How Is The Spanish Sparkling Wine Cava Different From The Italian Bubbly Prosecco Iin Production, Taste and Reputation?

Natalie MacLean 00:00:00 How is the Spanish sparkling wine cava different from the Italian bubbly prosecco? What makes Carrillo stand out from Spain’s other traditional cava grapes? And how did Alicante Monastero grape give rise to the rare Fondazione wine? And what makes it different from port or sherry? In today’s episode, you’ll hear the stories and tips that answer those questions in part two of our chat with Sarah Jane Evans, Master of Wine and author of the terrific new book The Wines of Central and Southern Spain From Catalunya to Cadiz. By the end of our conversation, you’ll also discover how the aging process for premium covers affects their taste profile and how that compares to champagne. The historical significance of the Terra Alta region historical artifacts Sarah Jane has encountered while visiting Spanish vineyards. How Richard Ford’s 1840s observation about Valencia still defines Spanish wine culture today. What might surprise you about the ancient Enfoirés in Valencia and their use in modern winemaking? How the three main styles of sherry differ. Which types of glassware and food pair best with sherry, what copters are and how they different from other glasses used for sherry? How serving temperature affects your enjoyment of sherry.

Natalie MacLean 00:01:28 What you need to know about wine in the Canary Islands, and the challenges and opportunities Sarah Jane sees for the future of the Spanish wine industry.

Natalie MacLean 00:01:43 Do you have a thirst to learn about wine? Do you love stories about wonderfully obsessive people, hauntingly beautiful places, and amusingly awkward social situations? Oh, that’s the blend here on the Unreserved Wine Talk podcast. I’m your host, Natalie MacLean, and each week I share with you unfiltered conversations with celebrities in the wine world, as well as confessions from my own tipsy journey as I write my third book on this subject. I’m so glad you’re here. Now pass me that bottle, please, and let’s get started.

Natalie MacLean 00:02:26 Welcome to episode 359. Thank you for your encouraging emails and DM’s about the new weekly update on what’s new in the world of wine, including trends, studies, and quirky human interest stories both in Canada and around the world. I’m glad you find these tidbits interesting. So what’s new trend wise this week? Well, in Ontario, wine lovers are leaning into intimate experiences.

Natalie MacLean 00:02:51 A few boutique VQA producers report a surge in bookings for small group Vineyard after dark. Tastings. Dark sky dinners. Among the vines. Ooh, that sounds romantic. Are selling out faster than pizza nights. Definitely more romantic. BC’s wine tourism circuit is seeing a different shift. Instead of big tasting rooms at the wineries, consumers are opting for small pop ups in urban markets in Kelowna and Vancouver to taste local wines without the drive into the Okanagan Valley. Marketing moves. As of October 1st, Air Canada became the only North American legacy carrier offering complimentary beer and wine, including Heineken 0.0, the continent’s first in-flight non-alcoholic beer to all economy passengers on every flight, even short domestic hops. The airline’s VP of loyalty and product told Reuters this week that free SIPs have a, quote, disproportionate impact on customer satisfaction and quote, and cost far less than waiving baggage fees. Hey Domaine Carneros! The respected Napa Valley sparkling producer just unveiled its 2025 Holiday Gift collection, which is a masterclass in experiential gifting. And we’re not just talking a bottle with a bow on it.

Natalie MacLean 00:04:13 Here, they’ve launched high end pairings like their Pinot Noir with Himalayan salted caramels. Yes, please, and even a pampered in pink kit that combines their Brut Rosé sparkling with magnolia scented spa essentials. And now you know what to get me for Christmas. So how’s the harvest going? Ontario is in full swing after early September picks for sparkling wine grapes, which is usually picked first in any region to maintain that fresh, crisp acidity conditions through late September. Stay dry by day, cool by night, great for ripeness and freshness. BC’s Recovery year reports a strong 2025 harvest, especially following the devastating 2024 frost. The province extended vintage replacement support to help wineries bridge this shortfall, so meaning they can source grapes from other regions that is clearly specified on labels, by the way. Quebec producers officially declared vendors harvests underway, and Nova Scotia reports low disease pressure and a clean crop beyond Canada. California says the 2025 vintage is steady paced with high quality fruit. Late September, coastal reports indicating long hang times for grapes to ripen.

