The most frequent request that I receive from readers or peeps on the street is, “What’s a good deal these days?” What most of them really mean is “What’s a good $15-or-under California cabernet sauvignon or pinot noir?”
Not gonna happen.
Sure, good-value red wines come from California, but they’re generally from grapes other than cabernet and pinot, or they’re blends of red grapes. (And, to be sure, California turns out some solid best-buy whites too.)
Frankly, if you want that killer combination of lots of aroma and flavor for very little price, you’ve got to take a long trip, away from California and to such places as Spain or Portugal. Today’s widest range of best wine values are from these two countries.
First to Spain, then; Portugal we can visit after the New Year. Here are three major tacks into better buys in Spanish wine, mostly red, some white. Recommendations in sections and by price.
Buy by region
You well may hear advice to stay away from the “overpriced appellations” such as Rioja or Priorat, two of Spain’s “Napa Valleys,” which are making great wine but always at great price.
Furthermore, you’ll be advised to seek out less well-known regions such as Utiel-Requena or Rias Baixas (less well-known regions are always also difficult for Americans to pronounce).
I second the latter advice but tweak the first. You can still buy great-value wines from Rioja and Priorat. Rioja is more like Bordeaux than Napa, producing ginormous quantities of nearly always delicious red wine at many levels of price; Priorat’s wines are so good overall that buying $30 bottles is as sure a bet as purchasing $60 Napa cabernets, and you get the same power packed into a wine from either.
Buying from out-of-the-way regions in Spain is actually easy. By and large, they’re not “out” of the way so much as arranged like a ring around the country’s borders.
For whites, buy from Rias Baixas, Rueda and the Txakolina districts in the north, plus Jerez in the south; for reds, the regions are legion: Navarra, Bierzo, Costers de Segre, Manchuela, Valencia and Jumilla. A few best-buy areas are secreted inland a bit, such as Mentrida, Calatayud and, yep, Utiel-Requena (oo-tee-EL ray-KAY-nah).
2009 Raimat Tempranillo Costers de Segre ($10, huge value; dark fruits snapped-to with fresh acidity; prettily perfumed); 2010 Olivares Monastrell “Altos de la Hoya” Jumilla ($11, are-you-kidding-me concentration of red and purple fruit flavors; juicy smooth, scents of earth); 2012 Campo Viejo Garnacha, Rioja ($12, superaromatic, juicy, makes you salivate; blue-flecked red fruits with can’t-see-’em tannins); 2009 Beronia Crianza, Rioja ($14, classic style with fillip of modern plushness); 2007 Franco-Espanolas “Bordon” Reserva, Rioja ($15, ridiculously good, juicy, lengthy; $2.50 per year for six years’ aging).
2009 Arrayan “Seleccion,” Mentrida ($16, a blend of French grapes; elegant texture, racy finish, subtle wood); 2008 Casa Primicia Mazuelo “M,” Rioja ($20, difficult to find this grape by itself; like cranberry-inflected black raspberry); 2009 Vall Lach “Embruix,” Priorat ($25, gobs of dark fruit flavors, aromas; earthy, tannic, mineral-scented, so much for so little); 2009 Marco Abella “Loidana,” Priorat ($30, mostly garnacha and carignan for oomph, wrapped in dusting tannins and scents of minerals).
Buy by grape
The red wine grapes tempranillo and garnacha (grenache) grow throughout the country and make wines both dear and budget. All your wallet needs to know is to buy by producer here.
But Spain raises more grape vines than any other country on the globe, and many red grapes little known to us make delicious, juicy-smooth red wines: monastrell in Jumilla, mencia in Bierzo or bobal in Manchuela, to name a mere three. Their unfamiliarity is directly correlated to their fine price.
As for white wines, Spain is at the head of the winemaking class for crisp, fresh, well-priced whites such as albarino from Rias Baixas, verdejo from Rueda and the several txakolinas of the north.
2011 Salvador Poveda Monastrell “Ossiam,” Alicante ($10, beautiful, alluring aromas, touch of “smoke”; super deal); 2011 Pazo Torrado Albarino, Rias Baixas ($13-$15, like Granny Smith apples sprinkled with lemon and minerals; soft and round texture); 2012 Bornos Verdejo, Rueda ($14, notes of honey and blanched white cashews mark this fruity, delicate, zestily finishing white); 2012 Losada Mencia “El Pajaro Rojo”, Bierzo ($15, from the dark side of the fruit department, with superearthy notes; brooding but delicious); 2012 Peique Godello, Bierzo ($18, cool, little-known white grape from northern Spain; deliciously fruity and snappily tangy at once).
Buy by style
Spain has a lock on two types of wine at great prices: methode champenoise sparkling wine and dry rosés. No other country (save, for dry pinks, perhaps France) makes so much of either so well and so well-priced.
2012 Finca Museum Tempranillo Rosada “Vinea,” Cigales ($8-$10, full-on flavors of cherry and strawberry with snappy finish of total dryness); NV Vallformosa “Origen” Brut Rosada Cava, Catalonia ($20, deliciously deep in flavor for a pink sparkler, with a mousse as white as a look at the sun and gorgeous peony-pink color).
If your wine store does not carry these wines, ask for one similar in style and price.
Bill St John has been writing and teaching about wine for more than 40 years.
