Spanish Wine History
Spain has over 2.9 million acres (over 1.17 million hectares) planted—making it the most widely planted wine producing nation but it is the third largest producer of wine in the world, the largest being France followed by Italy.[ This is due, in part, to the very low yields and wide spacing of the old vines planted on the dry, infertile soil found in many Spanish wine regions.
Major Spanish wine regions include the Rioja and Ribera del Duero which is known for their Tempranillo production; Valdepeñas, drunk by Unamuno and Hemingway, known for high quality tempranillo at low prices; Jerez, the home of the fortified wine Sherry; RÃas Baixas in the northwest region of Galicia that is known for its white wines made from Albariño and Catalonia which includes the Cava and still wine producing regions of the Penedès as well the Priorat region.
During the past decade and a half, the number of designated Spanish wine regions (Denominaciones de Origen or DOs) has grown by more than a third to a total of 69, and Spain has created a new set of laws, doubling the wine quality categories and introducing top wines from regions never known for quality wine or, more often, never even heard of at all. Understandably, this proliferation is creating remarkable confusion about what Spanish wine is, what it’s made from, and where these amazing wines are grown.
The last few decades of Spanish wine have been as crazy a roller-coaster ride as any thrill seeker could hope to find. In the early 1980s, Rioja was the only region to garner international critical praise (much of it left-handed), Sherry was on a serious downhill slide, and Spanish white wine was invisible. Even Ribera del Duero was ignored, with pioneer Pesquera roundly ridiculed in the European press as having absurd pretensions of excellence.
But by the late 1980s, the Europeans had changed their tune; Pesquera and especially its top bottling, Janus, were all the rage. Cava began filling US grocery store shelves and displays by the thousands of cases, displacing domestic sparklers from California and New York State. Spanish white wine, dramatically improved, gained a foothold, led by Albariño. Today, the US is Albariño’s largest market, including Spain.
Before long, wines from obscure or dismissed regions such as Priorat were on fire, with prices rising faster than tempers at a presidential debate. Places known only for cheap and cheerful wines (e.g., Jumilla) were suddenly garnering lofty scores from critics. New DOs were created along with an entirely new category of wine classifications: Vino de Pago. Representing a Spanish monopole (the French term for a vineyard with one owner, producing wine solely from that vineyard), the Vino de Pago concept also suggests something akin to a Grand Cru property. Even more interestingly, the first Vino de Pago were located near Madrid, among vineyards that never had been associated with high-quality wines.
Rioja never really lost its edge. While traditional Rioja wines were blended from its three subregions and multiple grapes and aged in used American oak barrels, new Rioja wines hailed from single estates and vineyards, used Tempranillo grapes (sometimes with a dollop of Graciano), and new French oak. Power and dark color became the hallmark of excellent Rioja instead of the mellow, earthy character that exemplified Riojan wines in the decades before.