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Parker 100 List Spanish wines: Top-budget tipples
27/10/2019
SPANISH wine is cheap; that's universally acknowledged, as any expat from the UK who's just been on a return trip will bear witness. Low prices do not always indicate poor quality, either – even if you set your top budget at €2.50, you can find some very decent wines in the supermarket that will leave you with some change, and the house wine at most restaurants, from your family-run, scruffy-but-cosy bars to your three-Michelin-starred eateries, is nearly always very drinkable.
That's largely because Spain produces so much of its own wine that it does not have to import any – and, in fact, rarely does – unlike the UK where, apart from a few experimental vineyards in Suffolk and Kent that are more of a tourist attraction than a real mass production enterprise, pretty much all wine is bought in from elsewhere.
But if the thought of paying a couple of euros for a bottle is still a bit embarrassing and you want to push the boat out to impress your mates, there's plenty of potential for it among Spanish wines. Got a spare €1,650 you're just itching to part with? Well, the top-priced wine from Spain on the Parker List comes in at about what you'd pay for a week's full-board package trip to India departing from Madrid airport, all excursions included. worth it – even if only footballers and rock stars can afford them.
The Parker List – 41 years of tasting the best wines
It's great work if you can get it, and Robert Parker has it. Based in Baltimore, USA, he's one of the world's most acclaimed wine-tasters and critics, and anything that meets with his approval automatically acquires a price tag of three or four figures in dollars, euros or pound sterling. His bi-monthly magazine, The Wine Advocate, which he founded in 1978, classifies wines on a scale of 50 to 100 points based upon its appearance, colour, aroma and 'bouquet', flavour, finish and potential or actual global acclaim.
As one man can only drink so much wine, Parker now has a team spread across five continents, some spanning more than one – and Luis Gutiérrez is the lucky chap who gets to try out 4,000 samples of wine every year from Chile, Argentina, Uruguay and Spain.
Very few win medals in the 'Wine Olympics', as the Parker List is known, but as Spain is such a huge producer, it was bound to see a few of its elixirs creep in. Here are some of the top-scoring ones approved by the world's most trusted oenologists.
Rumbo al Norte 2016
The star product of the Comando G bodega, or wine merchants, in the province of Ávila – in the centre-northern region of Castilla y León, which is also home to the nationally-famous Duero wine region – is made with aged garnacha grapes grown in the high, chilly and treacherous Gredos mountain range.
A full-bodied red which has recently entered the Parker List and netted the full 100 points, Rumbo al Norte 2016 retails at around €200 a bottle.
Les Manyes 2016
Another garnacha grape red, from a bespoke variety known as Terroir al Límit grown in clay, quartz and chalk soil from vines of over 50 years old at an altitude of over 700 metres in Catalunya's Priorat wine region, Les Manyes 2016 is the only wine made at this bodega and is described as intense and complex, aromatic and deep, with aromas of spices and flowers, juicy and 'mineral' in flavour with hints of fruits of the forest and violets and 'abundant but fine tannins' with a 'very subtle acidity'. You can find it online for between €220 and €230 a bottle.
La Faraona 2014
From El Bierzo, Castilla y León, and produced by the bodega Descendientes de J. Palacios, an aged red made with the Mencía grape variety, has made it into the Parker List with 100 points, but you'll struggle to find it. Ricardo Pérez Palacios and Álvaro Palacios of the family firm say stocks have run out and only 100 bottles are left, which they have kept for themselves.
But you can get the 99-Parker-point newer versions, the La Faraona 2015 or 2016, which are slightly cheaper – around €1,190 as opposed to the €1,485 you'd have paid for the 2014 brand.
Or, given that the bodega retails about 1,000 bottles of La Faraona each year, you'll soon be able to get the 2019 version at a bargain €765.
