Picturesque Rioja, Spain’s most prominent wine region, is a new world within a very old world. Winemaking here dates to Roman and medieval times, and today modern wineries designed by Gehry, Calatrava, and other celebrity architects flourish alongside traditional villages. Lavishly illustrated with photographs of the people and landscape and with detailed maps, this guide ranges over a diverse area from Rioja to Navarra, Bierzo, Galicia, and the Basque country as it explores winemaking from the ancient to the traditional and modern. Written by a trio of experts on Spanish wine, it provides insider information on a region home to Spain’s finest Tempranillo, its prestigious Albariño, and many other indigenous grape varieties such as Garnacha, Mazuelo, and Viura. The authors look in depth at topics including climate and soil, grape varieties, and viticulture, and profile more than 85 individual wineries. They also include information not available elsewhere: several top ten lists plus “secret addresses” for the best restaurants and shops in which to find aged and historic vintages of Rioja.
The Finest Wines of Rioja and Northwest Spain A Regional Guide to the Best Producers and Their Wines
About the Book
Reviews
“Fascinating insight [that] is enough to make me begin a search of my local wine shops.”—Gerald D. Boyd Wine Review Online
“An intelligent and accessible guide to some great wines that non-bankers can afford. But it's not just for wine buffs – fans of absurdly Spanish-looking Spaniards will thrill to portrait photos of the idiosyncratic winemaker Emilio Rojo and the spectacularly aristocratic Vicente Dalmau Cebrián-Sagarriga.”—The Independent
This excellent guide is written by three leading Spanish wine authorities. Published by Fine Wine Press (home of the lushly beautiful World of Fine Wine magazine). It is over 300 pages of densely packed photos and prose that will tell you just about everything you’d want to know about modern Rioja, and beyond. A must for Spanish wine buyers and fans.—Wall Street Journal Blogs
“A few nicely detailed topographic maps help the reader get oriented. The one or two-page profiles are informative and nicely illustrated with excellent rich color portrait photographs of the owner or winemaker by Jon Wyand, a professional photographer who has specialized in wine for more than 30 years. The portrait photographs are what set this book apart, giving the reader a personal feel for the people behind the region and the wines, urging the reader to find out more.”—Wine Review Online