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JR's notes:

This is an overview of what Spain achieved in the last quarter of the 20th century. It was published in FOOD ILLUSTRATED in May, 1999. FOOD ILLUSTRATED is published by the Waitrose supermarket group (John Lewis Partnership) and you can find it on-line at www.wfi-online.com

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SPAIN, LOOKING BACK, LOOKING FORWARD

by John Radford

Think about a glass of white wine - pale gold, shot through with green highlights, as fresh on the nose as a herb-garden at dawn and, on the palate, ripe and bursting with tropical fruit - yet bone dry on the finish... Think about a glass of red wine, ruby-red with purple tints, ripe strawberries with black pepper and cigar-box cedar wood on the nose, bold, bright summer-berry fruit on the palate and a finish that goes on for as long as a Mediterranean autumn... Ten years ago you'd hardly have expected to find wines like this from Spain. Now, they're the norm.

It started in the 1970s, with Spain's return to democracy. The wine business reinvested in new, squeaky-clean stainless-steel wineries with pin-sharp temperature-control, which threw into vivid profile the poor quality of much of the grape provided by the growers, from vines planted haphazardly, pruned inaccurately and harvested half-heartedly.

The 1980s saw the revolution in the vineyard: better, healthier clones of traditional grapes; experimental plantations of varieties from other parts of Spain, France, and beyond; and a proper regard for grafting, training and pruning.

The 1990s, however, provided the final element - the revolution in the marketing department. Winemakers realised that it was no longer enough to turn their harvest of grapes into wine and then go looking for buyers: it had to be the other way round - find out what the buyers want and supply it.

The UK supermarket trade had quite a big hand in this evolutionary process. Customers were becoming more sophisticated, more demanding and - most importantly of all - more open-minded than ever before. As supermarkets developed into the major suppliers of wine to British homes, the range, quality and value continued to increase. The customers loved the wines and the bodegas responded accordingly.

Spain divides roughly into seven major wine-producing regions, with 55 principal Denominación de Origen (DO) wine areas from the unpronounceable Getariako Txakolina in the north to the remote El Hierro, in the Canary Islands, to the south, and the range is astonishing. Light, fresh crisp dry white wines from Galicia and Rueda jostle for position with fruity classics from Ribera del Duero and Toro; Cava, the sparkling wine from Catalunya, is second only to Champagne in the hearts of UK wine lovers, Rioja continues to improve and expand and Sherry, Spain's oldest campaigner, is back from the brink of oblivion in the early 1980s with better wines than ever,

One of the most exciting developments has been the 'maverick' winemakers, sometimes working outside the DO system, making wines with the best grapes in the best soils regardless of where they may be. A good example is provided by Albacora, which describes itself as coming from 'Castilla y León' - a region the size of Wales which contains five DO wine areas. In fact, Albacora white comes from the DO zone of Rueda but it can't be called Rueda because the winemaker (in this case Britain's own Hugh Ryman) wanted a dash of Chardonnay to enrich his white wine, and Chardonnay is a forbidden grape in Rueda. He also wanted to make a full, fruity red from the Tempranillo grape in the DO zone of Toro, and that's not allowed, either, because he used grapes from outside the area. The result is two wines of excellent quality which, in spite of their 'unclassified' origins have proved enormously popular with the wine-drinking public, especially in Britain.

Another area which has emerged recently as a world-class player in the wine game has been Somontano, in the Pyrenees, high in the region of Aragón. Almost completely neglected until the late 1980s, development here has taken place at a scorching pace, with one or two of Spain's most modern and exciting bodegas experimenting and developing wines ideally suited to the export market. Grape regulations are a little more relaxed here, and you're as likely to find Cabernet-Sauvignon, Merlot, Gewürztraminer, Riesling and Syrah here as the local Moristel and Alcañón. One of the great 'new-wave' marriages made in heaven has been that between the Tempranillo and the Cabernet-Sauvignon, and Espiral is a good example - packed with fruit, morning-fresh, with a touch of 'suntan' from a short period in American oak casks. This is new-wave winemaking with a purpose, and has also found its way into more traditional regions, such as Navarra, which continues to represent exc ellent value for money. Here, too the Cabernet Sauvignon/Tempranillo marriage is being celebrated on a regular basis, and one of the pioneers was Bodegas Principe de Viana, who make the Agramont range.

