Top 100 red wines of Catalogne

Discover the top 100 best red wines of Catalogne as well as the best winemakers in the region. Explore the varietals of the red wines that are popular of Catalogne and the best vintages to taste in this region.

Discovering the wine region of Catalogne

Catalonia (Catalunya in Catalan and Cataluña in Spanish) is an autonomous community in the Northeast of Spain. It extends from the historic county (comarca) of Montsia in the South to the border with France in the north. The Mediterranean Sea forms its eastern border and offers 580 km of coastline. The Catalunya D.

O. C. was the first regional D. O.

C. in Spain. Created in 1999, it covers all the scattered vineyards that were not covered by one of the other 11 DOs in the region. The capital of Catalonia is the bustling Barcelona, Spain's second largest city and one of the largest ports on the Mediterranean.

Discover the grape variety: Carignan

Mainly cultivated in the Languedoc region, carignan originates from Spain. Because of its very resistant branches, it is often called hardwood. Its bunches are quite large. They are compact and winged with a lignified stalk. The berries are spherical in shape and take on a bluish-black colour. Carignan has a total of 25 approved clones, the best known of which are 274, 65 and 9. The carignan buds at the beginning of June and is protected from spring frosts. It does not reach maturity until the third period. Also, this grape variety needs warmth and sunshine. It appreciates dry and not very fertile soils. Carignan vines can live for more than 100 years. Those that are more than 30 years old produce a better wine. This wine is well coloured. It is generous and powerful at the same time. Pepper, cherry, blackberry, banana, raspberry, almond, prune and violet are some of the aromas that this grape variety gives off.

Food and wine pairing with a red wine of Catalogne

red wines from the region of Catalogne go well with generally quite well with dishes of beef, lamb or game (deer, venison) such as recipes of sweet and sour turkish dumpling soup (eksili köfte), sauté of lamb with curry or duck confit.

Organoleptic analysis of red wine of Catalogne

On the nose in the region of Catalogne often reveals types of flavors of cherry, cocoa or allspice and sometimes also flavors of star anise, tobacco leaf or sage. In the mouth in the region of Catalogne is a powerful with a nice balance between acidity and tannins.

News from the vineyard of Catalogne

Buying wine en primeur: How to approach it

Colin Hay, a professor of political economy with a special interest in the Place de Bordeaux, considers the different ways of approaching en primeur purchasing, ahead of this year’s 2021 campaign. Buying en primeur wines is a rather strange and, arguably, arcane system of buying and selling in which the consumer purchases the wine typically in the early summer following the vintage even though it will not be bottled and delivered for a further 12-18 months. It is, in effect, a futures mark ...

Tribute paid to Franciacorta wine pioneer Franco Ziliani

Franciacorta has lost one of its fathers; Franco Ziliani died aged 90 this Christmas. He was the winemaker who, along with the Count Guido Berlucchi, changed the destiny of an entire region and helped make Franciacorta one of the most consistent areas in the world for sparkling wines made in the traditional method. Their fateful encounter was in 1958 at Palazzo Lana, in Franciacorta. Count Berlucchi began to question the young winemaker about how to improve his unstable white wine produced in Co ...

DOC Sicilia strengthens traceability with government-minted labels

Following the creation of the DOC Sicilia in November 2011, the region has taken a step further in guaranteeing the origin of traceability of DOC Sicilia wines by introducing mandatory government-minted labels on all its bottles. The State label, which is mandatory only for DOCG wines (in Sicily this applies to Cerasuolo di Vittoria only) is an important marker and identifier of the most important Italian DOCs: each label shows a unique alphanumeric code that traces the entire production process ...