Jane Anson

‘The key to understanding Viñedos Singulares is the word Singular’

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IN EARLY JUNE, one of the world’s best loved wine regions made an eminently sensible, cheering and hard-fought-for decision. The Consejo regulador in rioja announced the introduction of a Singular Vineyard designation to be known as Viñedos Singulares.

It’s a decision that I feel pretty sure the Spanish wine industry will look back on as the moment that the country embraced the idea of terroir and all that goes with it. and it’s particularly cheering that this happened in Rioja – a region that has always led the rest of Spain in terms of international impact and renown, but that has at times held it back from evolving a geography-based quality system such as those in Alsace or Burgundy, so governed is Rioja by a system that rewards its wines according to what happens to them in the winery, not in the vines.