If you love wine, sun and beautiful landscapes, a trip to Spain this year is a must for you. Here are the top wine regions in the country.
Penedès
Penedès is a wine region best known for the famous Spanish sparkling wine Cava. The region is located just south of Barcelona, making it great for tourists looking to visit the wine regions. You can rent apartments in Barcelona and then hire a car to drive down to Penedès and spend a couple of days looking around the wineries. So, which of the region’s vineyards are the best ones to visit for people who’ve never been there before?
Spain’s main Cava producer is Freixenet. One of the best things about visiting it is the quality of the tours that they put on there. You can take an extensive 90-minute tour that allows you to see every aspect of the process and taste some wine at the end of it. Remember to book in advance to avoid disappointment though. Raventos i Blanc is one of the other great wineries in the region, having been producing grapes there since the 15th century.
Rioja
In many ways, Rioja feels like a past version of Spain. It has unspoilt landscapes and some of the most stunning traditional architecture in the country. It’s surrounded by mountains to the north and south of the town which makes for an interested atmosphere. The area feels cut off from the rest of Spain, and the climate is very changeable. Sometimes it’s incredibly warm and other times a cold chill descends from the north.
Haro is one of the best areas in the region. It’s home to some of the most historical and well-respected vineyards in the region and the country. You should definitely go to Cune. It’s a winery that has been in business for more than 130 years. Here, they combine a lot of traditional and modern growing methods, and it’s one of the most interesting places to visit and spend time in Rioja.
Ribera del Duero
It might not be the most obvious win region, but Ribero del Duero is one of the great wine regions of Europe, not just Spain. It’s now challenging Rioja as the great red wine producing area in the country, and that’s a big achievement in itself. The red wines that are produced there are considered to be more powerful than those from Rioja because of the short, intense growing period experienced there.
The area was turned into a wine growing region thanks to one man, Eloy Lecanda, in the 1860s. He turned a shabby patch of land into some of the most important and respected vineyards in the whole continent. It’s a beautiful place to visit too. The terrain is flat and rocky, but if you’re looking for somewhere laid back and picturesque, Ribera del Duero can be a great alternative to other Spanish resorts. You can spend your time there drinking great wine too!
Spain has some of the best vineyards in the world, and it’s great fun to take a holiday there and see them all.
