When the winery is a treasury cave: thus the best wine collections in the world are shaped

La visita a Coque se comienza en la bodega, lo que hace treinta años era la pista de baile de la discoteca Archy. El lugar de disfrute del pijerío madrileño, donde se codeaban Aznar, Pedrojota y el entonces príncipe Felipe, que aprovechaba para bailar salsa los viernes noche. Ahora todo aquello está inundado de botellas, parapetadas bajo un imponente y luminoso diseño de Jean Porsche. “Tenemos añadas y verticales de todos los vinos más importantes del mundo. Evidentemente, muchos de Burdeos: Le Pin, Petrus, Angélus, Mouton Rothschild”, enumera Rafael Sandoval, sumiller del restaurante y al que sus hermanos llaman cariñosamente Don Ruinart, haciendo un juego de palabras con la famosa maison de Champagne fundada en 1729. “Cuando desaparece una añada que no podré volver a comprar, me hago con tres nuevas”, continúa explicando sobre su modus operandi. El inmovilizado en bodega representa tres veces lo que vale el restaurante.

Sandoval knows very well what it means to have an impeccable selection of wines.When taking the reins of the family restaurant, at the end of the eighties, one of its main incentives was to have great wines in the world."It all started with two petrus.At that time very few people had them.Those wines flew.Then I realized that the faces were sold much better than the cheap ones, ”says this Madrid, formed at the Vine School and the Wine of the Casa de Campo.The transfer of that arsenal, in which there were early vs. Álvaro Palacios, pingus verticals or burgundy wines of the seventies and eighties, was carried out with an important security and high care team.

When asked about the tragedy that the Atrio restaurant has lived this week - at 45 bottles, including a Château d’aquem dated in 1806 - it is contrary."I don't understand how something like that has happened," Balbucea.Among its 3.120 references and more than 30 thousand bottles also treasure another liquid treasure: Trafalgar, a wine bought by the founders of Gonzalez Byass the year of the battle (1805) and that in Coque is exhibited in a Damajuana, from which drops scanning drops toSome privileged.Sandoval gets excited when talking about this piece of our history: "To enjoy a wine it is necessary to know where it has come, who is its creator and what it represents".Another of its main assets is the room they have dedicated to the champagnes, especially those of Dom Perignon.Recently served a fullness 3.“We have the idea that certain foaming cannot age and it is not true.They are wines that are asleep, that hibernate, and that when waking they are at their best moment.That happens with these fullness 3 ″, explains with neglue passion.In Coque they have the vs. 1970, 1972 and 1976.

In Spain there are very few restaurants that retain jewels of this caliber."It is increasingly complicated to get certain names," says Joan Carles Ibáñez, the man who serves the wines in Lasarte, the three Michelin stars of Martín Berasategui in Barcelona in Barcelona.Ibáñez, in addition, was for two decades the right hand of Santi Santamaría in the Racó de Can Fabes.“At that time it was not so complicated to obtain category wines.I especially remember a Mouton Rothschild who carried a tapie box, who was a neighbor of Sant Celoni.We buy about 40 units for five or six thousand pesetas each ”, recalls on that period, which passed from 1991 to 2011.

It is not easy periodically to build and feed a large winery.To the shortage of bottles, the immense sum of money to be disbursing.However, the passion and interest of most of these wine enthusiasts can with the family economy of some restaurants.This is the case, for example, of Txomin Rekondo, Alma Mater de Rekondo, the house opened in 1964 in the Igeldo skirt, which also cuts his voice when he speaks of names, grapes and vintages that he has been collecting whatLong of a life.“At first we only served cider and little by little we saw that customers demanded something of better quality.Thus I was building this winery, spending more money than I had, ”he says between resigned and proud.Rekondo was recognized a decade ago by the magazine Wine Spectator as one of the five best restaurant wineries in the world.That catapulted its visibility and interest to the international clientele.

“I keep with special affection in my memory those who have given me, as a wine of the year of my birth, 1934, by Baron Eric de Rothschild.An exceptional vintage, ”says this Donostiarra, also called the wine guardian.“I have been lucky enough to be born and open the restaurant on two dates that have been exceptional for wines.That of 64 for Rioja and that of 34 for Bordeaux ”, warns with pride.A few weeks ago he could try a target of the year 1925, a castle ygay, and the tears fell: "It was sorry to drink it".

Emotion and complicity with a faithful clientele

Paniego tufe speaks with a huge modesty of the wines that keeps on the lower floor of Echaurren, the Ezcaray gastronomic hotel that their parents put on the map and his brother, Francis Paniego, has crowned with two Michelin stars."We are a humble winery," he says.However, his passion betrays him little that one has been talking with him for a couple of minutes.Here you can drink some of Rioja's best vintages."Montecillos of the year 45, Paterninas del 28, Tondonias of 39, as well as productions of many innovatives in the most modern area, as has been the case of Baron de Chisel," he says.The oldest?A few weeks ago some clients who could taste a 904 river of 1904."A great wine has the ability to excite," he says.

