Spain in Ballarat - Picasso, tapas and viura wine

"If idiosyncratic, celebratory, authentic bar-restaurants are your thing, Meigas is a gem, a most unexpected find in central Ballarat, one of regional Victoria’s biggest cities and a place that has had altogether too much bad press lately." John Lethlean - The Australian

On Friday we went to Ballarat for the day with friends to see an exhibition of Picasso drawings. And it turned out to be a triple tribute to Spain - Picasso, tapas and viura wine. But yes, it was sad to see that on a Friday, a work day, the beautiful old town of Ballarat seemed to be a bit dead, and that there were lots of empty shops in the centre. And yes, the lady in the art gallery shop confirmed that there was indeed a bit of a slump in Ballarat and there were plans afoot to make major efforts to attract residents and tourists to the place.

But back to my three Spanish things.

First of all - Picasso - maybe the most disappointing of the three. The exhibition was of 100 drawings from something called the Vollard Suite which was created in the 1930s. It was a set of drawings commissioned by Ambrosie Vollard, and actually I think the most interesting of the drawings were the three which began the exhibition, even though they were actually completed at the end of the project to make up the 100. They are three portraits of Monsieur Vollard, all executed by Picasso on the same day. Here they are.

I am not enough of an expert to say whether they are actually the same picture presented three different ways, although I think the expression on the face of the one on the different is a little different somehow. They were also the most approachable of all the drawings I guess.

This is another from the exhibition and was probably the most powerful of them all. They were virtually all variations on this sort of theme, although some of them demonstrated more of a move into the next phase of Picasso's art - the cubist stuff. Most of them were Minotaur associated though. I don't think any of us particularly enjoyed the drawings, although the more I look at this one, the more I see that it is very powerful, and the face of the woman is beautiful, but so simple. Many of his drawings actually have very few lines in them but nevertheless they convey a great deal.

He was very prolific Picasso - he would toss off drawings in seconds - I remember seeing videos of him doing it. He was also very questionable in his attitude to women - not a nice guy. But undoubtedly revolutionary and occasionally very arresting. And he was Spanish to the core even though he spent a large part of his life in France.

So it was therefore very apt that we should lunch a street away in a Spanish tapas restaurant called Meigas, which I think translates to witch or wise woman. The restaurant's business card - which I scanned for the top of the page, shows, however, the Moorish aspect of Spanish art I think. Part bright colour, part pattern rather than image. We had been warned by another lady in the art gallery that we would need to book, which wasn't quite true - it wasn't quite as busy as in the picture above but pretty busy for an empty town like Ballarat. And yes the food was delicious and reasonably priced. I gather the chef, one

Jose Fernandez, is from Galicia and certainly the waitresses all appeared to be genuinely Spanish too. We had a relatively modest meal - a salad, that included genuine expensive Spanish ham, some grilled sardines served with aioli (which is French surely?), some spicy lamb on skewers and a big fat slice of potato omelette - Tortilla de patatas. All of which we shared, as one does in a tapas bar. We could have shared a paella too, but that would have meant a 45 minute wait. Which at least shows that it was not reheated.

The serve of the omelette that we had would have been the size of the piece missing from this picture. And I have to say that I had not realised that a proper Spanish omelette is indeed this thick. It was very delicious. As were the sardines, which were equally simple, yet very, very good. I did like the lamb, but to me it had more of an Indian flavour than Spanish, or even North African.

So food - very good. Ambience good. I would recommend a visit there if you go to Ballarat.

And finally the wine - viura. Monika and I each had a glass of wine - the men declined. And we both chose white. Monika chose a white tempranillo and I chose a viura - mostly because I had never heard of this particular grape and was curious. There were only Spanish wines on the wine list by the way.

So what is viura? Well for a start it is sometimes known as macabeu and as Maccabéo in the Roussillon area of France. It is the most planted white grape type in the Rioja region of Spain, from where my particular glass came, but it is also grown in a couple of other areas too. Rioja, these days, is most well-known for red wine, but the white wines, which it used to be most well-known for are coming back into favour, with viura and the white tempranillo that I mentioned earlier being the main varieties grown. Sometimes they are blended with other things, but it seems that increasingly the winemakers are thinking that the more of viura there is in the blend the better the wine.

There is a long article from Jancis Robinson on viura wine, and if you really want to know everything, do read it. I'll just pick out a few interesting (to me) things.

Near the beginning of the article she states that it is:

"a grape that is hardly ever written about and of which the authorities in the region where it is most important seem rather ashamed."

Apparently the authorities have banned any new plantings of the grape because of a potentially mistaken view that viura is better blended (only just over half of the resulting wine being viura) with interlopers such as sauvignon blanc. Jancis Robinson seriously questions this decision. And in the meantime the owners of the old vines - some of them date back to the 1960s, are ignoring the regulations and doing their own thing, increasingly not blending and having rather more vines per hectare than they are technically allowed.

I gather it's not an easy grape to deal with:

"The problem apparently is that the Viura/Macabeo vine tends to over-produce, with big berries that can have too low a proportion of grape skin and flavour to pulp, and with bunches that are so tight that the grapes can rot easily, especially in Rioja's Atlantic-influenced west. 'So', according to Miguel Angel Gregorio, 'to make healthy white rioja in general you have to pick early. These grapes will typically have only 12% alcohol. To get aromatic maturity you need 13%. So you have to prune hard and thin the crop – which most producers are not prepared to do. The best Viura is grown on the hills not the valley floor.' Jancis Robinson

I did see other sites also that suggested the timing of the harvest was absolutely crucial.

I'm not absolutely sure which vineyard my own glass came from, but I think it was from López de Haro. And, of course, because I only had a glass I did not see the bottle. From my researches here and there, I also think that it was probably not one of the very best examples of this particular wine, but I can certainly say that it was very drinkable if not with a very obvious kind of flavour. Light, citrussy perhaps although the makers of this wine describe it thus:

"Ripe fruit, dates and banana notes stand out on the nose in combination with the nuances of the barrel."

Anyway, as I say I am not 100% certain that this was what I drunk. If I did - this is what the vineyard looks like:

It looks a little dry and hot does it not? A bit like Australia, but I do not think anyone in Australia has so far experimented with this grape. I suspect it's not really about to become 'hot' but Jancis Robinson was quite effusive in her praise of the variety. and I also found an article on Serious Eats that described it as the perfect party wine.

"I pay careful attention to the wine that disappears first at a party. In large social gatherings, I'm less interested in complex tasting notes or mulling over winemaking practices, and more interested in what gets drained quickly amidst the chatter, good music, and laughs. When you have a mess of bottles open and one of them is emptied well in advance of the others, you know people liked it." Stevie Stacionis - Serious Eats

He (or she) maintains it's popular because:

"When they see this white wine with RIOJA emblazoned across the front, they're confused/intrigued/think they're super drunk already and must be thinking of something else. Naturally, they reach for it to see what it's all about."

And also because it's 'gulpable' - i.e it tastes good and it's cheap.

So next time you hold a tapas party and you are looking for a Spanish wine to serve, try viura.

I confess I don't know a lot about Spain. I have only been there once a long time ago, briefly, and on an organised semi-business trip of my husband's. I'm also not a huge fan of Spanish food, though perhaps I should be. So it was an unexpected coincidence to be eating and drinking Spanish after reasonably grim and Spanish (there were a lot of bulls), Picasso.