Photograph: agefotostock/Alamy
I’ve always loved the wines of Rioja. Most of all, I’ve loved the traditional styles of red wine, the reservas and gran reservas that are aged for years in American oak barrels. Wines with the kind of mellow, hazy, savoury loveliness that the late, wine-loving philosopher Roger Scruton compared, in one of the arresting descriptive passages he used to interweave with his frequently troubling invective, to a “vision into a candlelit crypt, where gaudy archbishops doze among vessels of gold”.
For all my affection for the wines and the old-world atmosphere they conjure, I do sometimes despair at the hold Rioja maintains over the world’s perception of Spanish reds. Rioja still dominates exports (just have a look at the lineup in your local offie or supermarket). While not all of it is “traditional” by any means, that oaky style is still the first thing that comes to mind when most people think of vino tinto español.