For Josep Roca, who began building his winery 35 years ago, “it is a path of life towards fullness, a trip in complicity with a faithful clientele.Each bottle is an instant that can be infinite, a lasting memory of a time lived, meaning, shared.They are testimonies of life, of a more or less intimate, more or less cultivated story of love, of soul, of transcendence ”.Before the question of whether there is any wine that has accompanied him a lifetime, he answers without hesitation “of course, Vin Jaune by Pierre Overnoy, of 1949 ″.

The ease and complicity with which the medium of the rock is expressed is proportional to the happiness that the wine offers."Emotions are in the context of wines as of the photographs of families and shared landscapes," he explains about a philosophy that is introduced into life and in his way, attentive and cautious, to work."A wine is bottled life, and it can have as many emotions as connections with people I love".They are different bottles and wines that allow him to remember his uncles Esteve and Pere;or those of 1860 of the Serra family, given when his son was born in 1999;or he who drinks with his father daily."When he misses me, that wine will form an indestructible building in my intimate memory".Celler has 4.000 references and 85.000 bottles that rotate every day.

Modern wineries, robberies and auctions

But if we talk about relatively young restaurants with important wineries, it is also necessary.500 references and keep on its shelves from a cateau d’aquem from 1921 to a 1925 castle."You start doing a good cabinet and then you go to those things that are more special," says Raul Barroso, at the head of the family business.“We have vertical pingus, Vega sicilia, petrus or romané-counts.Of the latter we sold one of 2003 valued at 21.000 euros ".

Lucia Fuentes has doubled the firms that can be found in Aponiente.When she entered, six years ago, there were a thousand.Now they are around two thousand references.“We bet on small producers, but that does not mean that we do not have big names.Many times they are the ones that most demand international clients ”, highlights.Various bottles of Jacques Selosse always fall a year, valued at 11.000 euros each.Selosse is one of the most sought -after brands of the world scene and was news eight years ago following the theft of 300 boxes of wine, 3.700 bottles with a value of 360.000 euros.

In Berria, the Wine Bar open just over eight months ago, these figures are not strange."We have horizontal and vertical of Selosses, Ravenous, Krugs ... Best of all is a huge mobility.I could not say the bottles we have right now, ”says Mario Ayllón, one of the three sommeliers of the enclosure bet on the door of Alcalá.Among its oenological treasures they keep a Madeira from 1915 and a 2001 Romanée-Conti.

Miguel Ángel Millán is the person in charge of serving the clientele in Diverxo when they ask about wines that can best accompany a meal: “We have 1.200 references.We are a warehouse that grows month by month, but that does not neglect the great wines of all areas of the world.For my previous work in Kabuki Wellington, I deal with special care of the sakes, ”he says without wanting to give names."I don't feel comfortable," he argues.Although a look at Instagram and the hashtag #diverxo allows you to discover NIEPOORTS of the eighties, Navazos of a decade ago or sakes of the nineties, Ganevats, Krugs ... and what any fan can dream.Millán also remembers how 45 bottles of his warehouse were stolen two years ago."The security systems hacked and took the most valuable".A broken that does not hurt both for money, as for the time it has been to seek and acquire certain names that are exceptional."When I read the note José Polo wrote, from Aurio, I felt very identified".

On whether these wines could end in the bid market, David Durán, of the auction house of the same name, which on December 21 celebrates a specific auction of old wines and liquors, observes “which is very complicated.Everything happens very strong filters.What is true is that interest and collecting in wines is increasing.They are a safe value ".The auction comes from the hand of one of the most important firms in the sector, Ampersand Wine Auccions, founded by the Belgian Jochen of Vylder."The robberies, like the one that occurred in Atrio, can be said that they are quite rare," says Vylder, while mentioning the last looters in restaurants: formal B, in Copenhagen, last year;Maison Rostaing, in Paris, two years ago;or French Laundry, Thomas Thomas Keller's three stars located in the Napa Valley, whose robbery in 2015 was 300.000 dollars in wine."But since many high-value wines are numbered in the cellar (as in the case of Romanée-Conti bottles stolen in atrium), these bottles can be tracked, which makes them a risk for sellers," he says.

On the extraordinary auction that will take place in Durán, by Vylder indicates that “there is a growing world demand, also as an alternative investment form, and Spanish wines are entering this market right now ... with the exception, perhaps, of winesDe Vega Sicily, Domain of Pingus and some Bodegas del Prirat ”.On the 21st, you can be struck by forty different vintages of Vega Sicily, including Magnum and Double Magnum, Marques de Murrieta, Lopez de Heredia Vintages.In addition to French wines from Rothschild, Margaux, Cheval Blanc and rare whiskey from Macallan, Springback, Bowmore or Port Ellen."It will be the most important auction to be done in Spain," he concludes.