Castillo de Ygay 1986
This white wine is now extremely hard to find, but the select few who have tried the Rioja from Marqués de Murrieta say it was worth the €500 when it first appeared in the Parker 100. Luis Gutiérrez himself said the Castillo de Ygay 1986 (first picture) was 'one of the best whites he had ever tasted in his life', and at his 4,000 wines per year, little further qualification is needed. It also made history when, in 2016, it entered the Parker List as the first-ever Spanish white to do so.
When considering that this variety, from the oldest bodega in La Rioja, spends 11 years in oak barrel and then a further five years and seven months in concrete tanks before being refined in bottles for a minimum of three years, meaning the newly-harvested grapes will be old enough to vote long before they are ever poured into a glass, it is hardly surprising that the price tag is hefty. If it takes you the best part of 20 or, in some cases, 30 years before your creation can even start earning you money, you need to ensure that when it does, it gives you a sizeable return to keep you in hay and oats until the next batch is ready.
1905 Solera Fundacional Amontillado
A sip of this sherry is literally a taste of history. Practically nobody on earth who was born in the year the grapes were harvested for the first batch is still alive today, and only two batches have ever been made in the 114 years since its initial creation.
That said, if you can't find it – and there are a few bottles still floating around – there's a 1955 version awarded 97 points and one from 2016 worth 92 points, both available from the original bodega, Pérez Barquero, in the Montilla-Moriles wine region. For a drink that was already a vintage at the time of the first World War, you'd expect the price label to be a lot higher – but the 1905 is on sale for around €340.
Valdespino Moscatel Toneles
Sticking with sweet wines, Muscatel is, if you're a fan of the syrupy sort, so easy to drink you would be several times over the driving limit before you realise it – non-connoisseurs describe it as 'basically grape juice and honey'. This wine has been made for between 75 and 100 years – nobody is exactly sure – and the oldest batches come in at between €146 and €270. But a more affordable version comes in the shape of the Valdespino Moscatel Promesa, retailing at between €12.50 and €15.00.
Otherwise, the Marina Alta (northern Alicante province) was once world-famous for its Muscatel grapes, which were turned into raisins and shipped by the tonne to the UK in the 19th and early 20th centuries, a trade so lucrative it funded the now-defunct Alicante-Valencia railway line and saw wealthy British tycoons buying some of the most expensive houses along Dénia seafront; in fact, there were more Brits in the district 100 to 150 years ago than there are now.
And the local Muscatel wine, Mistela, is cheap, abundant and even handed out in free after-dinner shots at many restaurants.
Barbadillo Palo Corto Reliquia
A bodega founded in Sanlúcar de Barrameda (Cádiz province), right in the heart of the Jerez de la Frontera sherry region, in 1821, Barbadillo's greatest treasure is this Amontillado-grape bottled gold which is believed to be over 100 years old and one that critics claim everyone should try at least once in a lifetime.
Of course, few of us will ever be able to afford to – 'bargains' are available online at around €930, but it typically retails at about €1,385.
Pingus 2012 and 2014
The jury's out on whether this is a Danish wine or a Spanish one. Depends upon whether you take the nationality of its creator, or the country it's created in. If you opt for the latter, it's from the province where the purest 'Oxford Spanish' is reputed to be spoken – Valladolid – in the heart of the Duero wine region; if you prefer the former, its creator is Peter Sisseck who, if he sells a couple of bottles a month, will be a rich man and, if he managed to shift 1,000 or so in one hit, would be able to retire the next day. And he probably already has, although his bodega Pingus is still working flat-out, so perhaps he carries on in the job for the love of it. A fine red, as the grape variety suggests – Tinto Fino – with 100 Parker points, Pingus 2012 (second picture) retailed at around €1,650 when it first hit the list, and is now difficult to find for less than about €2,100. The Pingus 2014 Lavinia costs around €1,450.
But if you want to try a Pingus wine without spending a month or two's wages, the Flor de Pingus 2014 and 2016 will set you back by about €129, or the 'budget' Psi 2014 retails at just €33.