Natalie MacLean 00:05:32 France’s champagne region is managing yields to match a softer demand, and Italy remains upbeat with forecasts for strong quality in their prosecco sparkling grapes. In Portugal’s Alentejo region, it’s now officially a midnight to 8 a.m. harvest zone. sown workers pick grapes under headlamps, harvesting by moonlight to protect acid levels and flavor, and my suspicion is that that is due to increasingly warm temperatures globally. So you need that acidity in the grapes. If you pick them during the day, they’re going to have even more sweetness. The twist many of the workers preferred apparently, they say nighttime picking gives them the daylight to enjoy their lives. Not sure when they sleep, though. In cooler temperatures and a bit more of a nocturnal magic in the rose. I wonder what’s going on there. It’s a reminder winemakers are embracing the moon as much as the soil. If you have some wine news or a quirky human interest story you think I should share in the podcast. Email me at Natalie at Natalie MacLean dot com. I’m also sharing news and wine reviews on Instagram where I’m at Natalie MacLean wine.

Natalie MacLean 00:06:44 So follow me there and I’ll follow you back. Back to today’s episode. We’re focusing on the central and southern regions of Spain today, but as I mentioned last week, we won’t be chatting about Rioja in north central Spain as we dedicated episodes 303 and 304 to that region with Andrew Lechmere. Two of you are going to win a copy of Sarah Jane Evan’s wonderful book, The Wines of Central and Southern Spain from Catalonia to Cadiz. If you’d like to win a copy, please email me and let me know you’d like to win. It doesn’t matter where you live. I also have two copies of Doctor Tiffin, Peter Meyer’s book The Wines of Brazil to give Away, so I’ll choose four winners randomly from those who contact me at Natalie at Natalie MacLean dot com. Keep them for yourself or give them as gifts. Okay, on with the show. There are more than 600 grape varieties if I understand. And no, we’re not going to go into each one of them, but that’s mind boggling. Yeah.

Natalie MacLean 00:07:50 For this country. But you describe. You know what? I’ve always read this group. I have not heard people often enough say it, but Zarrella how do you say that?

Sarah Jane Evans 00:08:01 Well, it was a bit like, as I mentioned earlier, a company called Deutsche. If you have X, this is particularly good variety. If you’re going to do a Trivial Pursuit game or something. The X is A is. So it’s a S h or c h. And then it has where the double L is because it comes from Catalonia on the east coast. There’s a like a full stop or punctuation mark in between. So you just throw yourself into it and call it Cerullo.

Natalie MacLean 00:08:26 Cerullo. Okay.

Sarah Jane Evans 00:08:27 I like that, Sharona is something I learnt about because it used to be if you were making the traditional method champagne style sparkling wine, which came typically from Catalonia, from that Mediterranean coast, it was one of the three grape varieties. And I learnt it like a textbook. I needed to know it for the Wine and Spirits Education Trust exams.

Sarah Jane Evans 00:08:46 We didn’t mean anything to me. But what’s happened in and it’s all part of this. A very dynamic change in Spain is that people have begun to identify that there is this grape variety, white grape variety, which was only a component in blending but actually grown by itself. It makes lovely, fresh, excitingly lively wines not very high in alcohol. It’s also clearly of the three grape varieties, it’s the one that means that if you’re making cava the sparkling wine, it’s the one that will last. It has a capacity to age, which is better than the other two.

Natalie MacLean 00:09:21 And the other two being.

Sarah Jane Evans 00:09:23 Oh, right, here we go. No, it’s Maccabi, which is elsewhere in Spain is Viera, which is the white grape variety of Rioja. And what’s fascinating about Bura is that’s a variety I did not love. I can say this widely in public, I really didn’t. And yet people are learning now to put it, to grow it in the right places, to do the right viticulture.

Sarah Jane Evans 00:09:47 And it’s becoming lovable. If I can say that. And then the other one is a variety called periodo para lada. Some people use to make a pure sparkling wine from in the cava area, which can be very successful. But there are others who are. I think it’s less popular. So there are three of those are the ones that are interchangeably and are still are used. If you get a regular glass of cava in a wine bar, then you’re probably going to have those three varieties inside.

Natalie MacLean 00:10:16 Okay. And since we’re talking about cava, the sparkling wine, how would you compare it to Prosecco? I know the grapes are different. The methods are different.

Sarah Jane Evans 00:10:28 Yeah, exactly. So then you have to sell it. So I think you and I privately talking to each other can say, well, the thing about Prosecco is that it’s made by a method where effectively the bubbles are created and are captured and it makes them pleasantly fizzy drink. Whereas the thing about cava is it’s made exactly like champagne.

Sarah Jane Evans 00:10:49 It’s aged exactly like champagne because it’s aged in the bottle with its yeast, it begins to develop other aromas which are nothing to do with flowers or fruit.

Natalie MacLean 00:10:59 More bready, more earthy.

