Top 10 Spanish wine trends

Rosé

Jordi Roca of El Celler de Can Roca gets to work on his frosé recipe for Codorníu

The rosé revolution is showing no sign of slowing as the world wakes up to its pretty pink charms. Keen to capitalise on the growing global demand, some of Spain’s savviest winemakers have been tweaking their offerings and launching rosé releases that are dry in style and pale in colour in a bid to tap into the burgeoning trend. Rioja stalwart Muga recently added a Provence-style pink, Flor de Muga, made from old vine Garnacha to its range. The wine is barrel-fermented and left on its lees for four months, leading to a delicate pink with notes of cantaloupe, peach and rose blossom, and a distinctive oiliness on the palate.

Its Rioja neighbour, Marqués de Riscal, has taken its rosé in a fresh direction, lightening its colour to the ballet-shoe pink consumers crave by changing the blend from 100% Tempranillo to 80% Garnacha and a 20% mix of Viura, Malvasia and Garnacha Blanca. Another estate to have taken Spanish rosé upmarket is Chivite in Navarra, which in 2015 launched high-end, food-friendly expression Las Fincas, in collaboration with three-Michelin-starred San Sebastián restaurant Arzak.

“Our idea was to break the mould in terms of what people expect from a Spanish rosé. We noticed there was a gap in the market for a top-end rosé from Spain,” says CEO Julian Chivite. Cava producer Codorníu moved the trend forward last summer with Anna Rocks, a frozen rosé popsicle made with its semi-dry Cava, Anna Ice Edition Rosé, created by pastry chef Jordi Roca of El Celler de Can Roca in Girona.

Great whites

Valdeorras-based Rafael Palacios is on a mission to make the best whites in Spain

Spain will always be better known for its red wines, but it’s no one-trick pony. Over the past decade some seriously smart whites have begun to emerge from all corners of the country, from golden Godellos in Galicia to peachy Albariños in Rías Baixas. One of the country’s most fervent flag-bearers for fine Spanish whites is Valdeorras-based Rafael Palacios, who is on a mission to make mind-blowingly good whites that will change how consumers around the world view the quality of Spanish wines.

“Anne-Claude Leflaive once told me my single vineyard Godello tasted like her Puligny-Montrachet. I want my wines to earn their place on the table at special occasions like Christmas. It should be a top white for top moments. I’m striving to make the best expression possible of Godello.”

The jewel in his crown is the 0.5-hectare Sorte o Soro single vineyard, planted with 50-year-old Godello vines on quartz-rich soil. Just 3,000 bottles of Sorte o Soro are made each year. Another producer raising the profile of Spanish whites is Frenchman François Lurton at Campo Eliseo in Rueda with his oak-aged Verdejos, while Pazo de Señorans in Rías Baixas has become the benchmark for top-end, lees-aged, old-vine Albariño.

Single vineyard Rioja

Benjamin Romeo makes a number of revered single vineyard Riojas

While Rioja has long been an advocate of the benefits o­f blending, spurred on by passionate terroir pioneers in the region like Telmo Rodriguez, in the summer of 2017 Rioja’s regulatory board introduced a new Viñedos Singulares designation to shine a light on Rioja’s best vineyard plots that produce wines of high enough quality to stand alone as solo acts.

It will be a while before we see these single vineyard labelled wines on the market, though a number of pioneering producers in the region, such as Juan Carlos Lopez de Lacaille of Artadi, Benjamin Romeo of Bodega Contador, CVNE’s Contino, Bodegas Bilbainas and Ramón Bilbao, already make them. We can expect to see many more single vineyard Riojas coming onto the market in the next few years as producers seek to take advantage of the new classification.

So far, the DO has received 97 requests to apply for Viñedos Singulares status from 59 wineries across 200 hectares. To qualify as a single vineyard wine in Rioja, the estate needs to demonstrate long-time ownership of the site, which must be over 35 years old. Yields need to be at least 20% below those allowed for the region, and the volume of wine obtained for each 100kg of grapes must be 65%. Grapes need to be harvested by hand, and production traceability will be required.

Prestige Cava

La Siberia is a new single vineyard prestige Cava made by Juve & Camps

You’ve heard of prestige cuvée Champagne but what about prestige Cava? The Spanish sparkler is focusing its efforts at the top end of the market with long-aged releases that have more in common with high-end Champagne than the cut-price Cavas that flood supermarket aisles in the UK.

