All About Spanish Wine: Essential Guide to Drinking Wine in Spain
Originally published 10 October, 2024.
Spain is one of the best countries in the world for wine lovers. There is more land dedicated to growing grapes for wine in Spain than in any other country on earth! Whether you are a casual wine drinker or a wine connoisseur, Spain is a spectacular country to discover, enjoy and learn about wine.
In this guest blog post, our friends at Walk and Eat Spain share some of their favorite tips for drinking wine in Spain!
Travelers enjoying Spanish wine. All photos in this post are courtesy of Walk and Eat Spain unless otherwise noted.
This essential guide to drinking wine in Spain has everything you need to know about enjoying Spanish wine while visiting our incredible country. From the unwritten wine rules in tapas bars, to which Spanish wine regions to keep an eye out for, here is everything you need to know to make sure you’re drinking the most delicious wines throughout your trip to Spain!
Be sure to pair your wine in Spain with the best foods in Spain region by region!
How to order wine in Spain
Wine is ubiquitous in Spain. It is served and sold literally everywhere. Whether you’re in a Michelin-starred restaurant or a roadside café, there will always be multiple wines available by the glass with a dozen or so more served by the bottle.
Wine is so important here that when served in restaurants it is taxed at the same rate as milk. In other words, it is an essential part of Spanish life!
Order by region, not by grape…
Wine map of Spain
Here in Spain we order wine by the region it was made in, not by the grapes it is made with. About 70% of all the red wine produced in Spain is made from the same type of grape: tempranillo. Depending on which region it comes from, Spanish tempranillo can taste drastically different! Most tapas bars and restaurants in Spain will have various wines featuring this both by the glass and by the bottle. If you order a “tempranillo” the answer will be “ which one!?”
Wine regions in Spain are called “Denominations of Origin” or D.O.s for short. We have 70 different D.O.s spread across the country, including the Spanish islands.
The two main regions for red wine are Rioja and Ribera del Duero. See below for more information about each region!
The one great exception to ordering wine in Spain by the region is white wines from the northwestern region of Galicia. Galician whites are ordered by the grape! The two main grapes there are Albariño, which is grown largely in the D.O. Rias Baixas, and Godello, which is from both the Monterrei and Valdeorras D.O.s.
Wine lists are usually only for bottles
Wine menu in Spain
If you want to order wine by the glass the first place you should look at is the chalkboard behind the bar! Often the printed wine list will only feature wines available by the bottle.
For a glass of wine you’ll have to either find the “Vinos por Copa” board or ask the waiter! It is extremely common for the wine list to be known by an actual person, not a piece of paper. Ask the waiter “Qué vinos tienes por copa?” aka “What wines do you have by the glass?” They will often reply with a list of regions like Rioja, Ribera and Rueda. See the region list below to learn more about each of these options!
How to spot a good Spanish wine bar
There are bars and then there are wine bars. Almost every tapas bar in the country will have a handful of Spanish wines by the glass. These wines tend to be from the same three regions (Rioja, Ribera and Rueda) and are often from huge Spanish wine brands like Protos, Ramon Bilbao or the local winemaking cooperative.
If you are looking for wines from one of the other 67 wine regions in Spain, organic wines or small production wines, you’ll want to head to a bar that specializes in Spanish wine. Depending on where you are in Spain, wine bars will typically specialize in the wines of that area.
Down south in Andalusian towns like Sevilla, Granada, Cadiz and Jerez, wine bars tend to offer a wide variety of dry sherry wines like fino or manzanilla.
In Barcelona, wine bars often have a great variety of Catalan wines. Sparkling cava, crisp Xarel-lo white wine from D.O. Penedes, smokey red wines from Priorat and juicy Grenache blends from Terra Alta are some of the superb options you’ll often find in wine bars in Barcelona. In Madrid the most interesting places to drink wine often specialize in natural or organic wines.
Here are a few telltale signs that you’re in a good wine bar in Spain:
There is a large chalkboard where at least a dozen wine options are handwritten.
There is a refrigerator-sized wine fridge. It gets very hot in Spain! A wine fridge is a surefire sign that the bar/restaurant takes their wine seriously.
Most of the other people at the bar are drinking wine, not beer!
They also serve specialty coffee. For some reason, flat whites and natural wine are happy bedfellows here in Spain! If you are looking for natural wine, look no further than a trendy coffee shop.
Our picks for Spanish wine tours and tastings
Enjoying tapas and wine in Spain
Wine tourism in Spain is a fairly new concept here! Many wineries don’t offer visits and if they do, very few are offered in English. The same is true for wine tastings at bars, shops and markets in Spain’s major cities. But fear not! There are a few fantastic exceptions to that rule. Here are our favorite English-language wine experiences in Madrid and Barcelona.