Sarah Jane Evans 00:11:01 Exactly. So then the interesting thing is, the youngest cava can be released very young, at nine months younger than your youngest champagne. And that’s where the poor reputation of cava has come, I think because you get this very young wine, which is fizzy at that time, if you’re going to have a very young fizzy wine, then Prosecco is very appealing. It’s fruitier, it’s a bit sweeter.

Natalie MacLean 00:11:26 From the Galera grape in Italy. Yeah.

Sarah Jane Evans 00:11:29 Now, if you walk into somewhere, you know, a cover producer in des in the Mediterranean part of Spain, and you say Prosecco, the whole room will come to the consternation. But. But it’s true. And all one can say is because I think covers as a result had a really hard time being the. We can see that Kylie Minogue and others celebrity people have put their names behind prosecco and cava hasn’t seen.

Sarah Jane Evans 00:11:58 Yeah, exactly. So. But you can say it’s possible that what you do is you get into sparkling wine when you’re first starting drinking and you really enjoy prosecco, and then as time’s pass, you learn more, then it’s possible that you get into cava. And then what’s happening now is there’s a big movement, small but big at the same time, which is at the top end with wines that have been aged for ten years, 12 years, like a champagne, as those are being released and celebrated in Spain. And they are really something exceptional.

Natalie MacLean 00:12:30 Are they aged on their leaves, those spent yeast cells, to develop that extra creamy readiness? Yeah, okay.

Sarah Jane Evans 00:12:36 It’s exactly the kind of thing like you’d find with a very mature champagne, and they age brilliantly, but the Carver is having to work hard to get us to listen to that message. So I’m involved in doing tastings in, in Spain and also in London as well. And when I say we, I mean, I’m, I’m independent, but I think there is a story to tell there.

Sarah Jane Evans 00:12:56 And I remember how much I was thinking I was in last year. I go every year to Texan, which is a sommelier conference, just in Irving, just outside Dallas, a meeting, a man who ran a Carver bar there. And I had to say to him, you’re very brave. Yes, I shouldn’t have said that. But in fact, there is so much happening now in Carver that I think it’s the message is it’s worth taking a second look, but do make sure that you try the ones that are 18 months, which is reserve a superior and mature, because that’s going to be a bit more like champagne.

Natalie MacLean 00:13:29 Oh, interesting. Yeah, because they often find they’re competing on price prosecco and cava, but two very different styles. And of course cava means cave.

Sarah Jane Evans 00:13:37 I have to say a terrible word. So you know. Okay, fine.

Natalie MacLean 00:13:42 Yeah.

Sarah Jane Evans 00:13:43 What we want to know now. I think all of us nowadays want to know where does a wine come from? So we maybe can visit the place, or you can watch travel programs.

Sarah Jane Evans 00:13:51 And if you just say, well, it it’s this thing which can come from four different parts of Spain. What do I know? It’s not great.

Natalie MacLean 00:13:59 No, no. Well, you’ve got your work cut out for you, so you will continue to be employed for years. Sarah Jane I am a fan of Cava Wines and Spain in general, but we’re just talking to the converted here. But now you open your book, noting that you’re walking in the vineyards when you walk in the vineyards often reveals history from Roman amphoras, those big clay vessels used to age wine to Civil War relics, which is really cool. What’s the most haunting or unusual artifact you’ve ever seen?

Sarah Jane Evans 00:14:29 That’s interesting actually. Now look at this wine. I think about it because it comes from an area called Terra Alta Highland. And in fact it is the most tragic place. So lovely winemakers, happy memories, all of that. But in fact I was given a prize by the people there on one occasion and we it was in a big celebratory event in a bombed out part.

Sarah Jane Evans 00:14:51 They had preserved the old part of the village, which was entirely bombed out in the Civil War. But I think day before yesterday I was in Rocca, in the centre of northern Spain, where the great red wines come from, and I was crossing the Ebro River because the big river that runs through Rijeka goes through Rijeka and then comes out finally. It’s the only one of the great big rivers that comes out of the Mediterranean. All the others go to Atlantic. So it’s this wonderful river gets wider and wider and wider. It eventually decant into the Mediterranean by this denomination, Terra Alta. And there were horrendous wars, fights to the death in the Civil War in the late 1930s. Bitter atrocities on both sides. And if you go now with these people or any of the other cultures in the denomination near the river. It was really at the end of the war. When they dig up the soil to plant a vine, you will find bones, obviously, and then tin cans, you may find medals.

