‘Wine is bottled poetry’, said Robert Louis Stevenson, the famous writer of Treasure Island. Most likely he was referring to the Spanish wines. Almost all types of Spanish wine can be called treasures.
If you list the emblems that represent Spain, Spanish wines will surely be found next to flamenco and bullfights. And for good reason: Spain is the third world producer of wine by volume and the first in vineyard area, with about 13 % of the vineyards of the planet. The sun warms them and the earth gives them strength, and that is why Spanish wine is not just a drink: It's a symbol of the country. Here there are more than a hundred certified wine regions, where several tens of thousands of producers produce hundreds of types of wine. Winemaking is one of the most important parts of the Spanish economy and one of the traditions that the country prides itself on.
Spain dedicates around 919,000 hectares to the vineyard – the largest area in the world – and cultivates more than 300 grape varieties, many of them indigenous and without equivalent in other countries. That diversity, added to a centuries-old tradition and current winery technology, is what distinguishes Spanish wine.
Spanish wines are thought to be more astringent and strong than Italian and French wines. These three countries have been competing for a place in the world market for centuries. Many types of Spanish wine have strong flavors, especially reds. In Spain, white, red and rosé wines are produced, but it is the Spanish reds that are considered one of the best in the world. They have intense aromas of black and oak fruits, and marked tannins. Whites and rosés, on the other hand, are fresh and pleasant, with fruity notes and a good balance of acidity. Semi-dry and sweet Spanish wines are not so common.
The combination of the most modern technologies and ancestral traditions makes Spanish wines special. So special that collectors come to pay remarkable sums for a bottle: in Sotheby’s, in 2010, a Vega Sicilia reached EUR 4 000. A year earlier, a batch of 23 bottles of the same wine sold for almost 103,000 euros. There have been exercises in which the house entered up to a million dollars with Spanish wines alone. This demonstrates once again the high quality of the types of Spanish wine, recognized beyond the borders of our country.
Spain was one of the first wine-producing countries in Europe. Its origins are lost in antiquity – there are winemakers who dispute whether the trade predates Spain itself – and production was not interrupted either with the Visigoths or during the Muslim presence.
The Spanish science and art of winemaking have their origins in such a distant antiquity that some winemakers argue whether the craft of making Spanish wines appeared before Spain itself. One thing is for sure: Spain was one of the first to start producing wines in Europe. Neither Visigoths nor Moors could stop wine production. The Spanish kings took the production of this drink to a qualitatively new level: Different types of Spanish wine began to be supplied to England. Today, the British drink almost 5 million liters of Spanish wine a year. We can say that thanks to the inhabitants of England, the whole world learned what sherry is.
There is no single classification: the same wine is ordered at the same time by its color, by the sugar it conserves, by the time it spends aging and by the carbonic gas it retains. The label usually collects the four criteria, and each responds to a different decision in the winery.
| Criterion | Categories | Wine of Vega Tolosa |
|---|---|---|
| Colour | white · red · pink | Tardana · Vega Tolosa Bobal · Bobal Icon Rosé |
| Sugar | dry · semi-dry · semi-sweet · sweet | Capricho DiVino Bobal, semi-sweet |
| Parenting | young · oak · aging · reserve · gran reserva | Bobal Icon Tinto, 6 months in barrels |
| Carbon gas | calm · needle · pearl · sparkling | Brut Nature Tardana, sparkling |
Currently in Spain about 919,000 hectares are dedicated to the cultivation of grapes and more than 300 different varieties are grown. On the surface of vineyards, Spain occupies the first place in the world. This creates a unique opportunity for Spanish winemakers to constantly experiment and create new types of wine. There are many types of wines in different price categories. Economic wines sometimes deserve the same attention as those sold in wineries. Great fruity pleasures can be found below 10 euros, but there are also more daring and high-end red wines that easily combine with the best collector wines in the world. The types of wine differ by color, taste (depending on residual sugar), origin, alcoholic strength (from 8 to 23 degrees) and age.
In whites, reds and pinks. White is obtained by pressing the grapes and soon separating the must from the skin. The red takes its color from the pigments of that skin during maceration. Pink follows the same path as red, but with much shorter contact.
By its color the types of wine are subdivided and classified into whites, red y rosé. White wines are obtained by pressing white and black grapes. The color of red wine is obtained based on the pigments that are in the skin of the grape. Pinks get their color similar to red, but the contact time between wort and skin is much shorter. Within each color there are different styles:
Wines whites:
Wines red, which are usually presented according to your passage through barrels:
Finally another we can find the rosé which adopt their colour according to the type of grape and the techniques used.
The residual sugar that remains after fermentation. A dry wine takes less than 4 grams per litre and no sweetness is perceived; A candy exceeds 45. Between them are semi-dry and semi-sweet. It is a continuous scale, not two opposing categories.
Depending on the residual sugar you keep, each wine is framed in one of these flavour categories:
The sparkling do not fall into this scale: are classified by their carbon dioxide content, not because of their sugar. They also have their own sweetness scale, which goes from brut nature the candy.
It points to the area where the grapes were grown and the wine was made, and ensures that it meets the standards of its regulatory board. Spain has dozens spread throughout the country; that of this winery is the D.O. Manchuela, in Castilla-La Mancha.
If we talk on origin you can organize the types of wine as follows:
Young, oak or semi-breeding, breeding, reserve and gran reserva. The category depends on the total months of ageing and how many are spent in oak barrels. The longer, the more nuances the wood brings, although more time does not automatically mean better wine.
As for the wine age, there are wines made for fresh consumption, which age harms, but there are also other types of wine that are made with the aim of ageing through the years in barrels or in bottles.
These are the general minimums. Each designation of origin may require more: in Rioja and Ribera del Duero, a red ageing needs 12 months in barrels and not 6.
The production of Spanish wine types is not limited to the production itself. It all starts long before the wine, enriched with sun and light, is bottled. The most important element in the production of Spanish wine is the study of grapes and vines. Research should determine why grapes adapt to certain climates and other regional conditions. It is necessary to take into account the peculiarities of the soil, the specificity of the variety, climatic conditions, resistance to diseases and insects.
It would take more than a day to get to know all types of Spanish wine. The diversity of varieties and elaboration techniques is what makes them memorable, and what makes a party, a meeting with friends or a date a little better. Spanish wine – it's really bottled poetry. I think the whole world agrees with that.
And if you want to know many more curiosities of wine do not hesitate in visit us.
EN 
ES 
DE 