THE MONTILLA WAY! -
THE MONTILLA WAY!
Ric Polansky ©
Watch out for travel writers; ponder carefully what they recommend and disparage. You have to read a bit of them before you understand whether they are traveling for you or hiding out from themselves. True ones will tell you what's factual, authentic and trustworthy not just sentimental, popular and emotionally allowed. Matters get worse if they're not educated in history or folk ways.
Recently while journeying through the olive laded velvet carpeted hillsides around Cordoba my eyes rested on a particular passage in one of the many travel books I journey with that read: "MONTILLA…you might want to visit a wine bodega… otherwise there is little else of interest." No hastily scribbled passage could have been further from the truth nor sent me quicker down the wrong road. Fortunately the fame of Montilla's chilled aromatic taste had frequently blessed my parched palette. To reward my perseverance I also discovered that Montilla is a locality of immense historical importance, none of which was mentioned in the book that now rests on top of the New Year's rubbish heap. Not only is Montilla an important wine producing area it even holds it's own Denomination of Origin.
It was in this hill top town where Julius Caesar staked his final claim to Rome and fame when he defeated the armies of Pompey. Wine was produced then too. And it was Montilla where the last surviving heir to the Inca throne spent thirty years of his life writing the most exciting book ever penned about that magical Andean race from Peru.
THE ROYAL COMMENTARIES by Gacilaso de la Vega never brought him the fame he well deserved during his life when he lived in the village under the AKA of Gomez Suarez de Figueroa. El Inca, as he was commonly known was the son of one of Pizarro's captains who had married an Inca Princess. His book has been debunked for the last fifty years until enough data was finally collected by archaeologists and pieced together. The facts illustrated that the presumed tale told by the old Inca was very close to the truth. Arriving in Montilla at the youthful age of just twenty-one he was taken in by his paternal uncle and instructed in the court life of the sixteenth Century. The Inca had come to Spain to petition the government for his rightful claim to the treasures looted from his country. While searching for the casa of El Inca I too discovered that the greatest war hero of Spanish history was born in Montilla, none other than Francisco Gonzalez de Cordoba, El Gran Capitan. Whet your appetite yet?
The village of Montilla is located just fifty-five kms. southeast of the majestic Andalucian capital of Cordoba on the N 331 hi-way that all wine connoisseurs must trek to pay obeisance. For more years than historians have noted, grapes have been grown on the slopes of the Sierra de Montilla. Don't allow less traveled writers to influence you that Montilla is just another cheap sherry imitation; either they lack taste or haven't tried it. Unfortunately, just recently a few brave scribes have stepped forward and proclaimed what the Cordoban's have known for two millenniums. In fact, some prefer the lighter more fruity Montilla "fino" rather than those of Sanlucar and Jerez. There is no better way to settle the argument than visit Montilla and make the decision yourself.
Montilla supports various large bodegas, enough so they have formed a consortium and now charge a small admission for visitors that as of recent have been arriving in buses disgorging some fifty or sixty passengers at a time. They come to try Montilla's famed "fino", (cool and light); outstanding "oloroso" (second pressing more aged); sweet and aged Pedro Ximenez (fifteen to twenty years in the cask, dark and deceitful).
Almost all bodegas offer their own version of brandy using the same methods that the Moors perfected centuries before. The enterprising distiller, Bodegas Gracia has produced and marketed their young wine Viño Verde and had unprecedented success. Low in alcohol, fruity and very drinkable. The 1999 version is already being sold and is the best vintage ever.
My recommendation? Just get in the car and go. Dress warm and for the next few days or week you can discard what is cumbersome. Remember if you refuse to bring back a case of something, at least return with your arms full of different bottles. It's the Montilla WAY!
