Free Advise on How to Use the José Peñin Spanish Wine Guide

José Peñin is the Robert Parker of Spain, and many wine importers around the world, are using his guide to search for new and exciting Spanish wines. In my distant past, when I was wine agent, I used Peñin’s wine guide a lot.  Many of the Spanish wines I worked with, I first spotted in this thick green book that over time has become a Spanish wine bible with more than 8,500 tasted wines, 13,500 references, and 2,900 wineries.

At the end of the book, on page 1,325 of the 2009 edition, there is a chapter called, Las Mejores Compras, or Best Buys. Now, this is the chapter you should pay close attention to if you want to learn which wines are available at a very competitive price. Take into account that most prices are winery prices - meaning the price you pay when you buy the wine at the winery. Normally, the wines are slightly higher priced when you buy them at any store. Wines listed in this chapter are rated with 5 stars, which stands for extraordinary Quality Price Ratio or QPR.

You will find 4 wines scored at 94 points priced at 5,90 euros on the low end and up to 8 euros on the high end. And guess what style all of these wines fall in? Delicious Sherry wines! This explains why I am such a sherry freak

At 93 points and priced only 6,95 euros is the first red wine made with Monastrell from the DO Alicante called Beryna, from our friends in VIllena, Bodegas Bernabe Navarro. The first white dry wine can be found at 7,50 euros with 93 points, is the Etim Garnacha Blanca Verema Tardana 2006 from Agricola Falset Marça in the DO Montsant. And to make this short list complete, the most attractive rosé is the Gran Feudo rosado 2007 from Chivite from DO Navarra at 3,50 euros with 91 points.

On page 1311, the best wines per region are mentioned. As Casavides makes wines in D.O. Valencia, I’ll take this region as an example. The top three wines made in DO Valencia, an emerging wine area in the same league as Alicante and Montsant, we find Maduresa 93 points at 16 euros and Les Alcusses with 91 points at 8 euros made by Pablo Calatyud from Celler Roure.  Venta del Puerto made by Bodega La Viña also scored 91 points and costs 9 euros.

Normally these so called “top wines” are already selling abroad in many countries, or are made in such small quantities that you have to beg for the wines. But sometimes, just below the top wines, you find the extraordinary 90 point wines. And if you are lucky, some of these wines are new on the market, and if you are even luckier, the whole winery is new to the market. So just because you know how to use the Peñin Guide well, you might be able to spot the newest wines from the most emerging areas in Spain.

Let’s take the 90 point wines in Valencia.

Aculius 2006 tinto, Angosto 2006 tinto, Megala 2005 tinto, Pasamonte 2005 tinto, Rafael Cambra 2006 tinto, Sueño de Megala 2005 tinto, Trilogia 2006 tinto, Uva d’or Moscatel, Venta del Puerto 18 vendimia sel. 2005 tinto.  Nine wines in total, 8 of them are red wines, and all scored 90 points. These are worth trying your luck if you can find them. But I can already promise you that with the Aculius, the chances that we are exporting to your country is almost zero, because we started to export our wines just 2 months ago for the first time.

Then, if you want to look up the winery, for example “La Casa de las Vides”, you can go the winery page and get an overall picture of what they are producing. How many wines are rated as best buys? The wineries with a whole range of 5 star wines and with consistently high points, are usually the most interesting ones. These are the wineries worth following, or even worth asking samples from.

One thing though that is missing in the Peñin guide is an overview of the last 3 years to compare the previous vintages of the same wine. There are enough guides that offer this valuable piece information, and to be honest, opening three or four of these dense books does require some extra skills and space on your desk.

Good luck with your search for your next top Spanish wine!

Hasta luego

Emilio Saez van Eerd