Apr 25 2024

Spain for Indies!

Ahead of his wine walk at the Wines from Spain Annual Tasting on 14 May, David Williams highlights the regions that currently excite him and presents the 6 wines he has selected for Indies to taste on the day.

There are, I reckon, two reasons why Spain has become such an attractive proposition for independent wine merchants over the past couple of decades – and these two factors are very much connected.

The first is the emergence of fine wines in all sorts of hitherto overlooked or underused places; the second is the re-discovery in those places of a seemingly inexhaustible supply of undervalued grape varieties.

Put those developments together – and then throw in the generational wave of talented and driven viñateros who have overseen them – and you have one of the world’s most progressive winemaking cultures, with a diversity that now matches France and Italy.

The wines featured on my wine walk are designed to illustrate this brave new world, taking the form of a virtual vinous tour of some my favourite Spanish regions and wines.

I’ve started in the northeast, in Catalonia, with a prime example of Xarel·lo, one of the Cava trinity of grape varieties, but now being used to incisive effect in Penedès in superb still and pet nat, ancestral method fizz.

A skip down the Mediterranean coast takes us to Valencia, and a juicy amphora-red from the local Mando, before heading across to Andalucia and a prime example of the new wave of unfortified white wines made in Sherry country.

Then it’s up to the northwest and a textbook youthful unoaked mencía red from Bierzo before finishing with two powerful but balanced, high-altitude reds from Spain’s two most famous red grape varieties: Tempranillo (aka Tinto Fino) from the high-plain vineyards of Ribera del Duero and a Garnacha from the hills of Calatayud in Aragón.

Here is my selection:

  • Celler del Roure Safrà 2021 (Alliance)
  • Vins El Cep Pet Nat XRL-LO (Amathus)
  • Sotovelo Palomino 2022 (Moreno) 
  • Vinos Valtuille Pago Valdoneje 2023 (CD Wines)
  • Cuveas de Arom Altas Parcelas Garnacha 2021 (Liberty Wines)
  • Rippa Dorii Crianza, DO Ribera del Duero (Boutinot)

Join me to taste these wines and meet the producers/importers at their table at the Wines from Spain Annual Tasting on 14 May. To secure your place, email: winesfromspain@otaria.co.uk.  

Start Time: 11am (30-40mns duration)

Meet: Info point/Main Hall (Ground Floor)

Register for the Wines from Spain Annual Tasting.

Where we are
Foods Wines from Spain
Spanish Economic & Commercial Office in London

125 Old Broad St, London EC2N 1AR

+44 20 7776 7730

spainfoodwineuk@comercio.mineco.es

twitter.com/SpainFoodWineUK