Spain Wine Regions

Spanish wine is labelled by place, not grape. A Denominación de Origen (DO) covers a region and its rules; Rioja and Priorat hold the top grade, DOCa (DOQ in Catalan), and there are more than 60 other DOs. Tempranillo is the main red grape across the north and centre, called Tinto Fino or Tinta del País in Ribera del Duero and Tinta de Toro in Toro. Garnacha dominates in Aragon, Navarre and Priorat, Monastrell in the southeast, Verdejo in Rueda and Albariño in Galicia.

Ageing terms appear on the label, above all in Rioja and Ribera. Joven or sin crianza wines are young and unoaked. Crianza has at least two years of ageing with some time in oak, Reserva three, and Gran Reserva five, with at least two in barrel in Rioja. The categories mean a style, not necessarily better wine, and many top modern producers ignore them. For what to drink with what, see our Spanish food guide.

Rioja runs along the Ebro for more than 100 km, across La Rioja, the Basque province of Álava (Rioja Alavesa) and a corner of Navarre. Start in Haro, where the Barrio de la Estación next to the railway holds a cluster of old houses within a few minutes’ walk of each other, including López de Heredia, CVNE, La Rioja Alta and Muga; booking two of them makes a full day without driving. Haro is on the train line from Logroño to Bilbao.

Rioja Alavesa, north of the river, is the most scenic part. Laguardia is a walled hilltop village with medieval cellars dug under its streets, and outside it Santiago Calatrava’s Bodegas Ysios ripples under the Sierra de Cantabria. Elciego has the Marqués de Riscal winery and Frank Gehry’s hotel, a tangle of pink, gold and silver titanium ribbons above an old village. Across the river in Briones, the Vivanco Museum of Wine Culture is the best wine museum in Spain, with tastings and a vineyard of grape varieties.

Ribera del Duero follows the river Duero east of Valladolid for about 115 km and makes powerful, dark Tempranillo, including Vega Sicilia, Spain’s most famous red, which rarely receives visitors. Peñafiel is the hub: its long, narrow castle above town houses the Provincial Wine Museum, and the town square, the Plaza del Coso, is one of the oldest bullring squares in Spain. Many bodegas along the N-122 take visitors by appointment, from family cellars to architect-designed wineries.

Aranda de Duero, at the eastern end, has kilometres of medieval cellars under its old town, and its restaurants roast lamb in wood-fired ovens to go with the local wine. Downstream, Rueda makes crisp Verdejo whites, and Toro, near Zamora, makes some of the strongest reds in Spain from Tinta de Toro. The area is about two hours from Madrid by car; see our castles page for the Castilian fortresses along the river.

Priorat, inland from Tarragona, is the most dramatic wine landscape in Spain: old Garnacha and Cariñena vines on terraces of black and gold slate called llicorella, in hills so steep that some plots are still worked with mules. A group of winemakers revived it in the late 1980s, and its reds now sell for prices to match Bordeaux. The villages are tiny: Gratallops, Porrera and Torroja for the top producers, Falset for the main town, shops and the cooperative with its modernista cellar. The ruined Carthusian monastery of Scala Dei gave the region its name. Montsant, which surrounds Priorat, makes similar wines at lower prices.

Penedès, between Barcelona and Tarragona, makes cava, Spain’s traditional-method sparkling wine. Sant Sadurní d’Anoia is its capital, with Codorníu’s cellars by Josep Puig i Cadafalch and the big Freixenet house across from the station, and dozens of smaller family producers around them. Rodalies trains from Barcelona reach Sant Sadurní in about 45 minutes, and Vilafranca del Penedès has the Vinseum wine museum. Combine Priorat with the Poblet Monastery and the coast at Sitges or Reus.

