Spanish Wine

Spanish wine is in the news. American wine writers are excited about great wine "discoveries" from "unknown" regions of Spain. We Americans speak with pride of "little known" wines of our own experience, as if we had made the wines ourselves. Attention to the wines of Spain is a good thing, but the idea of our discovering them is ridiculous. After all, even American wine writers refer to our domestic products as "new world" wines. The old world discovered us! Wine has been important in Spain since centuries before the time of Christ. Spanish wine regions were famous around the ancient world over a thousand years before the earliest winemaking experiments on this continent. So, it is too late for us to "discover" the wines of Spain, but it is certainly time to enjoy them.

Our number one wine import from Spain is Cava, bottle-fermented sparkling wine. Although Cava may come from a number of Spanish wine districts, it is most associated with Catalonia (the coastal area just south of Barcelona). Two large producers Freixenet and Cordorniu dominate the market but many smaller producers appear the Greenville market from time to time. Almost without exception Cava will be light, fresh, and alive with bubbles. Only the most rare special editions rival the wines of the Champagne district. Then again, the price of good Spanish Cava (all Cava is Spanish) is often less than a third the price of fine French Champagne (really, all true Champagne is French).

The other dominant category of Spanish wine imported to the US is Sherry. Most US consumers use the term "Sherry" as if it meant most any kind of fortified, oxidized wine. Many folks only call on Sherry for cooking. Nevertheless, Sherry is a complex, well-defined, and highly regulated regional category. Sherry can range from light and dry to dark and sweet, with an astounding array of aromas and tastes. Unlike Cava, Sherry is narrowly regulated as to place, the southwestern coastal region just inland from Cadiz. What we are now "discovering" about Sherry is the fine quality and diversity of the real thing as apposed to its bulk-grade US imitators.

Rioja is another region with long-standing acceptance in the US, at least among knowledgeable red wine lovers. Rioja has strong links to the French region of Bordeaux. Rioja is remarkably close to Bordeaux. In the late 1800’s French growers migrated to the region trying to escape the ruinous effects of phylloxera, the root louse that ultimately reshaped the entire wine world. Although their efforts failed in the near term (phylloxera followed them and destroyed Spanish vineyards too), they left behind a concept of winemaking unique in Spain. Here the wines are complex and delicate, rich in flavor but moderate in body and alcohol. In Rioja, barrel aging to temper fiery young red wine is the norm. In fact a tiny few producers adhere to an extreme standard of aging their finest "reservas" for as much as a decade. Today in Rioja a growing number of modern (California style) robust reds catch the fancy of the wine press. However, there are still plenty of the masterfully delicate wines of old.

Cava, Sherry, and Rioja no longer have the US market to themselves. Many regions have standardized and elevated the quality of their wines. As export markets have become at once available and necessary to Spanish producers, wines that used to go to market in bulk are defining their individuality. Importers of the finer wines of Spain are serving a growing number of US buyers who are interested in regional style, rather than the most alcohol for the money. And just in time! The European demand for cheap non-descript red wine is waning. Consumption in major wine-drinking nations is abating. There too, quality and style are driving growth markets.

Greenville now has ten times the selection of premium Spanish wine it had a couple of years ago. As we grow more ready to experiment our choices will continue to grow more numerous. We are too late to be the "discoverers" of the wines of Spain, but we can still revel in them!

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Originally published in "The Greenville Journal", March 29 - April 4, 2002 in "From The Vine" column, author, Richard deBondt.