{"id":3111,"date":"2025-10-29T18:51:41","date_gmt":"2025-10-29T18:51:41","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/powertasting.com\/?p=3111"},"modified":"2025-10-29T18:51:41","modified_gmt":"2025-10-29T18:51:41","slug":"all-those-grapes","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/powertasting.com\/?p=3111","title":{"rendered":"All Those Grapes"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p>As detailed in another article in this edition, Spanish winemakers use a lot of grapes that are unfamiliar to most North American wine lovers.&nbsp; Perhaps most people don\u2019t care but the readers of Power Tasting are a demanding bunch.&nbsp; They don\u2019t just want to enjoy what they\u2019re sipping but also know <em>about<\/em> it.&nbsp; In California, wherever they go, they know they\u2019ll find Cabernet Sauvignon, Pinot Noir and Zinfandel in the reds, Chardonnay and Sauvignon Blanc in the whites.<\/p>\n\n\n<div class=\"wp-block-image\">\n<figure class=\"aligncenter size-full\"><a href=\"https:\/\/powertasting.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/10\/image.jpeg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"780\" height=\"360\" src=\"https:\/\/powertasting.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/10\/image.jpeg\" alt=\"\" class=\"wp-image-3112\" srcset=\"http:\/\/powertasting.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/10\/image.jpeg 780w, http:\/\/powertasting.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/10\/image-300x138.jpeg 300w, http:\/\/powertasting.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/10\/image-768x354.jpeg 768w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 780px) 100vw, 780px\" \/><\/a><\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n<p class=\"has-text-align-center\"><em>Tasting wine at tapas bars in Barcelona.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Not so in Spain.&nbsp; A lot of it is geographical.&nbsp; In the north, there will be Tempranillo; in the southwest, near Jerez, there will be Palomino and Pedro Xim\u00e9nez in the sherry.&nbsp; Macabeo in Pinedes, Mencia in the Priorat and in Galicia Albari\u00f1o grapes go into the wine of the same name.&nbsp; It would take a lot of travel to experience them all at the vineyards.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>That\u2019s where wine bars come in.&nbsp; The fact that the bars also double as taparias doesn\u2019t hurt.&nbsp; Here are a few tips for diving into the various grapes that are used in Spanish winemaking.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<ul>\n<li><strong>One option is pot luck.<\/strong>&nbsp; There\u2019s nothing stopping you from sitting down with a tapa and asking for a glass of <em>tinto<\/em> or a <em>blanco<\/em>.&nbsp; Then ask the server what wine was served.&nbsp; Crude but effective, if you go to enough tapas bars you\u2019re likely to get a selection.&nbsp; But it will also likely be a selection of mediocre wines.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n\n\n\n<ul>\n<li><strong>Skip the sangria.&nbsp; <\/strong>A pitcher of fruit juice, red wine and fruit is (may be?) fine for a picnic.&nbsp; If you\u2019re interested in learning about Spanish wines, you won\u2019t learn anything with sangria.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n\n\n\n<ul>\n<li><strong>A better plan is to go to the slightly better tapas bars<\/strong> (for the most part, you can tell the better ones just by looking at them) and order wine by region.&nbsp; Even better, order several glasses from different regions and compare them.&nbsp; In that manner we found that we prefer wines from the Ribero del Duero to those from Rioja.&nbsp; Maybe that\u2019s because Riberos are often blended with Cabernet Sauvignon and Riojas with Spanish grapes.&nbsp; In the whites, we found we prefer Albari\u00f1os to the Macabeos of Rioja.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n\n\n\n<ul>\n<li><strong>Rely on sommeliers.<\/strong>&nbsp; While this is good advice anywhere, having someone guide you through the mysteries of a Spanish wine list is very helpful.&nbsp; A better restaurant will offer wines from smaller producers of higher quality that are probably unknown to foreign visitors.&nbsp; Always with consideration for the food order, you can ask a sommelier or a server to suggest a wine specifically from regions other than the best known ones and from less well known grapes as well.&nbsp; That\u2019s how, in the past, we discovered Priorat wines and Verdejo from Castille.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n\n\n\n<ul>\n<li><strong>Try as many as you can, then decide.<\/strong>&nbsp; It is easy to fall back on Tempranillo as a favorite because these are the most widely available wines back home.&nbsp; But if you\u2019re in Spain, experiment.&nbsp; You may never get to taste wines from some grapes again.&nbsp; And if you find one you do like, you can search for it in wine stores around where you live.&nbsp; You may get lucky.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>As detailed in another article in this edition, Spanish winemakers use a lot of grapes that are unfamiliar to most North American wine lovers.&nbsp; Perhaps most people don\u2019t care but the readers of Power Tasting are a demanding bunch.&nbsp; They don\u2019t just want to enjoy what they\u2019re sipping but also know about it.&nbsp; In California, &hellip; <a href=\"http:\/\/powertasting.com\/?p=3111\" class=\"more-link\">Continue reading <span class=\"screen-reader-text\">All Those Grapes<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/powertasting.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3111"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/powertasting.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/powertasting.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/powertasting.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/powertasting.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=3111"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"http:\/\/powertasting.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3111\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3113,"href":"http:\/\/powertasting.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3111\/revisions\/3113"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/powertasting.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=3111"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/powertasting.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=3111"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/powertasting.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=3111"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}