Be Careful Buying Spanish Wine

Be Careful Buying Spanish Wine…

     I’ll be the first to admit, I am a newbie when it comes to Spanish wine (and even wine in general).  Given the few times that I’ve actually been able to try some Spanish red wine previously, I had an inkling recently to want to go out and buy a bottle.  This is where the newbie part come in.  I thought I was being careful to make sure that I was actually buying a true good Spanish wine.  Each D.O. (Denominación de Origen) has its own distinct label imprinted on the back of each wine bottle (for a list of each D.O. and their labels visit this site) so, naturally I was observing whether or not each bottle actually had the label or not.  I happened to come across a decent looking wine (‘Spanish Sons’ 2007 Tempranillo red wine).  This wine had the label on the back and was relatively inexpensive so I decided to buy it.  The wine was okay.  Not too much flavor nor aroma but, didn’t do too much harm on the palate.  A few days later I decided to verify the D.O. that wine came from.  The label listed it being from the Castilla y León region.  Unfortunately, there is no Castilla y León D.O. region.  

    However, there is a “Vinos de la Terra” (VdlT) region called Castilla y León.  What is a “Vinos de la Terra” region and how does it compare to the typical D.O.’s?  I explain D.O’s more thoroughly in a previous post so, I won’t review them but, essentially the rules in D.O.’s must fall under European Commission (CE) guidelines.  These regions produce the quality wines.  However, there are cheaper table wines and that is generally what the VdlT winemakers generally produce.  These regions are generally much larger in comparison to D.O. regions and there is even some considerable overlap between a particular VdlT and a D.O..  So to be brief the D.O.’s (of which there are 66) produce the quality wines and not the table wines.  The VdlT’s (of which there are 46) produce the table wines or “country wines” but, not quality wines.  

    I guess the point here is to be careful if you are a beginner trying to buy wines from Spain.  If  you have a Blackberry, Droid, iPhone, or any phone or device that can utilize the internet and you want to buy a bottle of quality Spanish wine be sure to check the back of the bottle and make sure there is a label indicating the particular region of Spain in which the wine was produced.  Then go to your phone and make sure that region is a listed D.O. because if it’s not there you’re basically buying table wine.  Trust me, and even wine neophytes like me will know, that there is a difference between good wine and table wine.  Use my experience as future reference.  

Technorati Tags: Denominacion de Origen, Spanish red wine, Spanish wine, Tempranillo Wine, Vinos de la Terra

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