Spanish Wine
Spain has more acres of land devoted to vineyard than any other country, but lags behind France and Spain in grapes grown. This is a matter of logistics, Spain's climate is less rainy (and what rain there is falls mainly on the plain), the soil is drier and so fewer grapes are grown per acre.
Every factor other than moisture of Spain's climate is perfect for wine growing, though, which means that those vines that are planted have every advantage.especially since other countries, especially France, have to set maximum yields per acre for their finest wines.
Spain is a little peculiar in the way it classifies its wines. There's the standard European Table Wine/Regional Wine/Regional Wine of Distinction/Regional Wine of Frighteningly Consistent Excellence (or Vino de Mesa/Vino de la Tierra/Dominacion de Origin (DO) and DOCa in this case). But there is also a measure of aging for the top two categories. Specifically:
- Joven means a young wine that hasn't been aged for any significant length of time.
- Crianza denotes a wine that has been aged for two years, with at least six months to a year of that in the barrel and at least a year in the bottle.
- Reserva is a wine that has at least three years of aging with at least one year each in the barrel and the bottle.
- Grande Reserva, the highest category, needs three years minimum in the barrel and two years in the bottle.