Related Topics
SPANISH wine is cheap; that's universally acknowledged, as any expat from the UK who's just been on a return trip will bear witness. Low prices do not always indicate poor quality, either – even if you set your top budget at €2.50, you can find some very decent wines in the supermarket that will leave you with some change, and the house wine at most restaurants, from your family-run, scruffy-but-cosy bars to your three-Michelin-starred eateries, is nearly always very drinkable.
That's largely because Spain produces so much of its own wine that it does not have to import any – and, in fact, rarely does – unlike the UK where, apart from a few experimental vineyards in Suffolk and Kent that are more of a tourist attraction than a real mass production enterprise, pretty much all wine is bought in from elsewhere.
But if the thought of paying a couple of euros for a bottle is still a bit embarrassing and you want to push the boat out to impress your mates, there's plenty of potential for it among Spanish wines. Got a spare €1,650 you're just itching to part with? Well, the top-priced wine from Spain on the Parker List comes in at about what you'd pay for a week's full-board package trip to India departing from Madrid airport, all excursions included. worth it – even if only footballers and rock stars can afford them.
The Parker List – 41 years of tasting the best wines
It's great work if you can get it, and Robert Parker has it. Based in Baltimore, USA, he's one of the world's most acclaimed wine-tasters and critics, and anything that meets with his approval automatically acquires a price tag of three or four figures in dollars, euros or pound sterling. His bi-monthly magazine, The Wine Advocate, which he founded in 1978, classifies wines on a scale of 50 to 100 points based upon its appearance, colour, aroma and 'bouquet', flavour, finish and potential or actual global acclaim.
As one man can only drink so much wine, Parker now has a team spread across five continents, some spanning more than one – and Luis Gutiérrez is the lucky chap who gets to try out 4,000 samples of wine every year from Chile, Argentina, Uruguay and Spain.
Very few win medals in the 'Wine Olympics', as the Parker List is known, but as Spain is such a huge producer, it was bound to see a few of its elixirs creep in. Here are some of the top-scoring ones approved by the world's most trusted oenologists.
Rumbo al Norte 2016
The star product of the Comando G bodega, or wine merchants, in the province of Ávila – in the centre-northern region of Castilla y León, which is also home to the nationally-famous Duero wine region – is made with aged garnacha grapes grown in the high, chilly and treacherous Gredos mountain range.
A full-bodied red which has recently entered the Parker List and netted the full 100 points, Rumbo al Norte 2016 retails at around €200 a bottle.
Les Manyes 2016
Another garnacha grape red, from a bespoke variety known as Terroir al Límit grown in clay, quartz and chalk soil from vines of over 50 years old at an altitude of over 700 metres in Catalunya's Priorat wine region, Les Manyes 2016 is the only wine made at this bodega and is described as intense and complex, aromatic and deep, with aromas of spices and flowers, juicy and 'mineral' in flavour with hints of fruits of the forest and violets and 'abundant but fine tannins' with a 'very subtle acidity'. You can find it online for between €220 and €230 a bottle.
La Faraona 2014
From El Bierzo, Castilla y León, and produced by the bodega Descendientes de J. Palacios, an aged red made with the Mencía grape variety, has made it into the Parker List with 100 points, but you'll struggle to find it. Ricardo Pérez Palacios and Álvaro Palacios of the family firm say stocks have run out and only 100 bottles are left, which they have kept for themselves.
But you can get the 99-Parker-point newer versions, the La Faraona 2015 or 2016, which are slightly cheaper – around €1,190 as opposed to the €1,485 you'd have paid for the 2014 brand.
Or, given that the bodega retails about 1,000 bottles of La Faraona each year, you'll soon be able to get the 2019 version at a bargain €765.
