Vying For Verdejo

Rueda’s signature white wine grape is already proving itself in terms of both quality and versatility, but there are stylistic questions to be resolved. Tina Gellie charts the way forward for the region and recommends a dozen of its best wines.

- Tina Gellie

LESS THAN A 100km drive from Madrid, the region of Castilla y León is not the tourist hotspot you might expect, given that it is home to half of all Spain’s historic and cultural artefacts. And what tourists there are – those unswayed by the buzz of Barcelona or the sun and sand of the costas – tend not to be wine lovers, who would more likely fly into Bilbão to visit Rioja or down to Jerez to enjoy the Sherry.

This is one problem facing Rueda, Castilla y León’s only white wine denomination. The high, flat plains here are not particularly breathtaking – it’s no Priorat or Ribeira Sacra – and producers in this young DO (Castilla y León’s first, in 1980) are still catching up in terms of wine tourism, unlike the more monied nearby regions of Ribera del Duero or Rioja. On the other hand, it needn’t necessarily be seen as a problem at all – because Rueda is an undeniable success.

From humble beginnings of simple reds and fortifieds mainly drunk by locals, the Rueda DO is now Spain’s biggest quality white wine region, accounting for 41% of domestic sales. Not only that, Rueda as a ‘brand’ is behind only Rioja in terms of regional recognition among Spanish wine lovers. With such achievements, why would you need to worry about attracting visitors?

But Rueda’s success is currently all on the national level. With fewer than 15 million bottles exported (just one million to the UK in 2017) Rueda’s whites are a drop in the international ocean. So to compete on a global scale against the might of, say, New Zealand Sauvignon Blanc – or even Albariño from Rías Baixas, which exports twice as much as Rueda – there needs to be a real point of difference.