Discovering Rueda
For a country that has been growing grapes and making wine for millennia, it is surprising that Spain’s bestselling white wine is a relative newcomer. The crisp, bright, citrus and herb flavours of Rueda emerged just 40 years ago and they have transformed not just the taste of Spanish wines, but also the economics of the region and its potential for tourism.
Rueda is a small, historic town in Castilla y León in northwest Spain, about 175km north of Madrid. It has given its name to wines that come from the surrounding region, which stretches across parts of Valladolid, Segovia and Avila. While this is a long-established wine-growing region, the style of wine made there has changed dramatically in the past few decades.
For centuries this region produced fortified, solera-aged wines from the Verdejo grape, but their popularity declined and a new approach was needed to rejuvenate the area’s wine industry. Salvation came in the form of Marqués de Riscal, working with renowned French oenologist Emile Peynaud, who decided to investigate Rueda as a potential site to make a white wine to partner his red Riojas. Using the local Verdejo grape, and taking advantage of the region’s high altitude, its challenging climate and
