I’ve just read a very interesting article at Today.com/food and I was a bit disappointed.
It says that in Montsant, a wine apellation region in Spain, “You can get something that tastes like a $50 bottle there for much less.“, referring to the Spanish wines in comparison to Italian or French ones.
As the same article claims, “In Montsant, you have an old winemaking tradition”, even older than Italian or French.
We are talking about the older days of Greeks & Romans: Iberians, Phoenicians and Carthaginians. There are studies that say that in Spain the wine was already being manufactured in the 6th century B.C. See, for example Benimaquia (Denia , Alicante).
So, Why are French & Italian wines more popular (and more expensive) than Spanish wines?
It’s just a question of trends. It seems to be more cool or trendy to drink a French or an Italian wine rather than a Spanish one.
So, in my opinion, begin drinking and tasting great wines from Spain before they become so popular that you can’t afford them 😉
Cheers!
This is the extract of the article:
SPAIN – Montsant
Just across the French border in Catalonia lies Montsant, a region of mountainous vineyards. “In Montsant, you have an old winemaking tradition, and the microclimates and the terroir are almost exactly the same as in the Rhône Valley,” Galliani says. “They’ve had great success with Rhône varietals. You can get something that tastes like a $50 bottle there for much less.” Look for blends with the same Grenache-Carignan-Syrah blends as the Rhône and Languedoc-Roussillion wines.
Well, first French wine merchants are more structured and of larger size than Spain providing a better distribution. Besides, French wines benefit from the Bordeaux wine prestige (grand cru classe) and overall image of France.
Italian wine are well known trough their gastronomy. You can literally find an Italian restaurant anywhere in the globe. It’s a great tool of promotion for Italian wine.
Spanish suffer from poor image also because most of the wine exporter tend to sell super cheap wine with low quality such as table wine and/or Vino de la tierra (mostly from la Mancha) limiting the option for good D.O wine and its gastronomy is relatively unknown. Then, most of good bodegas are own by small family structure that don’t have ways to export and the necessary experience to do so.
But things are changing and Spanish wines are catching up pretty fast…so i hope soon people will stop to compare Spanish wines to others countries and appreciate them for what they are instead.
Totally agree Chris, Spanish quality wines & wineries are getting up-to-date in the international wine scene and hope they soon get rid of the bad reputation “won” by the low quality wines (table wines) sold too cheap.
Bordeaux has a great prestige, and Italy is really worldwide known by its gastronomy. Italians have exported much better their culture than Spanish, despite having both a very similar mediterranean background (Olive Oil, fresh vegetables, Wines…)
Thanks for your comment!
To become more familiar with Spanish wines please read the weekly ‘Cork Talk’ column in Grupo Costa News SL – and on-line:
http://www.costa-news.com click Cork Talk.
Mind you I have to admit to a touch of bias, I started the column 18 years ago and still enjoy writing it!
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