Sarah Jane Evans 00:15:58 And so you see these things, you just have to scuff up the earth. And there is the remainder of horrendous war. And it’s strange because I can think that maybe for the First World War in northern France, there are it’s all been quite manicured. So you can, you know, you may have lost a relative and you can go and see the gravestone. It’s all very nicely looked after. But these vineyards are still just on top of terrifying, terrifying relics. But there was one lovely experience that comes out of that was there’s a very delightful sparkling wine producer in that area who took me down into his cellar not far down, didn’t go down too many flights of stairs. And then we started walking along a corridor, and he had all his amphoras all the way along the corridor. And then we walked upstairs and we walked up these stairs. And finally what happened was we ended up in the middle of a field. So what this had been was a hideout. During the Civil War, the field was used as an airfield, and there was just had a little casing over the doorways.

Sarah Jane Evans 00:17:01 So you suddenly find these things as you’re driving around. There’s these little, these little doors with a little canopy over them, and they’re all lead down to tunnels where you could hide away while the bombing was going on. It’s it’s not yet a hundred years, and it still feels in certain places very recent. Yes.

Natalie MacLean 00:17:20 Unearthing history. Now, you note that Alicante is that both a region and a grape, or a city and a grape.

Sarah Jane Evans 00:17:29 Well, that’s very interesting. How can I put it? The grape is not used as that name in that area. So it’s really the region, the denomination we were talking about monastery earlier. And Alicante is one of the places for monastery. But what’s so fascinating about it is that it doesn’t just make red wines that historically, they used to make a wine out of this red grape that got so ripe, they didn’t need to fortify it, because it created as the grape on the vine has got so sweet that it turned herself into alcohol. And then it was a wine that was stable enough.

Sarah Jane Evans 00:18:08 You can have it in a barrel, and then you could send it to India or to Africa or around the world. It didn’t destroy itself. I mean, that was the important thing about all these wines like port and Madeira and Sherry, that they could be sent around the world with no problem of having any damage to them or oxidation. And so that wine was called Fondazione Fondi I alone. Fondazione. Fondazione. There are very, very few of them left. Very few, because you have a solera and it’s like all fortified wines nowadays. So they may have a nice image, but they don’t sell it in vast quantities. So you can go into a bar. If you’re on holiday in Alicante, you definitely will. And they will offer you at the end of a meal this kind of red sweet thing, which is not nearly as good as port. It’s really not pleasant. It’s the kind of thing you get for $0.05. Or you can go to one of the very rare wineries and try this thing.

Sarah Jane Evans 00:19:06 But it’s an interesting wine because it’s not sweet like Porter’s, which has this alcohol and warmth and ripeness. And it’s not dry like a regular red wine. It’s in between. It has a bit of alcohol, but not too much. But it’s one of those curiosities that there are still people there who care enough about tradition, that they still make this wine.

Natalie MacLean 00:19:28 Well, interesting. So many pockets of small artisanal wines. And yet you have the big, huge cooperatives. Now, I love this quote, quote, Richard Ford’s 1840s observation that Valencians may not have carpets, votes, trial by jury, beef and beer. But they do have wine, grapes, melons, idle ices, songs and dances. How does that philosophy still define Spanish wine culture today? And maybe we can focus on Valencia, where I guess they’re famous for their oranges, right? Yeah.

Sarah Jane Evans 00:20:01 I mean, when I first went there, I’m embarrassed to say I did just think it was oranges, because at the great time in season, you know, what you get in England is Valencian oranges.

Sarah Jane Evans 00:20:11 And they’re like, wow. So all I knew was that Valencia had oranges. Well, actually, maybe I knew it also had rice, but given the fact it was on the Mediterranean coast, sort of between Barcelona and then, well, Alicante, for instance, it was clearly something special. What I didn’t realize was that, in fact, they had this great culture of a number of local varieties, which are somebody, a geek like me. It’s so exciting to go and meet people who are working with these local varieties, and they have them because their father had them and their grandfather had them. You’re very often it’s come through the family. What’s interesting about them, it’s not just that they happen to be different varieties, but that they make. I’ve often found lighter wines, so we were just talking about monasteries being a quite corporate, weighty red, but actually you can get a variety. Well, like Arcos, for instance, I can I can think in in Valencia, which is a delicate.

Sarah Jane Evans 00:21:07 Well, you might also say almost say wimpy, but I like to say delicate bread, which is kind of pale in color, very pure and refreshing, especially if you think in Valencian climate. So what I love there is this writer you quoted, Richard Ford, who went all the way round Spain and had very British views. Yes, Spaniards are hilarious and fortunately I think Britons have changed as well as Spaniards have changed. But certainly Valencia, which is in fact it is the home of paella of rice. So if you want to learn how to make a proper broad dish of rice with seafood or with rabbit or whatever, talk to Valencia. And they’re quite purist about what they put in there. No chorizo or the different kinds of English vegetables in there in that area, you soon learn. But so it’s the classic place of rice, but it does also have these lovely, lovely wines. But one thing that fascinated me was if you go down the coast to one far in Valencia, there’s an area of what were big estate houses, very, I think, for grandees to come from outside the city.

