Am I a Verdejo Hater? (and Other Spanish Wine Tales)
The first of several upcoming dispatches from Spain.
This is a rare Saturday morning post from me, but I want to update readers. I’ve been traveling in Spain over the past couple of weeks, filling up the ol’ content tank with fresh reporting and tasting. Last week, I was inside the chaotic bubble of Barcelona Wine Week, and this past week I’ve been visiting winemakers in Catalonia. Look for several upcoming posts on my latest Spanish wine adventures and discoveries. Also, paid subscribers, look for the next (slightly delayed) installment of Thinking & Drinking on Tuesday, which will be Spanish themed.
Last Sunday, a sunny Barcelona afternoon, I attended a lovely, surprising tasting at a feminist bookstore hosted by Sarah Sioli, who writes the newsletter Next Tasting and is one of my favorite Barcelona wine people. The cheeky theme: Verdejo Haters.
There is an ocean of cheap verdejo in Spain, undoubtedly the country’s most popular white wine. Most of it comes from Rueda, the appellation in Castilla y León that is synonymous with the grape. This ocean of verdejo is mostly middling, inoffensive, and uninspiring. Too often, it can be worse. I wouldn’t say I am a “verdejo hater.” Hate would imply having strong feelings about verdejo. I mostly just shrug and ignore it.
My first inkling that verdejo could be something more happened at last year’s Barcelona Wine Week, when I tasted the wines of Barco del Corneta, which releases its wines as Tierra de Castilla y León, outside the Rueda appellation. “We must remember that verdejo is a local grape,” said Barco del Corneta’s winemaker Félix Crespo Álvarez. “People think of it like sauvignon blanc—but it’s not. It’s local. Verdejo has great potential and is a great grape, but it’s been in bad hands.”
The bottles Sarah poured for ‘Verdejo Haters,’ more natural-leaning examples from Esmeralda García and Microbio (as well as a wild-card bottling made in Sicily by Badalucco de la Iglesia Garcia) showed that the grape has even another level.
The thing with verdejo (similar to other high-yield grapes like carignan) is that it demands old vines. Like, very old vines, 80 to 100 years or more. One bottle we tasted, from Esmeralda García, came from 200-year-old vines.
I came away thinking differently about verdejo. But it was just one of many surprises from my travels. More to come!
Verdejo For People Who Hate Verdejo
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