Sherry comes only from the triangle between Jerez de la Frontera, El Puerto de Santa María and Sanlúcar de Barrameda, made from Palomino grapes and aged in a solera, a stack of old barrels blended over years. Fino and manzanilla age under a layer of yeast called flor and are pale and dry; amontillado and oloroso are darker and nuttier; Pedro Ximénez is black and sweet. Drink fino and manzanilla well chilled, with ham, olives and fried fish.

Jerez is the best wine town in Spain to visit without a car. Big houses such as González Byass (Tío Pepe), Lustau, Sandeman and Fundador run tours most days, with tastings from about 20 euros, and the cathedral-like aisles of barrels are the sight. The Alcázar of Jerez and the Royal Andalusian School of Equestrian Art fill the rest of a day. Sanlúcar, on the mouth of the Guadalquivir, is the home of manzanilla and of fried seafood on the Bajo de Guía waterfront. Jerez is about an hour from Seville by train.

Galicia makes white wine for seafood. The Rías Baixas, on the Atlantic inlets south of Santiago de Compostela, grow Albariño on pergolas high off the damp ground; Cambados, in the Val do Salnés subzone, is the centre, with its Albariño festival in early August and family wineries a short drive away. In the canyons of the Sil and Miño rivers near Ourense, the Ribeira Sacra grows Mencía on terraces so steep that the harvest is carried up by hand or rail, and the best view of them is from a catamaran on the Sil canyon.

East of Galicia, Bierzo around Villafranca del Bierzo and Ponferrada makes fragrant Mencía reds and is on the Camino de Santiago. In the Basque Country, Txakoli is a light, slightly sparkling white from the coast around Getaria, poured from a height in the bars of San Sebastián and Bilbao. Navarre, around Olite and its royal palace, is known for rosado and Garnacha.

La Mancha, south of Madrid, is the largest vineyard area in Europe, flat and mostly bulk, but Valdepeñas has cellars that take visitors and cheap, honest reds. Montilla-Moriles, near Córdoba, makes sherry-style wines and sweet Pedro Ximénez. In the southeast, Jumilla and Yecla make big Monastrell, and Málaga’s sweet wines go back to the Romans.

On Lanzarote, the vines of La Geria grow in hollows dug through volcanic ash, each ringed by a low stone wall against the wind, and the bodegas along the road through it serve Malvasía Volcánica by the glass. Tenerife and Mallorca have their own DOs and small cellars that welcome walk-ins more often than on the mainland.

Book every winery visit ahead, by email or on the bodega’s website, a few days in advance and weeks ahead for famous names in September and October. Ask for an English tour; many smaller houses run them only once a day or on request. A standard visit, a walk through the vineyard and cellar and a tasting of two to four wines, costs about 15 to 30 euros and lasts 1.5 to 2 hours. Premium visits with older vintages or a lunch pairing cost 40 to 100 euros or more. Most visits run on weekday mornings and early afternoons; many bodegas close on Sunday afternoons and some for part of August.

Spain has more than 30 certified Rutas del Vino (wine routes), each with a tourist office, maps and lists of wineries, restaurants and hotels open to visitors, run under the Rutas del Vino de España brand. Many regions also have wine tourism offices in the main town that book visits for you. Buying wine at the bodega is usually close to shop prices; a good crianza costs under 15 euros, and a glass in a village bar 2 to 4 euros.

The harvest, the vendimia, starts in August in the hot south, the Canaries and for cava, and runs through September and into October in Rioja, Ribera and Galicia. It is the most exciting time to visit but also the busiest for winemakers, so some small bodegas stop visits during the picking. Harvest festivals include Logroño’s San Mateo in late September and Jerez’s Fiestas de la Vendimia. Haro’s Batalla del Vino on 29 June, when crowds soak each other in red wine on a hill outside town, is the messiest. See our best time to visit Spain for weather by region.

Spain’s drink-drive limit is 0.5 grams of alcohol per litre of blood (0.25 mg per litre of breath), and 0.3 g/l (0.15 mg/l breath) for drivers with less than two years’ licence and professional drivers. That is about one glass of wine for many people.