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What is known as the ‘Law of the Pendulum’ has numerous applications, from politics to the history of mankind. It basically says that movement is cyclical and that when something approaches an extreme it will stay like that for some time but the following reaction will be a movement towards the opposite extreme. This concept can largely be applied to wine. Trends are cyclical and on many occasions they also follow this pattern of the pendulum swing.
Wine makers have seen how trends went from what was almost a disdain for traditional and old techniques to highly concentrated wines, the focus turning to wine ageing in new oak. This movement, at the beginning of the century, caused an enormous issue with uniformity and globalisation in wines, with the making of products intended to surprise at first sight on tasting but calling into question one of the main principals: wine is a hedonistic drink and its main function is to accompany meals and a good conversation between friends and relations.
From that extreme, the pendulum swung and those wines, known as designer wines or highly expressive wines in Spain, which had little to do with the terroirs since they could be reproduced practically anywhere in the world using technology and investing in new casks, are now practically history.
At Familia Martínez Bujanda we are proud to be able to say that the swing of our pendulum has been shorter. Our flagship wine, Finca Valpiedra, continues to be labelled as a ‘Reserva’, in the original sense of the word ‘reserva’ as the genuine selection of the best grapes from our Rioja estate. Despite the fact that our wines are completely modern, we have not surrendered the ‘classic’ origin of the term because we believe that if something distinguishes the Rioja region as a wine region compared to the majority of Spanish regions, it is the ageing capacity of its wines.
At no time have we sought to demonstrate anything with our wines other than the originality of the terroirs and landscapes in which we have our own vineyards and we genuinely celebrate this return of the pendulum swing towards more artisanal, fresher wines, which are easy to drink and of course more connected to the terroir.
The objective of Familia Martínez Bujanda continues to be to satisfy our consumers and, in this respect, our wines also evolve, they also change, but the swing is much shorter and we are convinced that the people who choose us value our track record and our commitment to the terroir.
