A writer, broadcaster and wine consultant with 40 years' experience in the food and, particularly, wine industry. His books

In the post-war years, when most Spanish wine was considered only good enough for bulk exports or blending, one region kept the flag flying for quality and individuality. Sixty years on, Rioja is still Spain’s premier wine region.

Rioja’s unique place in the pantheon of Spanish wines was recognised in the early 1990s by the award of the DOCa - Denominación de Origen Calificada - an accolade only given to wine regions which have achieved a consistently higher quality than the rest, over a large number of years. Only one other region (Priorat in 2003) has been similarly honoured and, given that EU wine laws change from the 2009 vintage onwards, it is not known whether other regions will ever accede to this ‘promotion’.

Rioja wine gained an international reputation in the 1880s and 1890s as the Phylloxera louse ravaged the French vineyards, importers in France were delighted to find a familiar style of wine being produced over the border in Spain, and the region boomed. Inevitably, the Phylloxera reached Rioja in the late 1890s, but by then viticulturists had discovered that it could be eradicated by grafting European vines on to American roots. Nevertheless, the business went into a fifteen-year decline until about 1913 when the market had stabilized. This was, however, a time of turmoil in Europe. The First World War was followed by republican uprisings in Spain, and then the Spanish civil war devastated the countryside. After that, the Second World War brought its own privation, and exports were limited to South America for those companies bold enough to risk sending ships across the Atlantic.

Europe gradually settled down, and Spain began to emerge as a holiday destination, especially for people from the colder countries of northern Europe. This encouraged a whole new generation of people to try drinking wine - something which been mainly the preserve of the rich until that time. There was little wine regulation in Spain and wines were often sold under fanciful names such as ‘Spanish Burgundy’ and ‘Spanish Sauternes’, but Rioja stood firm. The region had had its own regulatory body since 1926, and resolutely refused to allow the wine to be sold under any other name. This proved to be an exceedingly wise decision, as the following years were to prove.

Meanwhile, the wines were changing, and new technology was giving winemakers the opportunity to experiment with new techniques. The Rioja wine country is divided into three sub zones. Each had its own particular characteristics, and most Rioja houses bought grapes from all over the region to create a ‘house style’. This gave Rioja an international perception: the wines typically had a strawberry/raspberry fruit from the Tempranillo grape, some warmth and spice from the Garnacha, and structure and staying-power from the Mazuelo, with a hint of toasty oak from ageing in barrels.

Wine-lovers across Europe and the world liked it very much, and its reputation began to grow. The regulations were standardized, and to help the consumer understand the wines they were classified according to how long they had spent maturing in the cask. In practice many producers age their wines for much longer than the legal minimum.

From the 1970s onward there was a tendency for producers to look at their own locality, and there was a rise in ‘village’ wines - made from grapes grown nearby, and, indeed ‘estate wines’ with wineries being built in the middle of their own vineyards, in the manner of a French château. In the 1980s more and more bodegas were established, as new generations of families came into ownership and, where their parents had simply grown the grapes and sold them at harvest-time, the new generation wanted to make its own wine. Some of the bodegas established at that time have grown to rank amongst Rioja’s greatest names. There has never been a better time to experiment with the wines of this noble landscape.

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