NOT all top-rated wines will set you back a week's salary if you buy them on home turf – and, in fact, six of Spain's best are on sale in mainstream supermarkets for between €2 and €9.
The best wines do not need to cost you the earth - some of the brands featured in the 2022 Peñín guide will give you change out of a tenner, or even a fiver (photo from the home page for the Utiel-Requena wine region, Utielrequena.org)
If you're looking for a 'Spanish-style' Christmas gift that looks as though you've put plenty of thought into it – and that this thought hasn't been based on 'how little can I get away with spending' – a few of the wines in the world-famous Guía Peñín will cover all these considerations.
Just make sure you check, if you're transporting said gift to the UK, how many of these bottles you can take in your suitcase this year: Customs rules have changed for Britain since the end of the Brexit transition period in February as it is now a 'third country' without the freedom of being able to take in and return home with goods that those living on the continent had when the nation was part of the European Union.
The Guía Peñín is an élite guide to exclusively-Spanish wines, comes out annually, and is available in English, German and Mandarin Chinese as well as in Castilian Spanish; the wine-tasting is not 'blind', so the judges do in fact know which brands they are trying out when they do so, but favouritism is extremely unlikely given that they get through about 11,500 wine samples a year and would be hard-pushed to remember individual ones for singling out.
A guide that has been produced every year since 1990, wines are tasted at the headquarters of their region's regulatory council, and given points between 50 and 100.
Below 70 normally means there is some defect, or possible defect, in preservation or ageing, and from 70 to 80 means there is nothing wrong with it but that there is nothing particularly special about it, either.
Anything over 84 is a good grade to earn, and from 95 upwards, a wine is considered 'exceptional' and almost unbeatable.
Why it's worth listening to wine critics
Naturally, a wine is only ever as 'good', 'defective' or 'exceptional' as the end consumer thinks it is, and many would argue that the only technical process needed in wine-tasting is to simply uncork, pour, and swallow.
Read full article at thinkSPAIN.com