Wines made from Grillo grapes of Spain
Discover the best wines made with Grillo as a single variety or as a blend of Spain.
A very ancient grape variety still grown today in western Sicily. Very often associated with catarratto and inzolia, it produces the famous Marsala liqueur wine. It is also increasingly being vinified as a single variety and produces excellent dry wines full of freshness and fruitiness. Grillo is believed to be the result of an intra-fertile cross between catarratto and Muscat of Alexandria or zibibbo, obtained in 1869 by Antonino Mendola. It is represented by two biotypes that can be easily recognized, but it seems that winegrowers attach little importance to them. Little known in other Italian regions - in Liguria it is known as "rossese bianco" - it can also be found in Australia and South Africa. It is not widely grown in France, although it is interesting because of its ability to withstand hot climates and drought, and to ripen quite late.
Spain is a land of breathtaking scenery, colourful history and a Deep and Complex culture in which wine has Long played an important role. Grapes have been grown on the Iberian Peninsula since at least 3000 BC, although it wasn't until 1000 BC that viticulture really began here - a skill brought by Phoenician traders from the eastern Mediterranean. Today, Spain is home to more vineyards than any other country in the world, and its national wine production is exceeded only by France and Italy. All of Spain's seventeen administrative regions (communidades autónomas) produce wine to some degree, including the Canary Islands and the Balearic Islands.
I’m busy, lazy or just tired… it’s half past twelve. I open the fridge and the same familiar labels smile up at me. The same with the repurposed coal hole under the front steps where the red wines live. I won’t tell you exactly what they are – although regular readers can have a pretty good guess. The ones that get mentioned least frequently are the ones that make an appearance on every routine day. When the soup (winter) or the salad (summer) comes out for a ‘working’ lunch, the bottle be ...
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I’m fortunate enough to taste a fair amount of fine wine each year and I have come to the conclusion that each of us is forced to build our own stylistic preferences, regardless of the appellation or classification of a wine. Instead of simply choosing a bottle of Bordeaux over Barolo, for example, most of us probably aim to drink each on the right occasion and, in doing so, carve out our individual preferences for these wines. My personal bias – which I must confess, to be fair and transp ...