April 01 2025 - April 28 2025
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Mar 20 2025
Rare Varietals
Spain is a paradise for the wine explorer. Its diversity of terroirs is often talked about, and it also has a delicious diversity of grape varieties. There was a period at the end of the 20th century when many producers preferred to follow the international trend and invest in international varieties. What’s really exciting is the trend today to revive and celebrate local, indigenous varieties.
By Sarah Jane Evans MW
Spain is a paradise for the wine explorer. Its diversity of terroirs is often talked about, and it also has a delicious diversity of grape varieties. There was a period at the end of the 20th century when many producers preferred to follow the international trend and invest in international varieties. What’s really exciting is the trend today to revive and celebrate local, indigenous varieties.
Tasting though the rare and lesser-known varieties at the Wines from Spain Annual Tasting is a very good way to catch up with what is happening in Spain today, to discover different original grapes as well as to track down unusual varieties.
It’s worth searching under ‘varieties’ in the tasting’s online catalogue before you arrive. The bonus is that by stopping to taste ones you don’t know or have not tasted often, you will also be creating a journey through Spain’s very diverse geography.
Putting these varieties on a wine list guarantees originality. I will be presenting a guided tasting of some great examples at the Annual Tasting and I hope you can join me.
For my ‘Rare Varietals’ tasting I could have picked Rufete and its cousin Rufete Blanco, Malvasía Aromática or Zalema. In the end, I chose wines which take me from Tenerife to Txakolí, and Rioja to Montilla-Moriles, and places in between.
My tasting includes a wine that is made with an ‘illegal’ variety, that is not permitted within the regulations of its denomination. I have also chosen another that is well-known, but making a surprise appearance in a different guise. Only one of the grape varieties I am showing comes from outside Spain. The rest are local, offering a vivid contemporary vision of Spain.
If there is one over-riding message this year, it is that Spain is making terrific white wines. Out of the 6 wines I will be presenting, four are whites. And there are plenty to taste at the Annual Tasting: not just Verdejo or Albariño or Viura, and Malvasia Aromática and Xarel.lo, which is really having a moment as a dry wine. The other two are red wines, but these are light reds. All of them far from the traditional image of Spain.
The Wines from Spain Annual Tasting 2025 will take place at Illuminate, Science Museum, London on 1 April.
Sarah Jane Evans will present a guided tasting on Rare Varietals at 4.30pm, featuring:
Pepe Mendoza Giró de Abargues, Gorka Izagirre Ilun, Bodegas Viñátigo Vijariego Blanco, Struggling Vines Sasikume, Roqueta Origen Abadal Picapoll, Bodegas Del Pino Parcela El Lechinar Los Insensatos de la Antehojuela.
Please visit https://annualtasting.foodswinesfromspain.com/ to find out more about the event and to book your place. For further information, email: winesfromspain@otaria.co.uk.
