Mariano García made the wines at Spanish icon Vega Sicilia for 30 years before founding Aalto in 1999 with partner Javier Zaccagnini, and the young winery has established a record of consistent quality. This bottling is 100 percent Tinto Fino (the local name for Tempranillo), primarily from old-vine vineyards. After a brutally dry summer in 2012, García decided to drop 30 percent of the grape bunches to encourage uniform ripening of the remaining fruit on the drought-stressed vines. The wine ages an average of 20 months in 85 percent French oak, the rest American. This red shows focus and density, with rich flavors of plum, blackberry, cocoa, licorice and mineral. The structure is muscular but graceful, featuring ripe fruit complemented by savory notes that keep this balanced and fresh. Best from 2016 through 2032.—Thomas Matthews Ribera del Duero, Spain Add To Personal Wine ListPlanning a holiday to Spain? Read how to book the best Spanish food and wine holiday, with advice on gourmet tours, our experts' favourite vineyards, markets and cookery courses, as well as the best tour operators.

By Telegraph Travel's Spain experts. Many of us are now popping chorizo and ibérico ham into our shopping baskets, as well as manchego cheese and, of course, a bottle of Spanish wine. You could spend a very happy holiday indeed exploring the regions where your favourite foods and wines are produced. The best hams, for example, are made in the west of the country, in Salamanca, Extremadura and the Sierra de Aracena in the north of Andalusía. Every region has its specialities. Around 40 artisan cheeses are produced in Asturias, while you could spend a fortnight in Galicia eating a different sort of seafood every day. See here for our experts' pick of the top 10 food and drink holidays in Spain Have a look at the organisation Tasting Spain (tastingspain.es) for lots of ideas for foodie breaks - you can book handy packages including accommodation, restaurant reservations and all sorts of gourmet experiences. Scroll down for a list of tour operators offering food and wine holidays to Spain

Spain has 69 officially-recognised wine production regions spread across the country, and visiting wineries is an excellent way of discovering little-known parts. La Rioja, the most famous wine area, is also worth visiting for its food and spectacular countryside. The wines of Navarre, Aragón, Castilla León and Galicia deserve to be better known, and are wonderful regions to explore for their history and culture too. top 100 wine chinaIf you are on holiday in the Balearics or Canaries, there are some interesting wines being produced there too. where can i buy vegan wine) if you fancy setting up your own wine tour.best indian wine for health But it is sherry that is really having a bit of a moment after years of gathering sticky dust at the back of cupboards. dry wine red or white

We are finally learning that there are lots of different kinds - and that it is very reasonably priced too. If you need any more of an excuse to visit elegant Jérez, it was European City of Wine in 2014 and hosts an International Sherry Week each year.  ) Well-reviewed cookery school in lovely Andalusian pueblo blanco of Vejer de la Frontera; the best wine in turkey ) Private cookery classes, tapas crawls and tours focused on regions (Basque Country, Catalonia, Andalusia, La Mancha, Galicia) and products (ham, cheese, seafood, and so on).buy old empty wine bottles ) Private tours include tapas-bar hopping in Seville, cookery in Barcelona, and cookery and pinxtos-bar crawling in San Sebastian. ) Foodie breaks that sometimes span culture and walking; options include focusing on paella and cava in Valencia, and ham in Teruel.

Arblaster & Clarke (01730 263111; winetours.co.uk) A Rioja vineyards walking tour; private group sherry tours in Andalusia can also be arranged. Grape Escapes (0845 643 0860; grapeescapes.net) Options include flexible short breaks to La Rioja region. Smooth Red (020 8877 4940; smoothred.co.uk) Tailor-made trips to the Rioja and Ribera del Duero regions. The following cultural and activity specialists also offer food- and drink-themed breaks to Spain: ) Guided, gastronomic break in Madrid, and a tour of Spain's Mediterranean winelands. Exodus (0845 508 4195; exodus.co.uk) Cycling and wine-tasting guided tour through the Rioja region. Explore (01252 883694; explore.co.uk) Interesting walking and wine-tasting tours: one taking in the Basque Country, La Rioja and Catalonia, another combining the Spanish Ribera del Duero and Portuguese Duoro regions. HF Holidays (0345 470 8558; hfholidays.co.uk) Breaks combining cooking and walking in Andalusia and in the Picos de Europa.

