Spain's world grape: tempranillo

It is by far Spain's most important grape and the third most planted grape in the world. Yet it is not on everyone's lips. Is tempranillo unfairly misunderstood? - TEXT HUIB EDIXHOVEN | IMAGE SHUTTERSTOCK

Spain's world grape

Spain is a special wine country for several reasons. Not only does it make super-classic wines like Rioja, it has long been in the top three largest wine-producing countries, along with Italy and France, of course. Even more striking is the way they make wine in Spain. This is often done hyper-modern and on a large scale. When Spanish wine producers commit to something, it goes fast, very fast. Thus, the archaic Spanish winemaking of a few decades ago has now been transformed into the most modern in Europe.

Don't bullshit but polish

Yet Spaniards do not completely lose sight of their own traditions when making wine. Indeed, unlike in many other countries, here on the Iberian Peninsula they are fully committed to their own indigenous grapes. Indeed, no country in the world is more hung up on its own grapes than Spain. It is hard to imagine, but neither France, with 65%, nor Italy, with almost 70%, even comes close to the 85% of autochthonous grapes that Spain has planted.

This does not mean that in Spain they only work with grapes that have always been there. In fact, in the past two decades there has been a huge turnaround. Nowhere have they uprooted grape vines at a faster rate than here. In 20 years, Spaniards have uprooted 200 thousand hectares of white aíren vineyards. That not only sounds like a huge amount, it is: roughly as much as the entire area of chardonnay vineyards worldwide, an area the size of the province of Limburg. A question of "don't bullshit but polish", in Spanish.

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Curious to find out more about Spain's world-class grape? You can read it in Winelife edition 73. Order this one here!

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