Madrid
Walk and Eat Spain’s De Tapas in Malasaña: Evening Wine and Tapas Tour - For a true crash course in all things tapas culture, we can’t recommend enough this wine and tapas tour in Madrid! You’ll visit 4 tapas bars in the trendy Malasaña neighborhood and get a crash course in Spanish wine. The experience includes 5 local drinks and enough tapas for a hearty dinner. Make sure to book it on Walk and Eat Spain’s website!
Madrid & Darracott’s Inside the Bottle Wine Tasting - One of Madrid’s best wine shops plays host to the city’s top English-language wine tastings. Every Thursday they offer their flagship Inside the Bottle tasting featuring 4 wines around a theme. If you’re not in town on a Thursday, they also offer daily introduction to Spanish Wine tastings. Book your spot online!
Day Trip to the Las Moradas de San Martin winery - Less than an hour east of Madrid around the village of San Martín de Valdeiglesias lie acres and acres of century-old vineyards. Not only are the wines of this area extraordinary, the vineyards themselves are works of art! At Las Moradas, they offer a spectacular tour that includes a visit to their century-old vineyards, barrel room and a complete tasting of their organic wines. You can reach the winery by taxi from the city center of Madrid. It is a beautiful 45-minute drive through the mountains. More information can be found here.
Barcelona
Salut Wine Studio wine tastings - This small, beautiful tasting space is located just steps from the Arc de Triomf in central Barcelona. They offer various types of group wine experiences as well as unique private wine tastings and wine-focused events.
Day trip to the Alta Alella winery - This fantastic winery produces both sparkling and still wine from vineyards that overlook both the city of Barcelona and the Mediterranean Sea! All of their wines are organic. They also offer an excellent range of natural wines! The winery is less than a half-hour drive from the city center.
The most famous wine regions in Spain
Haro, the center of the La Rioja wine industry (Photo by the Spain Less Traveled team)
There are 70 different Denominations of Origin (aka D.O.s) in Spain, 49 regions labeled “vino de la tierra” or “wine of the earth” and that doesn’t even count all of the wine that falls under the “vino de mesa” or “table wine” category! Here are the six D.O.s that you’ll most often find in a Spanish tapas bar.
La Rioja
Star Grape: Tempranillo (red)
La Rioja is the most famous wine region in Spain. Located about halfway between Madrid and Bilbao, La Rioja is best known for its long-aged red wines. Most tapas bars across Spain serve young Rioja by the glass. Look for the words “crianza” or “reserva” on the label if you prefer wines with a bit of oak aging. Crianza means it has spent 6 months in oak barrels and Reserva means the wine has rested for at least 1 year in oak.
If you typically drink Merlot or Bordeaux blends, try Rioja! It typically has flavors of cherry and raspberry as well as oaky notes of vanilla and toasted bread.
Ribera del Duero
Star Grape: Tinta del País aka Tempranillo (red)
While the region of Ribera del Duero, in Castilla y León, is only about an hour’s drive from Rioja, the wines couldn’t be more different. Tempranillo is also the star grape of this region although in Ribera del Duero it is called “Tinta del País” or “Tino fino”. The wines of this region tend to be sold younger and almost always have quite a bit more tannin. These are excellent wines to pair with hearty foods like grilled meats and stews!
If Cabernet Sauvignon from California is your go-to red, try the wines from Ribera!
Rueda
Star Grape: Verdejo (white)
The white wines of Rueda, also in Castilla y León, complete the “3 Rs” of your typical tapas bar. The most common wines served by the glass in most of Spain are from Rioja and Ribera on the red front and Rueda on the white front. If you are a fan of Sauvignon Blanc, be sure to try a glass of Rueda! The white wines from this region are known for being dry with notes of lemon and raw almond.
Rias Baixas
Star Grape: Albariño (white)
This is one of the only wines that we order by the grape rather than by the region here in Spain! Albariño breaks the order-by-region rule as do many of the wines from Galicia. The best Albariño wines come from the D.O. Rias Baixas, particularly the subregion of Val de Salnes which runs right up to the cliffs of the coast. This is a cold region overlooking the Atlantic Ocean. As such, the wines produced here have high acidity, citrus flavors and are shockingly salty! This makes them excellent food pairing wines.
Cava
Star Grapes: Xarel-lo, Parellada and Macabeo (sparkling)
Bottle of Cava
Cava is Spain’s answer to Champagne. This fantastic sparkling wine is made the exact same way as Champagne (the traditional method) but uses mainly white grapes native to the Penedés region, just south of Barcelona. Cava is the only wine region in the world that requires every producer in the region to grow their grapes and make their wines organically! In terms of the quality you get for the price, Cavas are some of the best sparkling wine options out there.
In Cava country (aka in Barcelona and the surrounding region of Catalonia) Cava is often served all throughout the meal. Try a glass of Brut or Brut Nature cava as an appetizer or with savory tapas. These two styles are dry, with little to no sugar. Semiseco or Semidulce styles, which are a bit sweeter, go great with dessert!
