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JR's notes:

Rioja has been Spain's 'Classic Red Wine' for several hundred years, but it's only recently that people have started to look at Spanish whites and ask which of them deserves the title of 'Classic White'. WINE magazine asked me for my own choice, and this article appeared in December, 1997. The WINE magazine website is at www.wilmington.co.uk

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GREAT WHITE

The road has been long, but Rueda has been strong. John Radford finally gets off the fence and nominates his own candidate for the title 'Classic White Wine of Spain'

The look in their eyes was enough.

October, 1997 - a party of wine-lovers with no professional credentials and no trade connections, sitting in a bar in the Castilian town of Tordesillas, tasting the wines of a Rueda Bodega of which they'd never heard: raised eyebrows; 'ooh's and 'ah's; the collective smacking of four dozen lips over a wine of tremendously fresh, crisp acidity, gorgeous gooseberry fruit and smoky, lingering palate. And this was one of Spain's own - the Verdejo. If ever there had been a hostage to the future - a grape waiting a thousand years for the winemaking technology to allow it to give of its best - then we had found it.

You may be asking why Rueda makes white wine at all. In an area endowed by nature with game in abundance - on the hoof and on the wing - as well as pasture land for pigs, sheep, goats and cattle, you'd have expected something red, which is what you get in neighbouring Toro, Ribera del Duero and Cigales.

Six hundred years ago the Moors ruled southern Spain and they controlled the vineyards of Jerez, then and now producing the finest wine of its kind in the world. Castilian Spain was at war with Moorish Spain and the academics, princes, bishops and merchants who orbited around the royal courts of Valladolid, Zamora, Salamanca and Burgos had a taste for the finest wine on the world at that time - Sherry - whose winelands were firmly under Moorish control. However, the winemakers of Rueda knew from bitter experience that their local white grape was a martyr to oxidation, which made it the perfect candidate for Sherry-type wines made in the solera. Indeed, Rueda Pálido and Dorado are still made and enjoyed by a few aficionados.

Fast-forward to the early 1970s and we have a vineyard overburdened with poor-quality grapes producing a sub-Sherry wine for which there was a rapidly-declining market. But not everyone had got it wrong. One or two artesanal wine-producers had sporadically (and usually only serendipitously) mastered the art of producing a lighter, fresher style of wine from the Verdejo by preventing oxidation: all that was needed was some method of doing it on purpose... And every time.

This is where Francisco 'Paco' Hurtado de Amexaga comes in. The great-great-great grandson of the original Marqués de Riscal (one of the 1850s pioneers of modern Rioja), he was looking for somewhere to make a white wine which would be the equal of his Rioja red. He'd investigated most of northern Spain and planted experimental plots of everything from Chardonnay to Gewürztraminer, but in Rueda he recognised that the Verdejo, when handled correctly, could produce the kind of wine upon which he would be happy to see the Riscal name. It started with stainless steel technology, of course, with the grapes, must and wine blanketed under inert gas to keep the oxygen out, and a purpose-built bodega began turning out this new style of wine in 1972. He was also instrumental in setting up the Denominación de Origen (1980) and persuading the Consejo Regulador to authorise the planting of Sauvignon grapes.

Fast-forward again to 1997 and, from those small beginnings, Rueda has reinvented itself as a world-class region. This is how the new-style Rueda wine comes to the bottle: last October they were harvesting grapes overnight, with the pickers wearing miner's lamps. The harvest is carried to the winery in plastic-lined trailers (no more than 30 minutes' journey time, usually less) and in some cases the grapes themselves are chilled to below fermentation temperature after destalking, so that they enter the press at less than 15ºC. Pressing is pneumatic and very light - just enough to crack the skins and allow the juice to flow. From here on in, everything is done at tightly-controlled temperatures and under a blanket of pure Nitrogen. Fermentation takes place at between 15º and 18ºC and there is minimal skin-contact to maintain the primary flavours. After fermentation - typically 15 to 20 days at a controlled rate - the wine is racked and allowed to clear, and finally bo ttled some time after midwinter ready for the springtime market.

That's the generality, but, of course, individual bodegas have their own variations. Oak- ageing and barrel-fermentation are much in evidence, skin-contact may be increased for parcels of grapes in exceptional health and cleanliness, and some bodegas are even experimenting with malo-lactic fermentation where primary acidity is high enough, so we may expect further surprises. However, the main task has been accomplished: winemakers have been persuaded to experiment, and have seen the results - in quality as well as financial terms.

So what's it like? The best Verdejo wines are simply stunning, with an up-front fruit that would bring tears to the eyes of a new-world winemaker as well as a broad, powerful palate, excellent structure and good, golden length.

Rueda Sauvignon also has something of that new-world freshness and fruit about it, usually at a slightly higher price. Indeed, it's so similar in style that I asked Ricardo Sanz of Bodegas Castilla la Vieja why they made it, as it were, in competition with the Verdejo. His reply was pragmatic: 'I can sell Sauvignon in any country in the world - even in places where they have never heard of Rueda' and it's the commercial success of Sauvignon which has allowed the financial investment which has, eventually, brought forth these magical Verdejo wines.

It's been a marathon run, but Rueda has finally arrived. I have cast my vote. Even as other regions of Spain produce better and better and more innovative white wines every year, Rueda takes the accolade at last...

...Until the 1998 vintage, anyway.

Rueda - What's What and Who's Who.

Most Bodegas now produce a Rueda Superior made from a minimum of 85% Verdejo grapes as well as a Rueda Sauvignon. These may be joven (young) wines made for sale in the spring following the vintage, or they may be fermented in, or spend up to six months in oak barricas. In addition an amendment to the rules a couple of years ago now allows the production of Rueda Espumoso - a sparkling wine made by what we must now call the Método Tradicional - a crisp, biscuity, fruity and delicious sparkler that's completely different from Catalan Cava... And rather better than Cava produced outside Catalunya.

Marqués de Riscal - Paco Hurtado was the visionary driving force behind the new Rueda and his wines (Reserva Limousín Sauvignon and jovenes from the 1995 vintage onwards) are exceptional. Matched only by...

Bodegas Castilla la Vieja - Antonio Sanz is a brilliant winemaker and his innovation and investment have taken Rueda from being merely a very good Spanish white wine to its present pre-eminence. The barrel-fermented Palacio de Bornos 1996 is one of the most spectacularly delicious white wines I have ever tasted. They also own Bodegas Con Class, which turns out a non-DO Chardonnay as well as some excellent Verdejo wines.

Angel Rodríguez Vidal is one of a dying breed of artesanal producers turning out 'hand-made' wines of sublime individuality under the name Martinsancho.

Marqués de Griñón - one of Spain's most trusted 'maverick' winemakers has no vineyards in Rueda but selects wines to go under his own labels Rodas (Rueda Superior) and Durius (non- DO). The quality is as you'd expect from his Rioja and his Toledo wines: exemplary.

Other wines to look out for:

Bodegas Antaño - Viña Mocén.

Bodegas Cerrosol - Doña Beatriz Sauvignon

Bodegas Vega de la Reina - Vega/Valle de la Reina

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