Last July, Cava’s regulatory board unveiled the names of the 12 ‘grand cru’ Cavas that have been officially recognised as part of its Cava de Paraje Calificado single vineyard classification. Among them are esteemed estates Gramona, Juvé & Camps and Recaredo. Bigger players Codorníu and Freixenet also have skin in the game, as their top drops are part of the prestigious club.

To qualify, the grapes that go into the Cavas must be hand-harvested from vines that are at least a decade old and have a maximum output of 8,000kg per hectare. The base wine must be fermented in bottle for a minimum of 36 months, and they can only be made in the brut style. Among the most interesting new high-end Cavas to come onto the market is La Siberia, a single vineyard sparkler made by Juve & Camps from 100% Pinot Noir from a 34-year-old, five-hectare plot. The gran reserva is aged on its lees for an average of six-and-a-half years before release, and it boasts notes of dried apricots, cherries, nuts and puff pastry.

Lighter reds

Bierzo-based Veronica Ortega is a pioneer of lighter reds made from Mencía

Gone are the days when consumers want their taste buds nuked by powerful, concentrated, high-alcohol fruit bomb wines made with lashings of new oak. Tastes have changed, and while many people still adore warming full-bodied reds, particularly in winter, consumers are increasingly attracted to lighter, fresher reds that work well with a diverse array of dishes. While Spanish winemakers have long been lovers of the coconut and vanilla character imbued by American oak, they are moving away from heavily oaked reds towards purer wines that let the terroir shine through.

Many of the most exciting new wave lighter reds are being made with indigenous grape varieties most consumers will have never heard of, from Caiño in Rías Baixas and Listan Prieto in Tenerife to Rufete in Salamanca. Trendsetter Indigo Wine has championed these food-friendly reds for years, which now seem to be making a splash on a larger scale in the UK, and are being embraced beyond Spanish restaurants by high-end venues such as The Ledbury in Notting Hill, Frenchie in Covent Garden and trendy wine bar Sager + Wilde in Hoxton.

“Spanish winemakers have matured and are seeking to make reds from indigenous varieties with vibrant acidity and a sense of place,” says Priorat pioneer Alvaro Palacios. Among the trailblazers of these new wave reds are Bierzo-based Veronica Ortega and Raúl Perez, and Daniel Landi, who makes glorious old vine Garnacha in the Sierra de Gredos.

Hipster Sherry

Hipster Sherry brand Xeco is helping the fortified wine to reach a younger audience

The mere mention of Sherry is enough to make many a UK consumer shudder with bad memories of being force fed from a dusty bottle of Harveys Bristol Cream foraged from the back of their grandma’s cocktail cabinet. The wine trade has been banging the Sherry drum for years, and drinking dens like Bar Pepito in King’s Cross and Capote y Toros in South Kensington have helped to show a hipper side to the fortified wine.

More recently, Sherry has begun popping up in cocktails at trendy London bars and restaurants with alarming frequency – every bartender worth their salt will now include Sherry in at least one of their cocktails, with finos and manzanillas adding a welcome sea-air tang to apéritifs, and amontillados and olorosos giving more decadent mixed drinks an appealing nuttiness.

Helping to expand Sherry’s reach to a younger audience is hipster brand Xeco, founded by a trio of “fino fiends”, Beanie, Alexa and Polly, who are working with some of London’s top mixologists to develop innovative, on-trend Sherry-based cocktails. The four-strong Xeco range is housed in square-shouldered bottles with funky playing card-style labels featuring famous historical figures from England and Spain, including Shakespeare and Cervantes, and bright bottlenecks in striking shades like turquoise, teal and burnt orange.

Natural wine

Twins Max and Stefano Colombo are flying the flag for natural wine at Bar Brutal in Barcelona

While the natural wine scene has been booming in France for more than a decade, with Paris at the epicentre of the zero-sulphur action, it’s taken Spain longer to embrace the movement. Leading the Ibérian natural wine charge is a clutch of boutique bars in Barcelona, such as the achingly hip Brutal in the trendy El Born neighbourhood, co-owned by Venetian twins Stefano and Max Colombo, where the staff are so passionate about minimum intervention drops, you’ll get chapter and verse about each estate tableside, should you wish to learn the stories behind the wines they list, all of which make friendly partners for the bar’s eclectic menu of seasonal sharing plates.

