The vineyards in Ribeira Sacra along the Miño river in Spain.

The vineyards in Ribeira Sacra along the Miño river in Spain.
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Olé! Spain's new wine wave

The winemaking dynamic that has developed in Spain over recent years is extraordinary. Falstaff looks at what the trends are in Galicia, Salamanca and Yecla in particular.

Few other wine producing countries have seen such dynamic evolution as Spain. Now that its island wines have hogged the limelight for a number of years, new hotspots of innovation have also emerged on the mainland. In fact, across the entire country wine growers and makers are reviving almost forgotten grape varieties and ancient traditions. Expressing site and grape is far more important to them than the technical possibilities of the cellar and their watchwords are elegance and individuality. They are putting lesser known and newer wine regions on the map, showing them to be a veritable El Dorado of discovery.

Like for instance Galicia in Spain’s northwest. Over recent years, the region made a name for itself with its fresh, zesty Albariños from the subregion of Rías Baixas – Galicia’s absolutely exciting red wines, on the other hand, are a well-kept secret to this day. More often than not they are made from Mencia, a grape variety that became known through the wines of the neighbouring region of Bierzo and winemakers like Raúl Pérez. His filigree Mencias with their racy acidity and their cool aromatics have been amongst the best wines of western Spain for years. Pérez, however, is also active in the region of Ribeira Sacra, Galicia’s only denominación de origen (DO), or appellation where red wines dominate.

The steep and often terraced slopes that seam the rivers Sil and Miño are spectacular – and have attracted star winemakers. The oenological dream team René Barbier Junior and Sara Pérez have also been involved in a project here since 2002 and are behind the wines of Dominio do Bibei. Their top wine Lacima – made from Mencia of course – is reminiscent of fine Burgundy in all its finesse and totally embodies the new and elegant Spain. But exciting red wines can also be found in the white wine and Albariño-dominated region of Rías Baixas. Ex-banker Manuel Moldes Moraña founded Bodegas Fulcro in 2011 and makes wines like Aliaxe, a blend of the grape varieties Espadeiro and Caiño Longo which simply shine with freshness and flow.

Secret Salamanca 

Two further new Spanish hotspots are Sierra de Gredos and, two hours further south, the Sierra de Salamanca. Both mountain ranges lie west of Madrid, close to the Portuguese border. Vines had flourished here in Roman times and survived into the 20th century, but with the closure of the local co-operatives in the 1950s, viticulture disappeared almost completely. But today the region is being kissed awake by enterprising winemakers – like César Ruiz, a wine merchant and wine bar owner from Madrid. His Viñas Serranas project is dedicated entirely to the grape variety Rufete – an indigenous variety that makes slender, elegant wines of intense fruitiness. His Fuente Grulla is made from vines that are more than 80 years old and is a profound, floral, dark-berry-fruited, herb-scented and fresh wine with fine tannins and great length – a kind of Burgundy archetype of Spain.

Yecla – Monastrell Paradise

What elegance and freshness is to the Sierra de Salamanca, natural power and concentration is to the tiny DO of Yecla. Yecla lies in Spain’s southeast, centred around the eponymous town in the province of Murcia. The main variety that thrives on the poor, limestone-rich soils of Yecla is Monastrell, also known under its French name Mourvèdre. The vines often are still on their own roots – planted before the phylloxera plague late in the 19th century that necessitated grafting the European grapevine onto phylloxera-resistant American rootstocks. Like so many of Spain’s most exciting regions, Yecla was mainly known for bulk wine production – until recently, up to 12 million litres were exported from the region. Today that production volume has halved. Yecla is in transition and is reinventing itself.

Many of the smaller producers who sold their grapes to a handful of big wineries have given up – 240 of them in the past five years alone. And this happened despite the potential of the region: old vines, ideal conditions for organic farming, available vineyards. Yecla has all this and it will attract innovative wine projects in the future. Oenologist Angela Castaño has recognised this potential. She used to work for the Perrin family at Beaucastel in Châteauneuf-du-Pape and is a firm believer when it comes to Monastrell from the higher altitudes of Yecla, at elevations of up to 700-800 metres. Like most of the younger winemakers in Spain, she is also after freshness and elegance in her wines. Right now, these are still the exceptions in the wine portfolio of her family’s estate, Bodegas Castaño. At Monte Arabí, a UNESCO World Heritage Site, she rescued ancient Monastrell vines from being grubbed up. Last year, she made her first wines from them which left a lasting impression with us. All over Spain there are now innovative winemakers that are forging new paths.

A church and vineyard in village of Candeleda, Sierra de Gredos.
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A church and vineyard in village of Candeleda, Sierra de Gredos.
Dominik Vombach
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