Inntravel (01653 617000; inntravel.co.uk) The specialist in independent walking/cycling breaks makes a point of selecting hotels that offering good food. Spanish walking holidays include Gastronomic Trails in Catalonia, and Gastronomic Garrotxa. ) A guided Real Food Adventure - Northern Spain tour, taking in San Sebastian, the Rioja region and Barcelona. ) Upmarket guided gastronomic/cultural breaks, with tapas tours, tastings and gourmet meals, of Andalusia, Catalonia and the Basque Country. Saga Holidays (0800 096 0074; travel.saga.co.uk) Tastes and Flavours of Spain tour, through Castile, La Rioja, Aragon and Catalonia. ) Specialist online travel company offering a broad range of wine and culinary tours and experiences in Spain. Tour operator listings by Fred Mawer Follow Telegraph Travel on Twitter See our Spanish city breaks guide hereRueda, the most-consumed white wine of Spain in-country, is also one of its best-kept secrets. Located in the Spanish state of Castilla-y-León, about an hour and a half northwest of Madrid by car, the gently cresting hills of Rueda generate one of Spain’s most refreshing, particular white wines.

Rueda is a Spanish D.O. (“Denominación de Origen"), a legal definition that both defines a geographical area and the grapes allowed to be planted inside that area. While straight “Rueda" must be at least 50% of the native Verdejo grape, you are also allowed to label wines as “Rueda Sauvignon Blanc" or “Rueda Verdejo," provided you include 85% of that variety. Sauvignon Blanc is quite successful in the area, making a very fresh and appealingly aromatic style, but Verdejo leads considerably in acreage and is the focus of this article, given its importance in the region. Planted almost exclusively in Rueda, Verdejo has an appealing lush, fruity quality, middleweight body, and lively acid that makes it a flexible wine at the table (or on the patio!). Possessing a very Goldilocks-like quality, Rueda is completely comfortable in different roles. You would be happy to find it in your glass as a refreshing patio-pounder on a scorching summer day. Verdejo would also play well at the table with home-cooking staples like roast chicken with herbs, or even heavier fare like pork sausage.

Certainly, this flexibility is at the heart of its popularity in Spain. Pairings should never be taken as the only dish with which the wine would be well-paired; it's a more of a suggestion rather than a hard, one-to-one answer. Rueda would likely be great with a lot of dishes of similar weight and intensity! Fruit notes in Rueda are mostly concentrated in the sweet citrus spectrum (tangerine or meyer lemon) with some components of less-ripe stone-fruit as well (apricot or white peach). On the more savory side, Rueda Verdejo typically posses fresh white-and-yellow floral notes, a mild herbaceous quality (think sweet basil), and brie rind notes from a winemaking process called Rueda is lucky to have a relative wealth of old-vine vineyards and many producers make “Viñas Viejas" bottlings using exclusively these vines. The maturity of these vines yields fruit of naturally high concentration, making a more pure and intense expression of Verdejo. While most Rueda is made in a very clean, refreshing, stainless-steel-aged style, some producers do make more ambitious bottlings.

Several producers are experimenting with oak with variable success. If you're a fan of oakier, riper new world wines, I would suggest these Rueda Verdejos first. Unsurprisingly, these oaked bottlings (often labeled “Fermentado en Barrica") usually come at a higher price. Rueda's greatest current advantage for the wine enthusiast is the incredible value that these wines represent. Currently on Vivino, of the top-25 Rueda Verdejos, many of them are under $20 US and several even posting under $15 US. Rueda is incredibly competitive in this “value white" category, and its relative obscurity outside of Spain is certainly one of the major factors driving this value. Over the last decade, the popularity of aromatic, lower-alcohol, acid-driven styles of wine has increased dramatically. Traditional bastions of this category like French Sancerre, dry German Riesling, and New Zealand Sauvignon Blanc have become increasingly expensive. Rueda fills the void left by the price increase of these wines for people still working on an everyday budget.