our lunch with Vega Sicilia

Jonathan Ray looks back on a fine Spectator Winemaker Lunch with Vega Sicilia.

An excellent lunch in the Spectator boardroom today as Antonio Menéndez, managing director (sales and marketing) of mighty Vega Sicilia hosted the latest in our series of Spectator Winemaker Lunches.

Vega Sicilia in Spain’s Ribera del Duero has an extraordinary reputation and is regarded as Spain’s one and only ‘first growth’. It’s most celebrated wine is its ‘Unico’ which can sell for hundreds of pounds a bottle although the Vega Sicilia group also owns four other wineries and produces 13 different wines. Today we were treated to a perfect snapshot of the range with five wines.

We started with the 2014 Oremus ‘Mandolás’ Tokaji Dry Furmint, a deliciously creamy and well balanced white from Hungary (Vega Sicilia’s only non-Spanish operation). Antonio explained that nearly all Tokaji is sweet, sumptuously so. Indeed, Oremus (bought in 1993 by a Spanish consortium headed by David Álvarez, Vega Sicilia’s owner) was the first winery to start producing dry whites in the region in 2001.