Tempranillo (Ribera del Duero)

Tempranillo has become a wildly popular grape. It's now the most planted red grape in Spain having overtaken Garnacha. Within Spain, while you can find it almost anywhere in the country that grapes are grown, it's become particularly noted for the red wines that it produces in two regions that we'll visit over the next two days.

Today, we're in Ribera del Duero, an area predominantly in Castilla y Leon mostly to the northwest of Madrid. It's a sparsely populated, land-locked area with lots of natural waterways. Near the town of Burgos, we find some of the great wine estates of the area. At 850m/2800 ft, Burgos and its surrounding areas have cold winters with meaningful snowfall as temperatures vary significantly from day to day often hitting -10C/14F. Summers are warm and humid and see the pattern of rain often associated with tropical islands during the summer; that is, it's rare that we see significant summer rain, but there's a quick sprinkle almost every afternoon.

Tempranillo is an ideal grape for this sort of climate. Perhaps having an etymology from the Spanish word temprano meaning early, Tempranillo is one of the earliest ripening red grapes. The shorter growing season is ideal for weather conditions that the locals describe roughly as 10 months of winter and 2 months of hell.

The soil here in Ribera del Duero is quite chalky, a distinction from tomorrow's visit. This imparts different flavors in an otherwise somewhat neutral grape than we will experience tomorrow.

The grape is quite thick-skinned allowing it to withstand the winters here, but it needs the summer heat and humidity to ripen in ways that allow the grape to be fully expressive and to absorb the flavors from the oak in which it is almost always aged.

The wines here in Ribera del Duero are rich. Expect leathery notes with lots of black cherry on the nose.

In front of us, we have been poured a number of wines from the same estate, the Gran Riserva (aged at least 5 years before distribution with not less than 24 months on oak). Vintages are 5 years, 10 years, 15 years, 20 years, and 30 years old. Note the distinctive ruby red color of the wine, but noticeable is that the rim ages from a somewhat paler red circle to a deep brown.

The younger wines are loaded with black cherry and blackberry brambles, but we also tend to get notes of shrivelly dried fig, coated in brown sugar, and perhaps some bay leaf. As the wines age, we get more earthy notes as the cherry tends to fade and is replaced with dried tobacco and leathery notes.

Pair your Tempranillo from Ribera del Duero with the likes of pork or lamb tenderloins when young. As the wine ages, it can handle leaner beef, but lacks the tannic structure for one with more fat.