Wine Editor David Harker visits Alicante in search of wine treasure. The most famous wine that you’ve never heard of.
Alicante has a reputation for a particular drink. A drink not found in the boozy bars of Benidorm. A a rare wine treasure born of the same sun and sea that today attracts stags and hens.
The wine is Fondillón and it is unique to Alicante. Made from over-ripe grapes, Fondillón is slightly sweet, naturally high in alcohol and when oxidised by ageing is robust enough to withstand long sea voyages.
Known in England as “Tint Alicant,” the wines of Alicante were famous across Europe in the Middle Ages. Philip, the first king of France, a man “much inclined toward good living,”declared Alicante one of his favourite wines.
Queen Elizabeth I decreed that no wine from Alicante be sold in England unless offered to her first. In France, Louis XIV on his death bed sought comfort in cake dipped in Alicante Wine. Spain’s longest reigning king, Philip V, was kept, “in a constant state of enervation” by his diet of Alicante wine.
In the literary world Fondillón was the favourite wine of “The Count of Monte Cristo”, enjoyed by Hans Christian Andersen and mentioned in the memoirs of Casanova.
Such was the reputation of Fondillón, by the end of the nineteenth century it was amongst the most expensive wines in the world.
Throughout this time the production method has remained unchanged.
In the hills inland of Alicante, on sandy soils, Monastrell grapes are exposed to hours of sun on old, low yielding, bush vines.
As autumn turns to winter, dehydrated, over-ripe, grape berries high in sugar and with intense concentrated flavours are harvested by hand. These raisened grapes are then crushed and the grape must and skins placed in oak barrels to ferment for a month. The wine is then transferred for long ageing in a solera system. As wine is withdrawn the barrels are topped up with fresh wine, in the same manner as sherry.
At the turn of the twentieth century the producers of Fondillón faced a series of traumas. First vine disease, then civil war and finally a shift in the economy away from traditional agriculture to industry and tourism. The golden age of Fondillón was over.
Only a handful of producers kept the Fondillón flame alive. Notable amongst them Bodegas Primitivo Quiles. Their solera, “El Abuelo” – “The Grandfather”, started in 1892, survived a ransacking in the civil war and is the oldest solera still in production.
Despite the long, slow, difficult production method and a consumer preference for dry table wines, there are signs of a Fondillón revival. Authentic, sustainable, natural wines are in fashion. Fondillón is an important heritage product, crafted by artisans with minimal intervention. The number of wineries now producing Fondillón has grown to around a dozen. Searching for forgotten soleras in abandoned bodegas and recovering ancient oak barrels.
Today’s production is certified and subject to certain stipulations; The wine must have a minimum 16% alcohol, any wine entering the solera must already have been in barrel for four years or more and on release must be on average at least ten years old. In reality, most examples released into the market will be much older.
The result is a wine, amber in appearance, slightly sweet, with a complex rancio character of hazelnut, caramel, dried orange peel, prune and ripe fig. It’s a, “yes, but no but” wine. Yes, it has similarities to Amarone, Tawny Port, Amontillado sherry and aged Madeira. But no, Fondillón has its own personality. Enjoy it with mojama, the local salt-cured tuna. Or pair with strong cheese, dark chocolate, dried fruit and nut based desserts.
Next time you land in Alicante, when the football shirts and hen parties turn right for the Irish pubs up the coast, head into the old town for a taste of history. And if you can find a bottle of Fondillón to bring home, serve with Christmas cake and tell your guests the story of the most famous wine that they have probably never heard of.
