Albariño & Mencía – Spanish Delights

Many of you know of my deep fascination and love of Spanish wines. Of late I have become especially excited by the wines of Galicia, which is a place that appeals to me immensely. Sadly I have yet to visit but I intend to put that right soon, as it looks so beautiful and very different from the rest of Spain.

The region has a cool, rainy, Atlantic influenced climate and as a consequence is known as Green Spain. It produces every style of wine, but is renowned for its dry whites and,  although the region uses many different varieties, Albariño is their most famous and is the grape that has really brought this region to the attention of discerning wine drinkers.

To the South Galicia borders Portugal’s Minho / Vinho Verde region and the two places are not dissimilar in that they are wet and cool, so wine producers have to be very clever indeed to beat nature. Historically that has been a problem in both places, but over the last thirty years or so viticulture has improved almost beyond recognition – as has wine making – and it really shows in the wines.

No longer a land of subsistence farmers making a little wine for themselves and their friends, where quality barely mattered and wasn’t questioned – Galicia has become a region of confident, ambitious, thoughtful grape growers and wine makers whose wines are highly sought after and can command a very high price. This is especially true in Spain itself where Galician whites are considered to be amongst the country’s finest. They certainly tend to be the Spanish white wines that have the most purity and minerality and as such are quite superb with a bit of fish.

Map of the Wine Regions of North West Spain including Galica – click for a larger view – non watermarked PDF versions are available by agreement

The Diversity of Spain – hidden gems & old friends

The other day I presented a tasting to Thanet Wine Appreciation Society, I called it the Hidden Gems of Spain, because I had dug deep to find interesting and great quality wines from as wide a range of Spanish wine regions as I could.

I really like going to address Thanet as the meetings are so large – there were 120 people there, most wine societies have 30-50. It was great fun and they seemed to really enjoy the wines on show. More satisfyingly the tasting introduced many of them to wines, regions and grapes they had never tried before.

I have a sort of theory that many UK consumers expect all Spanish wine to look and taste like Rioja, so – much as I love Rioja – I enjoy showing wines that are as different from Rioja as they can be, in order to show the great diversity of wine produced in Spain.

At first the wine society were unsure if they wanted a Spanish tasting, as they had one last year. However, I won them round when I explained that I could make it an annual event and never repeat myself and made sure that I showed nothing at all from the same regions as the previous year’s tasting.

In truth my problem was not what to show, but what not to show – I only had six wines plus an aperitif. It is hard to give an overview of how exciting Spain is in seven wines, so I kept pencilling wines in and then crossing them off the list again.

For the whites, surely I had to include a Godello from Valedeorras or Monterrei, a Malvasia from Arribes or Toro or an Alella? Sadly Verdejo from Rueda was out as they had tasted one last year.

Ribeiro – more excitement from Galicia

Ribadavia

As mentioned before in these pages, I love the idea of Albariño white wines from Galicia’s Rias Baixas region, but am often disappointed by them. Other than at the top end they never seem to have either enough concentration at one end of the spectrum, or enough acidity at the other.

In order to keep the dream of great wines from this part of Iberia alive I have taken to trying as many wines as I can from the neighbouring Galician and Portuguese regions – as well as Basque Chacoli.