Sarah Jane Evans 00:22:19 I have a friend who purchased one of these and his business was actually furniture. Bought this lovely estate and he populated it with lovely dogs and animals and chickens and whatever. What he didn’t realize when he purchased it. I mean, it’s a big estate and vineyards is that he had an underground cellar which was filled with 40 amphoras, these clay jars which were buried up to their necks, some of them were up to I think the measurement is metric measurement is 2000 or 3000l. They’re huge. And so this this estate was obviously really a factory for making wines for the locals. And so gradually what he’s done is he’s recuperated. And despite the fact that buried up to her necks, he’s managed to clean them up and makes wines in them. So we do talk about how it’s Georgia, which is the place close to Russia, which makes wines, amphoras, but actually there’s a whole culture. This is Sierra del Ruiz. This has a really terrific selection of these amphora wines. And in fact, now think about it.

Sarah Jane Evans 00:23:29 This wine that I’m drinking now, the orange wine is called Amphora Research. It’s made in amphoras also.

Natalie MacLean 00:23:35 But just to be clear, it’s not made from Valencia oranges or any oranges at all. It’s still made from grapes. Yeah.

Sarah Jane Evans 00:23:41 Yeah, exactly. And that’s very important. Yes.

Natalie MacLean 00:23:45 Well, let’s go to Sherry, because it’s the one that I’m just fascinated with. And of course, from the time I read Edgar Allan Poe, The Cask of Amontillado, whatever. But maybe just at a high level. Again, just to summarize for those who are not familiar. And then there’s like, because we have all ranges of folks who listen to this, but the styles of sherry go from quite dry to quite sweet, kind of like German Riesling. But does it start from Fino all the way to cream? What is that?

Sarah Jane Evans 00:24:14 So basically, at the moment you only really have three grape varieties, and 90% of them is one grape variety called Palomino, which in fact is grown in other parts of Spain and in the Canary Islands and out of Palomino.

Sarah Jane Evans 00:24:28 Amazingly, you can make very dry wines, either a manzanilla or a fino. And then you mentioned the lovely my favorite Amontillado, which the point about the manzanilla and fino is they’re a bit like, let me talk about cutting a banana and a half or an apple. When you cut them in half and leave them to the air, they oxidize a bit like my orange wine. So they the air gets in touch with them and they go slightly brown. We have the fino and the manzanilla which don’t. And then we have the amontillado, which spend some time being a kind of white wine, and then gradually it’s exposed to the air and begins to go get slightly oxidized. And it has a wonderful, wonderful character.

Natalie MacLean 00:25:08 Like a nutty taste.

Sarah Jane Evans 00:25:10 Like.

Natalie MacLean 00:25:10 Yes, something like that. Yeah.

Sarah Jane Evans 00:25:12 And I was almost going to say it smelled. But you’re it’s not a great smells like furniture polish are the very best. In a good way. In a.

Natalie MacLean 00:25:20 Good.

Sarah Jane Evans 00:25:20 Way. If you were going to go into a lovely.

Sarah Jane Evans 00:25:23 Well I was talking about earlier, the table from the Titanic. Well, that should have gone to the Titanic. A beautifully polished table from the Titanic would have smelt like that. And then you go into further categories parlor, cortado, oloroso. All of those are dry or mostly dry. Some of them, I can think would be lovely with cheese, others with meat, or just being sipped with some salted almonds. Then what you have is you also have the sweeter ones, which the sweeter ones don’t give me pause slightly because some of them are not very well made at all. They’re cheap and cheerful, sweet and wines. And then there are some really wonderful ones which are made with very old wine, to which some sweetener is added, and they’re great. So we have that grape variety, and then we have Pedro Gimenez, which is the one which is typically if you come across it, it’s a real bestseller. If you come across it in Cherry Country, then it makes a very dark, sweet wine and is much loved by people who really like their sweet wines.

Sarah Jane Evans 00:26:26 So it’s very nice if you drown raisins in it and then pour that over ice cream. That kind of. It’s like.

Natalie MacLean 00:26:32 Treacly.

Sarah Jane Evans 00:26:32 Like treacle. Exactly. When I associate it with all the flavors that we have for Christmas and Christmas pudding and mince pies and all those. And then we have a variety which isn’t often talked about, I think it’s worth looking out for. Called Moscatel, and Moscatel is the one grape variety that smells of grapes, and it produces a sweet wine, but one that’s not too sweet. So if you ever see moscatel around, it’s always worth giving it a try. So that more or less is the sherry business. And they’ve tried over the years. I mean, I’ve just love Sherry. So, you know, it just happened that I do. It was something I was given as a student, and I thought it was great and I would stay with it, but and I’ve had the fortune to go. But it is something you had to learn to love. I think it’s it’s not a naturally lovable thing, though.