Castillo de Ygay 1986
This white wine is now extremely hard to find, but the select few who have tried the Rioja from Marqués de Murrieta say it was worth the €500 when it first appeared in the Parker 100. Luis Gutiérrez himself said the Castillo de Ygay 1986 (first picture) was 'one of the best whites he had ever tasted in his life', and at his 4,000 wines per year, little further qualification is needed. It also made history when, in 2016, it entered the Parker List as the first-ever Spanish white to do so.
When considering that this variety, from the oldest bodega in La Rioja, spends 11 years in oak barrel and then a further five years and seven months in concrete tanks before being refined in bottles for a minimum of three years, meaning the newly-harvested grapes will be old enough to vote long before they are ever poured into a glass, it is hardly surprising that the price tag is hefty. If it takes you the best part of 20 or, in some cases, 30 years before your creation can even start earning you money, you need to ensure that when it does, it gives you a sizeable return to keep you in hay and oats until the next batch is ready.
1905 Solera Fundacional Amontillado
A sip of this sherry is literally a taste of history. Practically nobody on earth who was born in the year the grapes were harvested for the first batch is still alive today, and only two batches have ever been made in the 114 years since its initial creation.
That said, if you can't find it – and there are a few bottles still floating around – there's a 1955 version awarded 97 points and one from 2016 worth 92 points, both available from the original bodega, Pérez Barquero, in the Montilla-Moriles wine region. For a drink that was already a vintage at the time of the first World War, you'd expect the price label to be a lot higher – but the 1905 is on sale for around €340.
Valdespino Moscatel Toneles
Sticking with sweet wines, Muscatel is, if you're a fan of the syrupy sort, so easy to drink you would be several times over the driving limit before you realise it – non-connoisseurs describe it as 'basically grape juice and honey'. This wine has been made for between 75 and 100 years – nobody is exactly sure – and the oldest batches come in at between €146 and €270. But a more affordable version comes in the shape of the Valdespino Moscatel Promesa, retailing at between €12.50 and €15.00.
Otherwise, the Marina Alta (northern Alicante province) was once world-famous for its Muscatel grapes, which were turned into raisins and shipped by the tonne to the UK in the 19th and early 20th centuries, a trade so lucrative it funded the now-defunct Alicante-Valencia railway line and saw wealthy British tycoons buying some of the most expensive houses along Dénia seafront; in fact, there were more Brits in the district 100 to 150 years ago than there are now.
And the local Muscatel wine, Mistela, is cheap, abundant and even handed out in free after-dinner shots at many restaurants.
Barbadillo Palo Corto Reliquia
A bodega founded in Sanlúcar de Barrameda (Cádiz province), right in the heart of the Jerez de la Frontera sherry region, in 1821, Barbadillo's greatest treasure is this Amontillado-grape bottled gold which is believed to be over 100 years old and one that critics claim everyone should try at least once in a lifetime.
Of course, few of us will ever be able to afford to – 'bargains' are available online at around €930, but it typically retails at about €1,385.
Pingus 2012 and 2014
The jury's out on whether this is a Danish wine or a Spanish one. Depends upon whether you take the nationality of its creator, or the country it's created in. If you opt for the latter, it's from the province where the purest 'Oxford Spanish' is reputed to be spoken – Valladolid – in the heart of the Duero wine region; if you prefer the former, its creator is Peter Sisseck who, if he sells a couple of bottles a month, will be a rich man and, if he managed to shift 1,000 or so in one hit, would be able to retire the next day. And he probably already has, although his bodega Pingus is still working flat-out, so perhaps he carries on in the job for the love of it. A fine red, as the grape variety suggests – Tinto Fino – with 100 Parker points, Pingus 2012 (second picture) retailed at around €1,650 when it first hit the list, and is now difficult to find for less than about €2,100. The Pingus 2014 Lavinia costs around €1,450.
But if you want to try a Pingus wine without spending a month or two's wages, the Flor de Pingus 2014 and 2016 will set you back by about €129, or the 'budget' Psi 2014 retails at just €33.
Related Topics
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