El Hato y el Garabato ‘De Buena Jera’ 2018, Arribes

Made from a blend of local grapes including Juan García, Bruñal, Rufete and Bastardo, this is a light, slightly pithy wine with mouth-watering crunchy ripe forest fruits, good acidity and finely etched tannins. I loved it and will certainly try it again. 

€27.75 from WineSpark.com 

I tasted a range of Spanish wines from online retailer WineSpark last week. It was an impressive line-up. I will cover more of the wines later, but today I feature one that I really enjoyed. I have to admit that I looked up Arribes on Google – it is a remote narrow region that follows the Duero River along the Portuguese border. Although vines have been grown here for centuries, it only received D.O. status in 2007. The main grape variety is Juan García and El Hato y el Garabato, set up by oenologist José Manuel Beneitez, who returned to his homeland with his wife Liliana Fernández.