Spanish Wine
Spain is one of the world’s largest wine producing regions. The country has the largest area of vine cultivation in the European Union and the world followed by France and Italy. It is the third largest producer of wine after Italy and France. Spain’s geographical position, its climatic differences and its wide variety of soil types makes it a privileged place for producing wines with very different characteristics.
Spain is a member of the European Union and thus complies with their laws and standards. This means they divide wines into two major categories: table wines and quality wines.
The lower category of “table wines” include two categories:
Vino de mesa (literally meaning “table wines”)—The lower echelon of the wine classification system. This category is very important to Spain and accounts for about half of its production.
Vino de la tierra (country wines) – sourced within a single, fairly broad wine region (geographical indication “GI”), and must meet nominal alcohol and sensory standards.
Spain grows a large variety of grapes. Many Spanish wines label their wines using the region name and will not show the grape varietal. So we will give some of the prominent growing areas the following grapes are grown, in order for you learn what grapes could be in a bottle from that region. The following are some of the more prominent regional grapes found in Spanish wine.
Wine is grown in many regions throughout Spain. For now we will just discuss some of the primary growing regions and the grape varietals they are known for.
Jumilla – Located in Southeast Spain. Primary grapes are Monastrell, Garnacha Tinta, and Cencibel (Tempranillo) for reds and Airén, Macabeo, Malvasia and Pedro Ximénez for white.