Sarah Jane Evans 00:27:19 If you do love it. I’ve got a hanky here. I get these hangers in Japan and one of the famous winemakers in the city. It suffers from Gonzalez bias, one of the very big companies. And his big thing is to say, I won’t do it with this, but if you have a glass of sherry, what you do is you dip your gentleman’s hanky into it and it stays with you. The smell of the lovely, lovely smell of the cellar will stay with you and aroma ties the room.

Natalie MacLean 00:27:46 Well, there’s a trick.

Sarah Jane Evans 00:27:48 They have tried over the years. The sherry people have tried everything to get a drink. Sherry. I think they have learnt them. Now that what you need to do is to drink it out of a proper glass. Which is.

Natalie MacLean 00:27:59 What?

Sarah Jane Evans 00:28:00 A bit smaller than this, but frankly, a regular wine glass which is maybe tulip shaped and just don’t put that much in the bottom. But that way you can enjoy the smell.

Natalie MacLean 00:28:09 Sure.

Sarah Jane Evans 00:28:10 And then don’t keep it forever.

Sarah Jane Evans 00:28:13 Well, in fact, the older ones you can keep forever. But don’t do what you know my grandmother would do. Will just have a bottle which she would keep for.

Natalie MacLean 00:28:19 Once a year every Christmas.

Sarah Jane Evans 00:28:21 Yeah, just a little, dear.

Natalie MacLean 00:28:23 Yes.

Sarah Jane Evans 00:28:24 So, you know, it has been used as a base for cocktails. It’s what you might put into a Bloody Mary and that kind of thing. But you can’t bring a whole industry. Revive it with just cocktails. So what’s been happening that’s quite interesting now is that a younger generation have come in and they’ve seen what’s happening there. You know, they’re the children or the family is there and they have decided to make table wines. Still wines not fortified in any way at all. Just a regular white wine from this Palomino grape. Okay. It seems quite obvious really now. I mean, one of the reasons. Maybe I mentioned it before, but if you were going to ship a wine round the world and you wanted it to be from the moment it left the cellar when you didn’t have refrigeration or anything, you just put it in the bottle.

Sarah Jane Evans 00:29:10 You need it to fortify it. So you need to add some spirit to it just to make it stable. So at that point, the finish areas were fortified up to 15, 15.5. And then the darker older cherries were taken up to 18 or 20% alcohol.

Natalie MacLean 00:29:27 Yeah.

Sarah Jane Evans 00:29:28 Yes, exactly. Thank you. And so they did have this weight of alcohol. And frankly though actually what I would say the culture down that part of the world is if you’re having a glass of sherry, you are having something to eat as well. That’s where tap has come from really. So whereas I think in the more the English culture is that you have a glass of sherry and you drink and you have another one that you just drink. You don’t eat with it, which is where the damage comes. So what’s been really interesting is that they’ve been making these white wines. Now they’re not all perfect. Some are absolutely lovely and some aren’t. So I think if you’re interested in that, you need to go and talk to a wine shop or you need to read the wine writers and you’ll get some guidance about.

Sarah Jane Evans 00:30:11 But they are beginning to be a thing. And so the really great piece of news is only happened in the last couple of weeks, is that finally there’s been a big argument about this. And so, you know, should we recognize these wines or are they just Johnny come lately who are making something that’s not properly serious. So they’re now going to have a denomination of their own, and they’re going to be called something else.

Natalie MacLean 00:30:35 Oh, these dry white wines. Yeah.

Sarah Jane Evans 00:30:37 Yeah. So they’re probably going to be called after the soil on which they’re grown. If you go to Sherry country, it’s completely white. It’s a chalky soil is very remarkable, which in Spain is called Alberici. So it’s probable that they will be called Alboreto Wines. So we’ll see. But if you want to look as if you’re really cool and, you know, fashionable, then you’ll definitely be having these unfortified. There’ll be about 11, 12% wines, particularly from Palomino and they are the best ones are really delicious.

Natalie MacLean 00:31:10 And how did that tradition start of drinking sherry at Cambridge and Oxford? Because I remember during my time at Oxford, it was like classic to hide the sherry behind the books and bring it out.

Natalie MacLean 00:31:20 It’s like, what’s going on? How does anyone get anything done here?

Sarah Jane Evans 00:31:23 That’s a fascinating question because I.

