Wood You Believe It? Getting Oaky With It

GETTING OAKY WITH IT

Oak is the one ingredient in great wine that never actually ends up in your glass. French or American? A brand-new barrel, or its fourth time round? Light toast, medium toast, or let’s-turn-up-the-heat? Every one of those cellar decisions leaves a fingerprint on the finished wine.

Five wines. One very influential piece of wood.

We’ll taste our way through silky texture, warm spice, vanilla, cocoa, coffee and smoke — and not a drop of flavouring anywhere. Oak is the supporting actor that sometimes steals the show, so come ready to settle the argument: is the barrel the hero, or just a really good wingman?

🍾 THE LINEUP 🍾

🥂 Mas de la Mona Chardonnay — Masos, D.O. Alicante
We start close to home, in the Guadalest valley. This is Chardonnay that doesn’t shout: tropical fruit and white stone fruit, a gentle toasty edge, and a silky entry that keeps going long after you’ve swallowed. Proof that wood can add texture without taking over.

🥂 Abel Mendoza Tempranillo Blanco 2023 — Rioja
A white Rioja from a grape that barely existed twenty years ago. Abel Mendoza is one of the great obsessives of the region, and this is the wine that shows you what happens when a serious winemaker gives a white the same care he’d give his best red. Our second white, and a completely different conversation with oak.

🥂 Begoña Jovellar Tinto — Ribera del Duero
Begoña Jovellar spent more than twenty years on the technical team at Vega Sicilia before going out under her own name. Tempranillo from high, cold Ribera vineyards — dark fruit, cocoa, sweet spice and a structure that’s still tightening up. A wine made by someone with nothing left to prove.

🥂 Ukan — Rioja Alavesa
The Eguren family, fifth generation, old vines around Laguardia planted as far back as 1940. Three plots, vinified separately and assembled into one elegant, layered wine. Where the previous glass is power, this one is poise.

🥂 El Titán del Bendito — Dominio del Bendito, D.O. Toro
Our finale, and it earns the name. Ungrafted Tinta de Toro vines from the La Jara estate — the youngest planted in 1953, the oldest before 1900 — farmed by a Frenchman who fell for Toro and never left. Enormous, balsamic, chocolatey, 94 points from Wine Advocate, and somehow still civilised. Martha’s note on it: “Aw my goodness. Phenomenal.”

YOUR HOST

Martha runs the room like a conversation, not a lecture. She wants to know which wines you love and why, she’ll ask guests to score their favourites and chat about which one won them over, and she’ll make you part of the evening rather than an audience for it. Join in as much or as little as you like — questions are always encouraged.

WHAT’S INCLUDED

✔ Five wines, each with a very different relationship with oak
✔ Expert guided tasting with Martha
✔ Two whites, three reds, and one very good argument
✔ You’ll never look at a wooden barrel the same way again

Wine is like people. Spend too long in a new oak barrel and everyone notices. Spend just the right amount of time, and people ask what your secret is. 🍷🌳

€40 per person | Limited to 16 guests | 6pm – 8pm
Martha’s Vineyard Moraira — where the barrel gets its moment in the spotlight.