Spanish Wine Experience

We are back! Sorry for the gaps. Our new shop makes us very busy these days! But we have something rare and special. A wine from the Picos de Europa mountains in Cantabria. Vino de la Tierra de Liébana! Angel Moreno's Mencía from the peaks. Weird right? Mountain wine, but is it fine? We'll see.

It's almost Christmas! So to end off the year prior to this festive we are heading back to the big boy himself: La Rioja. Things have been changing in the last couple of years. So with a bottle of Brunes by Bodegas Vivanco in our glasses, we chat singular vineyards, village wines, intriguing grapes and bubbles!

A slightly differente episode today. We decide to celebrate International Cab Franc Day by diving into the life and history of this French grape. Or...is it French? We sample a bottle of Abadal Franc from the tiny Catalan DO of Pla de Bagès! 

Yee haw and giddy up! This week Roque and Luke head down to the depths of Almeria, towards the long coast of southeast Spain to a winery making a delicious red in the middle of cowboy country. Sierra Almagrera is a blended tinto from a region not usually famed for viticulture, so is it any good?

Today Roque and Luke talk vertical tastings, wine events, and enjoy a very rare bottle of one of the finest sweet wines they've ever tried. Dulce Salmor from the Viña Frontera COOP on the tiny island of El Hierro. Truly amazing stuff!

That's right, Spain has recently welcomed into the Denominación de Origen family another new regulated wine region. Eagle-eyed listeners might recognise the name as this used to be a VT. But not any more. So we crack a bottle of Phoenix by Quinta de Aves and talk all things DO!

Time for a weird grape double edition. Huelva, an episode we have been to before years ago, known for its sherry-esque wines and sweet vinos. We have a bottle of Líbero, a fascinating 50/50 blend of two grapes only found in this Andalusian hideaway: Zalema and Listan de Huelva. Enjoy!

Regions, grapes, statistics, numbers, facts and figures; over the last few years we've covered a lot. So, over a bottle of very alcoholic red wine (Loxarel OPS) this week we have decided to compile all the main stats of the Spanish wine world. ALL of them! Lots of pub quiz answers to be found.

Roque loves sparkling wines. Luke loves the Basque Country. If only there was a way to bring these two things together. Well there is! The Pais Vasco is famous for its crisp white wines, but a few producers are making reds, roses, sweet wines and bubbles. This week a bottle of Izar Leku accompanies a podcast full of wine, history, and the usual ridiculous jokes! 

Time for another episode of 'what the hell grape is that?!' Roque spent New Year in the Canary Islands, lucky bugger, but he still did his job and brought us back a bottle of something weird from Tenerife using a very rare grape from another island entirely: Forastera!

We. Are. Back. We have been away since March 2023! Why? Where were we? What have we been up to? All will be explained. Also, we enjoy an amazing gift from listeners Sheree and Ian; an Albariño aged...underwater??

A SHOCKING DISCOVERY! We never got round to recording a podcast about Malaga and its delicous sweet, fortified, aged, oxidised wines. We did Sierras de Malaga years ago, but not Malaga DO. After facepalming Roque and Luke get down to business with a bottle of Vino Maestro from Bodega Doña Felisa and chat all things boozy from the Costa del Sol!

Welcome to a new version of an old podcast that was lost. Sounds kind of mysterious right? Years ago Roque and Luke did a podcast all about the grape Garnacha. It was lost in the cloud and never uploaded properly. So, now with a shop full of that grape, they return to the wonderful world of the Garnacha grape!

We're back on the vermouth again! Not since back in 2018 have we focused on this amazing Spanish delicacy. And back then, prior to our shop, we didn't know what we know now and we didn't have our own vermut! This week we want to go over Spanish vermouth again, but with more knowledge and market experience. And, of course, we be drinkin'

So, you're visiting Spain, or perhaps you just fancy something español for dinner to mix it up a bit, but don't know what to choose. You like Cab Sav, or maybe a Chianti. So what would be a Spanish version of that? This week Roque and Luke dive into Spanish alternatives to most the main grapes and regions around the world.

FINALLY! After years of trying to locate this wine, painstaking effort of behalf of us pestering distributors, we managed to get one: a bottle of Tostado do Ribeiro from bodega Viña Costeira up in DO Ribeiro. It also, happily, timed well with a recent visit to the Galician wine region itself. So time to revisit a little this odlest of DOs and sample, for the first time, this mythical sweet wine!

Another year in the shop, another year in wine, and other year in the world of wine. What's changed? What have we enjoyed drinking and what have been the highs and lows of this most bizarre year! Roque and Luke have already been drinking as they dive headfirst into the 2022 round up. See you in 2023!

A wonderfully niche Vino de la Tierra this week. About as niche as you can get. Vino de la Tierra Sierra Sur de Jaen. Quite the mouthful! Deep down in the depths of eastern Andalucia is a tiny mountain viticultural area with only a couple of winemakers. The wine? Malaostia - great name - from Bodegas Cefrian. Also, there's a lot of olive chat.

Roque and Luke managed to find another of the rare Vino de Calidad regional wines. On a recent trip to the Leon area in the northwest, Luke picked up a bottle of Prieto Picudo red from the miniscule Valles de Benavente region. Bodega Otero's 2014 reserva in fact! The question is, where the hell is the region and who's there making wine anyway? Well, let's find out!

Another Vino de Pago here; one we've been enjoying for quite some time now as they do things a little different in this winery. Tucked away in DO Utiel-Requena is Pago Tharsys. They have a range of 'standard DO' wines as well as their own sparkling Cavas. But they also have a handful of DO Pago wines. In this case their rather accentric nocturnally harvested Albariño!

How old can wine be? Should we be buying wine and waiting? What makes a wine worthy of ageing? All these burning questions will be answered as Roque and Luke sampling wines from the 1960s! Yes, that's right, booze that has been sleeping for almost sixty years! Thanks to Toro Albala and their creations from D.O. Montilla-Moriles!

This week Roque and Luke try perhaps the most influential grape no-one's ever heard of and that you'll rarely find: Cayetana. Though, as you'll find out - hell, as they'll find out - it goes by many names and has been a historic figure hiding in the shadows for centuries.

Ah yes, terroir , that most mysterious of words. So vague, so pretentious, so winey, so French. But, credit where credit is due, it is a great concept, an important concept and a useful way to think about wine. This week we talk about the idea of terroir by trying a new project from a winemaker who likes to play. Three tempranillos, made in the same way, but from three different provinces in the s...

It's party time in many parts of Spain! And why? Well, it's the vendimia, the grape harvest. And Roque is about to head down to one; we all hope he makes it back alive. This week we want to take you through some of the best and most alocholic wine-fiestas in Spain!

Happy Summer everybody!! Lordy lordy it has been hot here in Spain the last few weeks, and we are still way off the cool days. Roque and Luke are on their holidays, so, to celebrate the season, they have thought up their perfect Spanish summer boxes for you to enjoy!