Natalie MacLean 00:31:25 Pick up sport or something instead. Like I don’t know.

Sarah Jane Evans 00:31:28 Yeah. No, because I remember when I was a student, as you would write an essay and then your supervisor would sit in an armchair and you, 1 to 1 would read out the essay you would have between you, you would have a glass of sherry. Now, I think of it now because I was 18 and it seems like it’s like this strange thing to do. But, you know, at the time it seemed perfectly natural, I think maybe I’m not sure now that. Well, I think it still happens, but yes. Why not regular wine or why not, I suppose? Yes, Yes.

Natalie MacLean 00:32:05 I guess maybe that was the only way to make those young essays palatable to the Dons. I think you’re right. I can’t take any more of this. More Sherry, please.

Sarah Jane Evans 00:32:15 You’re right.

Natalie MacLean 00:32:16 And what are computers, Sherry Weinberger, what are the capitals?

Sarah Jane Evans 00:32:21 I mean, that’s interesting.

Sarah Jane Evans 00:32:21 I’ve got quite a lot of them downstairs, and I’ve now found that I just don’t use them. So this isn’t quite an example, but let’s say.

Natalie MacLean 00:32:28 It’s a wine glass.

Sarah Jane Evans 00:32:28 Yeah, it’s a wine glass, but it’s a much narrower. It’s slightly shorter. And you’ll get a much smaller hole at the top. And this is quite hard to get your nose in. However, when you’re down in here and you’re after a further eye affair, what it is, is historically it was a horse fair. You would come together for horse trading and so on. When you have. You also used to have little tents, the casitas, when people would just walk around with a half bottle of sherry and these cups and you could copy this and then you could have, if you’re clever, even I could carry six of these glasses in my fingers. And then you pull them through and so on. So they’re very handy. But they actually if you’ve got a beautifully made wine, it is nice to serve it in a more beautifully made glass.

Sarah Jane Evans 00:33:17 The thing that you don’t want, which used to be which you used to be a thing. I think it my parents day was that it used to have a glass, which was specifically for sherry. This people would say proudly. And it’s something that goes in, in the middle and then comes out at the top. And it was tiny, more like a thimble. And that was really hard to drink out of. And somehow other people thought they were doing you a favor by serving you your sherry answer. That was absolutely not the case. But I’m really a person for the democratization of wine. And the important thing now is to say to people, you can have one wine glass, you know, if it’s more or less the right shape, it’ll do you for champagne or or prosecco or for sherry or for red wine or white wine. You know, don’t get too caught up in the whole business. I think the thing I’m more concerned about is temperature. You know, I just discussed about rosé wine and similarly one of the pale colored dry cherries I’d like to drink.

Sarah Jane Evans 00:34:12 Cool. Definitely. This one. This orange one. I’m quite happy to drink at room temperature. It sounds awfully fussy to say that, but I think probably most people will feel the same with their tea or their coffee. There’s a temperature that you like to drink.

Natalie MacLean 00:34:25 Exactly. That’s right. It’s not fussy or snobby. It’s how you get the maximum pleasure from the drink and the aromas and everything else. So for the sweeter cherries, would you tend to serve them at room temperature or warmer?

Sarah Jane Evans 00:34:37 There was a case for serving them at room temperature, especially if I’m thinking if I was going to serve on them over a very lengthy meal at Christmas time with blue cheese and all sorts of things and, I don’t know, nuts and raisins on the table, then I would have them slightly warmer. But because they’re sweet, I must say I like to start with them quite a bit cooler. So if I was being accurate, I’d say half an hour in the fridge. But what usually happens is I put them in the day before because I’m busy, and then they come out really cold, and then you have to let them warm up, but the sweeter they are, the little bit cooler they need to be.

Sarah Jane Evans 00:35:14 Definitely. I would say salt and cooler because they can always warm up.

Natalie MacLean 00:35:17 Well, I want to get to Canary Islands. This time is flying by. But. So the Canaries I think you mentioned that they’re way down. Are they closer to Africa than mainland Spain?

Sarah Jane Evans 00:35:27 Absolutely. So I was in Gran Canaria recently in a hotel, which was like, how can I say? Well, it thought it was an Africa with lots of palm trees and all sorts of things. It was a resort. So people had gone there for the African experience. But actually at the same time it was a Spanish hotel. It was a very unusual feeling. So you can imagine that being so close to Africa, these islands were absolutely strategic in controlling the passage between Europe and going down to South Africa. So it was. There’s been quite a lot of fighting over, over who owned it from quite early on, but they are definitely Spanish, but they have various things like their bananas are wonderful beyond wonderful. Their potatoes are really different.

