How to build wine cellar on a budget: Spain and Portugal

Spain and Portugal offer particularly rich pickings for anyone looking for less expensive wines worth ageing.

Some Spanish wine producers have the delightful and rare habit of releasing their wines only when they are starting to be ready to drink. This is especially true in Spain’s prime fine-wine region Rioja, with the practice most common among the longest-established producers such as CVNE, La Rioja Alta, López de Heredia, Marqués de Riscal and Marqués de Murrieta. Such patience is so much friendlier towards those in a hurry than, say, the Bordeaux practice of expecting consumers to pay for wine when it is still maturing in barrel.

But wine lovers will be rewarded if they are prepared to age these riojas, especially those released a bit earlier, even further in bottle. The best Reservas and Gran Reservas can continue to evolve and improve for decades after release. One of the most revelatory tastings of my life, in 2011, was of red riojas from vintages 1982 back to 1945, and whites from 1973 back to 1939. The wines were glorious and still very much alive. Since then, the number of white riojas worth cellaring has grown considerably.

The rash of new rioja producers, many now producing geographically specific bottlings rather than blends, tend to release their wines earlier than the historic bodegas for obvious financial reasons. But many of them are producing very exciting wines that are well worth ageing.

Spain’s more recently fashionable fine-wine regions Ribera del Duero and Priorat also produce many a wine worth ageing, witness respectively Vega Sicilia and Álvaro Palacios’ L’Ermita, but these are not for the budget conscious. The cheapest Riberas tend to be blended to match a price for mass retailers, but the Psi old-vine bottlings of Peter Sisseck are made with just as much care as his Pingus, the wine that put Ribera on the map for serious wine collectors towards the end of the last century.

However, the new and still relatively undiscovered appellation Arlanza, just north of Ribera, consistently offers better value for Tempranillo-based wines that really benefit from ageing.

Montsant, just outside the Priorat appellation, also tends to be better value than its more famous neighbour. Ferran Centelles, Spanish specialist for JancisRobinson.com, particularly recommends the Montsants of “super-top producers such as Vinyes Domènech or Joan D’Anguera”. He also describes the full-bodied reds based on the Monastrell grape, such as those from Alicante, Almansa, Bullas, Jumilla, Manchuela, Valencia and Yecla, as having “latent promise”.

The Cabernet-based reds of Catalonia can be aged just as long as their counterparts from Bordeaux, but the far north-east of Spain can also field some whites worth ageing that are based on the local Xarel-lo grape. Like Arlanza, this is another under-appreciated category of age-worthy wines.

It is becoming slightly more common to age the best dry whites of Galicia’s Rías Baixas, based on Albariño grapes grown in the Salnés subregion and made in a Chablis-like style. However, I suspect most reds from this cool, Atlantic-influenced, north-west corner of Spain need not be aged very long, although the best reds from Bierzo to Galicia’s immediate east are an exception.

I love the new, fragrant, often transparent reds based on Garnacha grapes that are emerging from all over Spain, but I would not recommend the lightest of them for long-term ageing either.

Portugal’s wine country may be less familiar than Spain’s — and it is also less extensive — but there are so many well-priced cellar candidates to be found there, both red and white.

The northerly wine regions of Douro, Dão and Bairrada have already proved that they can make very fine, age-worthy reds. Reds from port country, the spectacular Douro valley, have had time to prove that the valley’s rich mix of old vines with a vast array of locally adapted grape varieties can yield really exciting table wines that are worth ageing. It is worth noting that both the two major port groups, Symington Family Estates and The Fladgate Partnership (Taylor’s et al) are major players in the table wine game. But the whites are now also of serious interest — especially since Douro producers have identified the best spots for making refreshing whites, generally higher sites.

The Encruzado grape of Dão can perform the same trick. It makes substantial wines with much the same structure as a white burgundy and similarly deserve careful ageing in barrel before long ageing in bottle. I’m also a great fan of Portugal’s Arinto grape, originally from the revived historic wine region of Bucelas, whose wines can have a wonderful spine and appetising citrus flavour.

Anyone who has tasted young wines from Bairrada’s characteristic grapes — Baga for reds and Bical for whites — will realise that these are wines that positively have to be aged for their acidity and astringency to be tamed, but producers such as Luís Pato, his daughter Filipa Pato and Sidonia de Sousa long ago proved that it can be worth the wait.

On the edge of the Bairrada region is the most extraordinary proof of this. The landmark that is the Bussaco Palace Hotel maintains its own cellar of exceptionally ancient Buçaco wines made from blends of Bairrada and Dão grapes that are labelled as just Vinho de Mesa, rather than anything more geographically specific.

The wine region of Alentejo is also producing age-worthy reds to join the cellar treasure Mouchão. Producers such as Susana Esteban have caught the eye of our Portuguese specialist on JancisRobinson.com Julia Harding because of the emerging quality of Alentejo whites.

Julia is so assiduous a taster that I have fewer opportunities to taste Portuguese wine than I would like, but she points out that some Portuguese reds not obviously made for the cellar do actually age incredibly well. The first examples to come to her mind are Quinta do Vallado’s entry-level wine and the wines of Valle Pradinhos (unfortunately not imported into the UK) in Trás-os-Montes way upriver — almost in Spain.

Both Spain and Portugal produce some of the world’s most famous fortified wines, notably sherry and port respectively, but many more, including Madeira (virtually immortal) come from the Portuguese island of the same name in the middle of the Atlantic. To these should be added Portugal’s Carcavelos and Moscatel de Setúbal. Most of these are bottled when they have been softened by long ageing in cask and are ready to drink, so don’t need to be cellared.

The obvious exception is vintage port and similar bottle-aged, as opposed to wood-aged, ports from lesser vintages with a quinta (wine farm) name on the label. These are the wine world’s most obvious candidates for hiding away in a cellar. Insiders wouldn’t consider opening a bottle of vintage port that was less than 20 years old. The quality of vintage port is higher than it has ever been, and some single-quinta 2022s have just been released. Perfect for godchildren born in that year?

Tasting notes, scores and suggested drink dates on Purple Pages of JancisRobinson.com. International stockists on Wine-searcher.com

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