Winery: Viña Mein
Wine: Viña Mein 2004
Type: White wine
DO: Ribeiro
Elaboration: 80% Treixadura, 10% Godello, 5% Loureira, 2% Albariño, 2% Torrontés, 1% Lado and Albilla

Despite being a relative newcomer to the scene (the company was only established in 1988 and produced its first vintage in 1994), this wine is yet another example of Spain's vocation to produce great white wines strong in personality and character. From a mix of native grapes based on Treixadura, this is a white with an excellent price/quality ratio, and its 80,000 bottles bring together elegance, structure and aromatic complexity. It has a brilliant, intensely reflective golden-straw color with a strong, varied nose, offering hints of white flowers, dry hay, honey, peach, hazelnut and suggestions of minerals. Broad and consuming, it offers a full-bodied, consistent, ample structure. Its intense fruit aromas, optimum richness and persistency, perfect balance and well controlled acidity make it a highly enjoyable wine.

Matching recommendation: To be served fresh but not cold, this wine is great with all fish dishes (including those with sauces), creamed vegetables and soufflé.

Winery: Bodegas Gerardo Méndez
Wine: Albariño do Ferreiro Cepas Vellas 2004
Type: White wine
DO: Rías Baixas
Elaboration: 100% Albariño

In my opinion, Galicia is the premier Spanish white wine producing zone, and this DO, alongside Ribeiro and Valdeorras, is one of its most representative. This is a great wine in honor of that magnificent grape, the Albariño, and, in its production, Gerardo Méndez has chosen grapes from a 200-year-old pre-phylloxera vineyard with ungrafted vines in the heart of the sub-zone Val do Salnés. The result is a wine, still young and with the potential to evolve, with a bright straw color, offering a fine, intensely mineral bouquet, with hints of white flowers, honey, citrus fruit, rosemary, flint, hay and mint, bound together in harmonious freshness. The palate is broad and full, and the wine is precise, persistent, fairly dry and incisive in the mouth. It is strong and highly persistent, thanks to a lively but well-balanced acidity.

Matching recommendation: Served at 10°-12°C (50°-53°F), this is a magnificent wine for cold, fishbased starters, especially seafood (even when raw, if it is totally fresh) and shellfish.

Winery: A Tapada
Wine: Guitián Sobre Lías 2004
Type: White wine
DO: Valdeorras
Elaboration:100% Godello

This well-known winery run by María del Carmen and Senen Guitián, with the help of enologist José Hidalgo, has re-written the history and image of wines made from the native Godello grape in the Galician Valdeorras DO. Its success is down to exceptional soil, with vines between 15 and 18 years old, planted at an altitude of around 800 m (2,624 ft). The three wines produced, especially the Guitián Sobre Lías 2004, are stored in steel tanks, and left for five months in contact with fine yeasts to acquire complexity and structure. With a remarkably reflective yellow straw color, the wine is open, vivaciously fragrant, and has a bouquet evocative of white flowers, hints of honey, nectarine, almond, saffron and flint. On the palate a splendid bitter/sweet play pays tribute to the freshness of the wine, its core, its extraordinary balance and its long and precise finish.

Matching recommendation: Fish-based starters, seafood salads, shellfish, fish and vegetable starters, steamed or baked fish main courses.

Winery: Finca Casa Castillo Julia Roch e Hijos
Wine: Casa Castillo Pie Franco 2000
Type: Red wine
DO: Jumilla
Elaboration: 100% Monastrell

From 60-year-old vineyards, sited on glacial deposits whose structure has avoided the development of phylloxera, Casa Castillo has chosen old ungrafted Monastrell vines for the production of this wine, made with prolonged maceration and aged for 14 months in Allier oak casks without filtration. The result is an impressive wine, whose full-bodied and powerful structure never interferes with its remarkable, pleasant character. With its brilliantly intense ruby color, it has a lively fresh nose, is creamy, varied and intensely fruity (wellmatured cherry and blackberry) with hints of juniper, licorice, undergrowth, fresh tobacco, and olive, all coming together in sweet harmony. In the mouth the wine is full, warm, charming, very meaty, rich in character, with a tannic structure and lingering finale.

Matching recommendation: This is a wine for red meats, steak (either grilled or with sauces), and is also great with game.

Winery:Bodegas Marqués de Vargas
Wine: Marqués de Vargas Reserva Privada 2001
Type: Red wine
DO: : Rioja
Elaboration: 60% Tempranillo, 10% Garnacha, 10% Mazuelo, 20% others

Founded in 1990, this winery, which unites modernity with a taste for the best in tradition, holds an excellent position in the Rioja area, turning out wines with strong personality from its 65 ha (160 acres) of cultivated shrub vines, planted in chalky-clay soils in the heart of the Ebro Valley. This private reserva, matured for a good 23 months in new Russian oak barrels, is surely one of the wines which today best reflects the style of this winery. It is a wine that offers elegance, power and a full body, perfect for long development in the bottle. The wine has a magnificently intense color (deep ruby), and has a dense, warm nose, evocative of mature fruit (cherry and blackberry) and licorice, with wild, mineral undertones. It has a long, full taste, with mature fruit, soft and silky tannins, and a soft and persistent finish. This is a charming wine with a great character.

Matching recommendation: Thanks to its character, this is surely a wine for hearty dishes, based on red meat (stewed or roasted) and fowl.

Winery: Descendientes de J. Palacios
Wine: Villa de Corullón 2001
Type: Red wine
DO: Bierzo
Elaboration: 100% Mencía

Congratulations to this winery which, despite its youth, has its ideas well and truly clear since being created by Álvaro Palacios and Ricardo Pérez and dedicated to José Palacios. The wines, produced from 26 ha (64 acres) of 90-year-old shrub vines planted on steep slopes where the land is worked with mules and horses, are created using biological and bio-dynamic cultivation, and are a tribute to Mencía, the star grape from the Bierzo DO. Matured for 14 months in casks (80% new), the Villa de Corullón is a surprising wine, a reminder of the aromatic complexity of the wines from the Rhone Valley, with a spicy and intense perfume reminiscent of leather, black pepper, game, juniper, graphite and earth, with a dense meaty finish. The palate is rich, potent, and broad, with a solid tannic base and a warm, velvety texture, and the wine, with its well-balanced acidity, finishes with a magnificent freshness and vivacity.

Matching recommendation: A great wine for red meats, with elaborate and savory sauces, also ideal with game and fowl (rabbit and roe deer), stews and char-grilled meats.