Following on from Brutal’s success, the natural wine bar trend has spread to Madrid and San Sebastián at Angelia and Essencia. Catalonia has spearheaded the natural wine movement in Spain, and the aforementioned bars serve as the ideal shop windows for them. The wines are also making it over to the UK via specialist Spanish importer Indigo Wine, which has long been a champion of some of the country’s most interesting small batch sips from the likes of natural wine collective Envinate, Daniel Landi of Commando G, and Conca de Barbera-based Escoda-Sanahuja. “We have been in a closed palace, but now the doors are opening to a new world,” says Landi of this new era for Spanish wine.

Vermouth

Tio Pepe maker González Byass was early in on the vermouth trend with its La Copa brand

Having been hotly tipped by trend forecasters for yonks, 2018 will be remembered as the year in which Spanish vermouth went mainstream in the UK. The aromatised fortified wine has been a staple in Barcelona bars like Cal Pep, Quimet & Quimet and Bormuth for decades. Molecular chef Albert Adrià runs the popular Bodega 1900 vermuteria in the city’s Sant Antoni district, where the vermouths are served on the rocks with a slice of orange to add a touch of sweetness.

The trend has recently spread to the UK, with the opening of Vermuteria in the trendy Coal Drops Yard development in King’s Cross. The brainchild of restaurateur Anthony Demetre, who makes vermouth at home, the bar tips its hat to the traditional vermouth joints dotted around Barcelona, and serves 50 incarnations of the drink either straight up or in an array of cocktails.

Keen to keep ahead of the curve, in 2016 González Byass launched a vermouth in the UK made with a Sherry base. Called La Copa, the vermouth, based on a late-19th century recipe, is made from a blend of oloroso and Pedro Ximénez from soleras in the González Byass cellars macerated with a plethora of herbs and spices including wormwood, cloves, orange peel, nutmeg and angelica.

Blue wine

Gik Live from the Basque Country was the first blue wine to go on sale in 2015

While the thought of blue wine is the stuff of nightmares to the purists, the trend for turquoise-tinted wine has been one of the surprise hits of 2018. It all started in 2015, when a group of friends in their twenties put their heads together and decided that the world needed blue wine. Collaborating with the University of the Basque Country, the fruit of their labour was Gik, an electric blue wine with a shirt-wearing dog on the label made from red and white grapes from Rioja, Zaragoza and Navarra.

The wine gets its blue hue from natural anthocyanins found in red grapes and indigo pigments. “We wanted to create a daring product in tune with the changing world – the wine industry needs a little revolution,” a spokesperson for Gik said at the time of its launch.

The wine’s surprise success among hipsters has spawned spin-offs, including a blue ‘Cava’ called Skyfall created by English entrepreneur Chris Arbery, made from a blend of Penedès-grown Macabeu, Parellada, Xarel.lo and Chardonnay, which allegedly gets its turquoise tint from a blend of natural flower and fruit extracts. The latest blue wine to market is the pale blue Vindigo, made from Chardonnay grown in Almeria, masterminded by French entrepreneur René Le Bail, who originally intended to make the wine in France but was met with resistance there.

Sangria 

A summer staple in Spain, sangria took off like a rocket in the UK this year as Britain sizzled in 30-degree heat. One of the biggest sangria success stories this summer has been the Peñasol brand, owned by Félix Solís, which comes housed in canary yellow one-litre Tetra Paks and is sold at Tesco and Sainsbury’s. Made from a blend of Tempranillo from La Mancha, natural fruit extracts and cinnamon flavours, at 5% ABV it’s dangerously drinkable when served chilled with slices of orange, lemon and apple for added zing.

“Peñasol has been our big hit of the summer in the UK – we’ve shifted more than 500,000 litres of the stuff, and expect it to sell well at Christmas too,” says Richard Cochrane, managing director of Félix Solís UK. Another hit in Britain is sparkling-sangria brand Lolea, which is instantly recognisable by its red and white polka dot bottles with swing-top crown cork closures.

Taking the sangria category upmarket with its chic branding, the 7% ABV sparkling white is made from a blend of Macabeo, Airén and Chardonnay from Aragon, along with sugar, orange and lemon juice, and vanilla flavouring. The sparkling red meanwhile, is made from a blend of Tempranillo and Cabernet, orange and lemon juice, and a touch of cinnamon. The brand recently added an on-trend rosé expression to the Lolea line-up, made with a hint of hibiscus and ginger.