Recently I visited two areas of Spain: Ribera del Duero and Ruedo; the first one for the great Tempranillo-based reds and the second one for some whites, including Verdejo and Sauvignon.
There is no doubt that Spain is recovering very well from the economic crisis that has involved us all, and of course the wine sector has not escaped this rebirth either. The viticulture practiced in these areas is similar to the Italian one with a great prevalence of guyot and spurred cordon. There are, however, several cases of alberello mainly in Ribera and therefore with red varieties. The oenology is particularly developed with technologically very advanced wineries, where quality is pursued from the smallest detail, with selections of grapes already in the crushing phase and subsequent vinification with automatic systems of the latest generation. Tasting the red wines of Ribera, I found a lot of fullness and alcohol content tending to be high. However talking with local technicians, there is the desire to reduce the sugar concentration as much as possible with techniques that involve increasing the phenolic maturity before the technological one.