Meanwhile, the classic regions continue to improve. Rioja prices are, sadly, moving steadily upwards, particularly after the short vintages of 1993 and 1994 and fuelled by the excellent quality of and enormous demand for the 1994 and 1995. The 1996 vintage gave a much-needed increase in quantity and the wines are developing well and early, as exemplified by Cosme Palacio - yet another example of a winemaker experimenting outside the rule-book. By law, Rioja must spend twelve months in oak casks before it can be called crianza (literally, 'wine of breeding') . Palacio's winemaker, however, takes his wine out of the cask when he feels that the time is right, even it hasn't been for the full twelve months. This way, the raspberry/ strawberry flavours of the Tempranillo grape can be balanced precisely against the rich vanilla flavours of the oak cask, batch by batch and vintage by vintage.

Even that most traditional of Riojano bodegas, Marqués de Murrieta, is offering new styles of wine alongside its venerable favourites. Since the sad and untimely death of Vicente Cebrian, the Conde (Count) de Creixell, who bought the bodega in 1983, his son (also Vicente) and daughter Cristina have continued the process of modernising the cellars, trying out new wines and new ideas whilst keeping faith with the past. Murrieta's white reserva (four years in oak) is still the benchmark by which classic white Rioja is judged.

Another traditional view that's being turned on its head is that all Spain's 'fine' wines come from north of Madrid, and its everyday wines come from the south. It's true that the cooler climate and higher altitudes in the north favour smaller quantities of finer wines, but the maverick factor has been at work here, too. Take Calatayud, for example, sister DO of the mountainous Somontano. This is lowland Aragón, with sandy soils and a searing summer climate which is now turning out some truly splendid everyday wines made from Tempranillo and Garnacha (which the French call Grenache). Beautifully made, round, rich and ripe thanks to the summer heat but not overheated thanks to the altitude, these offer exemplary value for money - as witness Viña Fuerte.

South of Madrid, the vast plain of La Mancha has been quietly reinventing itself over the last ten years or so, as well. True, almost any supermarket's own-brand £2.99 white Spanish is likely to be from La Mancha or neighbouring Valencia, but both these regions have been developing wines in the middle price-range to show what really can be achieved. Once again, the Tempranillo is king (although they call it the Cencibel hereabouts) and in spite of the great heat (Manchegos describe their climate as 'five months of winter and seven months of Hell') new, innovative small bodegas are turning out astonishing new wines, and even the big co-operatives are surprising themselves by the quality of wine they are able to make today, compared with the way it was even ten years ago. One thing remains constant, however: altitude, climate and economy of scale keep costs down in La Mancha, making its wines consistently excellent value for money.

Another emergent region in the south is Extremadura, which contains the 1997 DO Ribera del Guadiana. It's not well known and, indeed, most of its wines are still on sale outside Spain under the name of its largest subzone, Tierra de Barros (which, rather unpromisingly, translates as 'mud country'). The range of wines is enormous with quite expensive reds made from Cabernet, Merlot, Tempranillo et al. at one end of the scale and simple, humble everyday whites at the other. The local grape is the Pardina, seldom seen anywhere else in the world, but its simple dry white wine is the staple in most of the bars and cafés in the region. It's too soon to say what Ribera del Guadiana will become, given time, but it's yet another example of the way Spanish wine is moving ever onward.

It's been said that if Spain were a newly-discovered wine-producer in Eastern Europe or the New World then the trendy wine-columns of the press would be agog with all the wonderful things happening in the country. However, Spain has always been with us - the oldest commercial-scale wine-producer in Europe (pace ancient Greece). It's as familiar and comfortable as the view of our own back garden, such that we sometimes don't even notice that it's there at all. But, by all outward appearances, this is only the start. If you think Spain has come on apace in the past ten years, then what shall we be looking back on in the year 2010?

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