What is the difference between Crianza, Reserva and Gran Reserva?

They are ageing rules, not quality grades, though older usually means more expensive. For red Rioja, Crianza needs two years in total, with at least one of them in oak barrels. Reserva needs three years, including a year in barrel and six months in bottle. Gran Reserva needs five years, with at least two in oak and two in bottle.

Is Rioja the same thing as Tempranillo?

Not quite. Rioja is a place in northern Spain; Tempranillo is the grape that dominates it, usually blended with a little Garnacha and other local varieties. So Rioja reds are mostly Tempranillo, but plenty of Tempranillo grows elsewhere. In Ribera del Duero it is called Tinto Fino, in Toro it is Tinta de Toro, and it tastes noticeably different in each.

Is sherry a sweet wine?

Mostly no. Fino and Oloroso are both fermented completely dry. Fino ages under a living film of yeast called flor, which shields it from air and leaves it pale, bone dry and salty. Oloroso is fortified slightly higher, so flor cannot survive, and it ages in contact with air instead, turning nutty and brown. The genuinely sweet ones are made from Pedro Ximénez, or from Moscatel.

What is Cava, and how does it differ from Prosecco?

Cava is Spanish sparkling wine, most of it made in Penedès in Catalonia. Its bubbles come from a second fermentation inside the bottle, the same method used for Champagne, followed by at least nine months resting on the spent yeast. Prosecco ferments a second time in a large tank instead, which keeps it fruitier and softer. Cava tastes drier and more savoury.

Spain Wine: Regions, Grapes & Styles

Spain has more land planted with vines than any other country — around 920,000 hectares, and shrinking a little every year. It makes less wine than that figure suggests, because much of it is old bush vines spread thinly across dry, hot ground, low-yielding and often farmed without irrigation. That combination of scale and scarcity is a useful way in: Spain is enormous, but the parts worth knowing are often small and very specific.

The geography does the rest. The north-west corner catches Atlantic rain and grows crisp, salty whites. The central plateau sits high — vineyards above 750 metres are ordinary in Ribera del Duero — so days are hot, nights are cold, and the reds keep their acidity. The far south bakes, which is why Jerez turned instead to fortifying and long ageing. Spain also has a habit almost no other country shares: many bodegas age the wine for you and release it when it is ready. A Rioja Gran Reserva has spent five years in the cellar before it reaches a shop. Elsewhere, that waiting would be your job.

What Spanish wine tastes like

Spanish reds are built around Tempranillo, and Tempranillo tastes of red plum, dried strawberry and leather, with medium tannin — grippy but not harsh. What changes is the dressing. Traditional Rioja spends years in American oak, which adds coconut, vanilla and dill and turns the fruit savoury and gentle. Ribera del Duero and Toro, higher and hotter, give you the same grape at full volume: darker, denser, more tannic.

Grenache — Garnacha in Spanish — brings sweet red fruit and warmth, and in Priorat it becomes concentrated and stony. The whites go the other way. Albariño is citrus and sea spray, Verdejo is grassy with a bitter-almond finish, Godello sits between them with a little more weight.

Sherry is its own world: bone dry, salty and nutty, and nothing like the sweet stuff in the back of a cupboard.

Signature grapes of Spain

Tempranillo is the one to learn first. It changes name as it crosses Spain — Tinto Fino in Ribera del Duero, Tinta de Toro in Toro — and changes character with it. Grenache, or Garnacha, is the warm, red-fruited partner behind Priorat and most rosado. Among the whites, Albariño is the Atlantic one, Verdejo the herbal one, Godello the rounder one, and Macabeo one of the three grapes that make Cava. Palomino makes almost all dry sherry; Pedro Ximénez makes the sweet, treacly ones. Cabernet Sauvignon and Merlot turn up in Catalonia.

Wine regions of Spain

Nine Spanish regions have pages here, and they group neatly. Rioja, Ribera del Duero and Toro are the Tempranillo heartland: Rioja in the sheltered Ebro valley in the north, Ribera del Duero and Toro out west on the high Duero plateau. Priorat and Penedès are Catalan: one a tiny, steep, slate-soiled cult region, the other the sprawling home of Cava. Rías Baixas is the wet, green Atlantic north-west; Bierzo lies inland in a mountain-ringed basin in León, halfway between that green world and the dry meseta; and Rueda is on the dry plains south of the Duero. Jerez, far down in Andalusia, is almost entirely given over to sherry. Start with whichever of those sounds least familiar.

Three Spanish bottles to start with