SWE Ep. 190 - Redefining Rioja

We are back! Sorry for the gaps. Our new shop makes us very busy these days! But we have something rare and special. A wine from the Picos de Europa mountains in Cantabria. Vino de la Tierra de Liébana! Angel Moreno's Mencía from the peaks. Weird right? Mountain wine, but is it fine? We'll see.

It's almost Christmas! So to end off the year prior to this festive we are heading back to the big boy himself: La Rioja. Things have been changing in the last couple of years. So with a bottle of Brunes by Bodegas Vivanco in our glasses, we chat singular vineyards, village wines, intriguing grapes and bubbles!

A slightly differente episode today. We decide to celebrate International Cab Franc Day by diving into the life and history of this French grape. Or...is it French? We sample a bottle of Abadal Franc from the tiny Catalan DO of Pla de Bagès! 

Yee haw and giddy up! This week Roque and Luke head down to the depths of Almeria, towards the long coast of southeast Spain to a winery making a delicious red in the middle of cowboy country. Sierra Almagrera is a blended tinto from a region not usually famed for viticulture, so is it any good?

Today Roque and Luke talk vertical tastings, wine events, and enjoy a very rare bottle of one of the finest sweet wines they've ever tried. Dulce Salmor from the Viña Frontera COOP on the tiny island of El Hierro. Truly amazing stuff!

That's right, Spain has recently welcomed into the Denominación de Origen family another new regulated wine region. Eagle-eyed listeners might recognise the name as this used to be a VT. But not any more. So we crack a bottle of Phoenix by Quinta de Aves and talk all things DO!

Time for a weird grape double edition. Huelva, an episode we have been to before years ago, known for its sherry-esque wines and sweet vinos. We have a bottle of Líbero, a fascinating 50/50 blend of two grapes only found in this Andalusian hideaway: Zalema and Listan de Huelva. Enjoy!

Regions, grapes, statistics, numbers, facts and figures; over the last few years we've covered a lot. So, over a bottle of very alcoholic red wine (Loxarel OPS) this week we have decided to compile all the main stats of the Spanish wine world. ALL of them! Lots of pub quiz answers to be found.

Roque loves sparkling wines. Luke loves the Basque Country. If only there was a way to bring these two things together. Well there is! The Pais Vasco is famous for its crisp white wines, but a few producers are making reds, roses, sweet wines and bubbles. This week a bottle of Izar Leku accompanies a podcast full of wine, history, and the usual ridiculous jokes! 

Time for another episode of 'what the hell grape is that?!' Roque spent New Year in the Canary Islands, lucky bugger, but he still did his job and brought us back a bottle of something weird from Tenerife using a very rare grape from another island entirely: Forastera!