THE VERDICT

Rioja delivers in the £10-£20 price range. This tasting proved the point with its significant number of Highly Recommended and Recommended wines (53 and 109 respectively). ‘Overall I was really quite impressed,’ noted Pierre Mansour. ‘To me, a lot of these wines tasted like they were worth more than £20,’ added an equally approving Simon Field MW.

Numerous highlights were identified. ‘The young wines were fresh, very appealing, with lovely cherry juice flavours – just the kind of thing you want by the glass,’ said Sarah Jane Evans MW. ‘And all the way through, the handling of oak was really very good.’

The 2016 vintage came in for particular praise. ‘It was the vintage we had the most of [followed by 2015] – and it came through really strongly,’ commented Mansour. ‘It’s looking like a lovely, appealing vintage and a good vintage overall for Rioja.’

Before you rush out to stock up, there is a caveat, however. This price category encompasses a wide range of styles, from ‘genérico’ wines to crianzas, reservas and even gran reservas – and the judges noted that it isn’t always easy to work out exactly what you’re buying.

‘The first question is, what’s the difference between a genérico – a general wine that has a vintage on it – and a crianza?’ asked Evans. ‘For example, we had a 2016 genérico and a 2016 crianza and a 2016 reserva.’

‘In the genérico category alone there was quite a variety of quality from very honest, fruity, appealing, easy-drinking wines to some very extravagant styles,’ added Mansour.

‘There was a confusing range of vintages, styles and oaking,’ continued Evans. ‘There’s no way of knowing, for example, what is oaked or unoaked. So where do you go as a customer? What do you do?’

‘Rioja drinkers will be getting seriously good wines of real complexity’
Pierre Mansour

Mansour offered an answer. ‘My advice is to follow the producer. Find a producer whose wines you like, because