Jerez aka Sherry
Sherry bodega in Jerez de la Frontera, Spain
Jerez de la Frontera (commonly known as Jerez) is city, a wine region and a style of winemaking! Jerez de la Frontera is a town in southern Spain just north of Cadiz. This is one of three towns that make up the Sherry Triangle. This small wine region is home to extremely complex and diverse wines that we know in English as sherry!
There are various different styles of sherry depending on how they were aged and how much alcohol or sugar they have. All sherry is fortified, which means distilled grape spirit is added to increase the alcohol percentage up to between 15% - 22%. Sherry wines are blended so you won’t find a vintage date on most sherry bottles. This unique production method makes these wines incredibly complex! Think of sherry as a halfway house between wine and whisky.
Here in Spain most of the sherry we drink is bone dry. While you might think of sherry as that syrupy sweet after-dinner drink your grandma enjoyed, the vast majority of sherry styles are not sweet at all and go great with food! Look for a Fino or Manzanilla sherry to go with fried fish. Try an Amontillado or Oloroso with grilled or stewed meats. With dessert, try a cream sherry. If you have a real sweet tooth, go for a small glass of Pedro Ximenez, a wine that has twice as much sugar as a Coca-Cola!
Our favorite little-known Spanish wines
With such a huge variety of wine in Spain, be sure to try a bottle or two from a lesser known part of the country! Here are three styles of wine from smaller regions that are definitely worth seeking out.
Old-Vine Grenache from Madrid
Vineyards in the Madrid region
While we dedicate more land to growing wine grapes than anywhere else in the world, Spain is only the 3rd largest wine producing country. This is because of how old many of the vines are! Old vines are incredible. They withstand drought and harsh climates, need fewer if any pesticides or fertilizers and produce excellent (if very few!) grapes. Wines made from 80+ year old vines tend to be complex with concentrated flavors. But while a 10-year-old grape vine might produce enough grapes to make 4 bottles of wine, a 100-year-old vine might only make enough for a single bottle or less.
Less than an hour west of Madrid, perfect for a day-trip, in the foothills of the Gredos Mountains, a handful of artisanal winemakers create beautiful wines from vineyards that are over 80 years old. Grenache, or Garnacha in Spanish, is the star red grape of this area. Albillo Real is the white grape of choice. This small wine region is the only place on earth where Albillo Real is grown!
Look for producers like Las Moradas de San Martín, Comando G or Chato Gañán. All three work their old vines organically.
Artisanal sparkling wine from Corpinnat
Bottle of Corpinnat
Corpinnat is not a wine region as much as it is an elite group of sparkling winemakers in the Penedes region south of Barcelona. This handful of wineries are positioning their wines to directly compete with the best Champagnes. Any time you see the word “Corpinnat” on a label, get it!
To be a part of Corpinnat you have to make wine the hard way. Every step of the process is done by hand. The grapes are grown organically or biodynamically. They are harvested by hand and fermented using wild (rather than industrial) yeasts. In order to be considered a Corpinnat wine it must be aged for a minimum of 18 months, twice the minimum aging requirement as the D.O. Cava requires.
Corpinnat wines also must be disgorged by hand. This is the artisanal way of removing the yeasts from the bottle. As these wines are all made using the traditional method, the bubbles that make the wine sparkling are produced naturally via fermentation in the bottle. Once the yeasts have done their thing and made the wine sparkling, they must be removed by a very skilled disgorger. It is extremely difficult to pop open the bottle, let the yeasts fly out, but not lose very much of the wine.
Great sparkling wines should have the disgorgement date on the bottle. This is a sign of quality! The wine is at its best within a year of the disgorgement.
Godello: Spain’s answer to Chardonnay
Godello is Spain’s answer to Chardonnay. This white grape is native to Galicia, in northern Spain. Godello is often overshadowed by the much more famous Galician grape Albariño. Compared to Albariño, Godello tends to be less acidic, fuller bodied and much better for aging. If you want wines that can spend some time in barrels and last for years, Godello is an excellent contender!
Most Godello comes from one of three wine regions: D.O. Monterrei, D.O. Valdeorras or D.O. Bierzo. All three regions have a history of aging their Godellos wines “sobre lias”, which means leaving the wine in contact with the yeast for a period of months or years. This gives the wine more body and complexity!
Explore wine in Spain
If you want to learn more about Spanish wine or try your hand at blind wine tasting, check out a Walk and Eat wine and tapas tour in Madrid! Their De Tapas in Malasaña: Evening Wine and Tapas Tour visits 4 locally owned tapas bars in Madrid’s hip and historic Malasaña neighborhood. It is the perfect night out!
And for Spain travel planning services, including for wine centered trips to Spain, be sure to check out the Spain travel planning services that Spain Less Traveled offers. The team would be delighted to help you plan your unique trip to Spain!
Check out our other general in depth guides!