Champagne Blend Spain La Rioja

The sparkling wines of Champagne have been revered by wine drinkers for hundreds of years, and even today they maintain their reputation for excellence of flavor and character, and are consistently associated with quality, decadence, and a cause for celebration. Their unique characteristics are partly due to the careful blending of a small number of selected grape varietals, most commonly Chardonnay and Pinot Noir. These grapes, blended in fairly equal quantities, give the wines of Champagne their wonderful flavors and aromas, with the Pinot Noir offering length and backbone, and the Chardonnay varietal giving its acidity and dry, biscuity nature. It isn't unusual to sometimes see Champagne labeled as 'blanc de blanc', meaning it is made using only Chardonnay varietal grapes, or 'blanc de noir', which is made solely with Pinot Noir.

Ever since the Phoenicians and Romans brought their knowledge of vine cultivation to Spanish soils, the country's culture has grown alongside wine production, with wine being a vital part of Spanish identity and Spanish traditions. Each region of Spain has a wine quite distinct from the others, and it is produced by smallholders and families as much as it is by large companies and established wineries. From the relatively mild and lush regions of La Rioja to the arid plateaus that surround Madrid, grapes are grown in abundance for the now booming Spanish wine industry, and new laws and regulations have recently been put in place to keep the country's standards high. By combining traditional practices with modern technology, Spanish wineries are continuing to produce distinctive wines of great character, flavor and aroma, with the focus shifting in recent decades to quality over quantity.

La Rioja is by far the most famous wine region of Spain, and remains one of the world's great wine producing regions, consistently offering deep, complex red wines of character and distinction, partly due to the fact that La Rioja benefits from excellent soils, rich in minerals and nutrients, and plenty of sunshine. The climatic conditions allow the fine grape varietals to reach full ripeness and express plenty of the best features of their terroir, making La Rioja wines some of the most interesting to have ever come out of Europe. The Cantabrian mountains to the north provide the perfect shelter from the colder, wetter influences of the Atlantic oceans, and in the beloved vineyards of La Rioja, wineries have been cultivating exceedingly flavorful Tempranillo grapes for generations for the inclusion in their fine single variety and blended wines.