Who’s it’s for: Spanish wine fans ready to broaden the map, anyone interested in Spanish Wine Essentials, and anyone whose Spanish wine memory is currently one bottle deep.
Tempranillo has taken up most of the oxygen in the Spanish red conversation for decades. Meanwhile, some of the most compelling reds in the country have been made from grapes almost no one outside of Spain has heard of. Grapes with real history, wild personalities, and, in many cases, prices that make you double-check the shelf tag.
This class is the tour. Mencía from the slate hillsides of the northwest that drinks light and bright. Monastrell from the sun-scorched southeast, thick and brooding. Bobal, once ripped up in favor of higher-yielding grapes, now producing some of the most exciting new-wave Spanish reds. Plus a few others worth knowing by name. Each pour comes with the story of where it grows and why it tastes the way it does.