Sarah Jane Evans 00:36:15 So there are some things that are quite different. But the other thing is these are all volcanic islands. So we’ve all begun to get very excited about wines from volcanic soils. And certainly they have a freshness, partly also because they’re they’re islands in the middle of a windswept ocean. I mean, the islands in the middle of the Atlantic, effectively a bit like the Azores. So you certainly have a freshness you wouldn’t normally get in other places.

Natalie MacLean 00:36:41 Okay. And it’s a series of islands. Is it like how many islands are there an archipelago or something?

Sarah Jane Evans 00:36:47 Yes, exactly. And it’s around 7 or 8. But the key ones there are 4 or 5 absolutely key ones. And then what’s interesting about these islands, particularly where they’re placed, is that because of the trade winds, one side is very green and fertile and the other side is absolutely dried, dried out. And so Tenerife is the island that’s probably the biggest and best known and has something really fascinating. Anybody who’s interested in Appalachia, I think anybody would find it fascinating.

Sarah Jane Evans 00:37:20 You haven’t normally have a vine. We’ve talked about vines being in bushes or being grown on trellises. They have vines which come out of the ground and then grow feet yards up the hillside and then down the hillside. So there is one vine we’ll have very, very, very, very long branches. And then during the season you have to go through and with clips tile the branches together. And they’ve grown just about, you know, a couple of feet off the ground. And it’s absolutely extraordinary to see. It’s a it’s an amazing technique. But the one thing I should mention. I’m cheerfully. It’s the one thing that’s not up to date in my book, which only came out in June, but I cheerfully talked about the fact that being volcanic islands and the soil being as it was, and the isolation the Canary Islands never had, this louse, this insect phylloxera, which laid waste to many parts of the world and which was only rescued by grafting vines onto American rootstocks which were resistant. But there’s an abandoned vineyard in Tenerife where phylloxera has been just been found.

Sarah Jane Evans 00:38:26 So now there’s nervousness of the greatest kind, because if it once gets through and of course, because it’s an abandoned vineyard, they can’t just jump on the owner and say, now clean it all up. So I think it’s something they have to manage very quickly, but it certainly means that transporting vegetative material and plant material now between Tenerife and the mainland is what has been stopped, simply because they have to make sure that it’s contained in the island. And I suppose the good thing it’s an island, but it could be. I mean, what’s happening with Tenerife, as with some of the other Canary Islands, but particularly Tenerife, has their wines have really become a thing. They’ve become smart and cool and fashionable. So the last thing they need now is some kind of threat to from phylloxera.

Natalie MacLean 00:39:12 Absolutely. And is Malvasia one of the leading grapes? You described Malvasia volcanic, volcanic Malvasia. What? What does that taste like from the Canary Islands?

Sarah Jane Evans 00:39:23 Well, exactly. Now, in fact, the one book I would never like to write in my life is the one on exactly that variety.

Sarah Jane Evans 00:39:29 Well, on on the genus as a family of basis. And we have them in the Canary Islands. They are from Greece. Historically. They go back a very long way. Madeira, all sorts of places. They’re part of wine culture from centuries back. So the volcanic, which is only related to a few others, it’s a family tree to is very complicated. Is not. I think I would expect that variety to be quite floral and to be quite grippy, and in fact it’s not. But what it produces is quite elegant wines which are quite full bodied and flavoursome. But one of the best producers is on the island of La Palma, where they’ve most recently had. That’s where the volcanic eruption was recently, and I think we sat there watching with terror when you saw this great slide of lava because you were thinking, she’s going to lose the video and she’s been okay, Victoria, but she’s. Not the thing you would wish on anyone know.

Natalie MacLean 00:40:28 My goodness. Well, I mean, it’s a real, not hodgepodge, but a real mix of opportunity, excitement, as you said.

Natalie MacLean 00:40:35 And yet serious, serious challenges for Spain. Are you optimistic about its future?

Sarah Jane Evans 00:40:40 Yes, I am, simply because I think there’s so many energetic people. I would say there are threats. I mean, I mentioned, obviously lava, Love. I mentioned the fact that people. I was talking to somebody at the beginning of the week who said, the Mediterranean is now too warm and our oceans are too warm, and so they’ve had terrible storms and they feel that they’re going to have awful storms this winter. On the one hand, some people have said we’ve had drought for three years. And yet, as I said, I was in Morocco on Thursday. One gro there said it’s 2025 is going to be a great year. So I think, you know, the message is diversity. We’re in the second most mountainous region in Europe. It has loads of opportunity, but people are going to have to plant in different places or grow in different ways to, as they are in all parts of the world, to adapt to our changing climate.

Natalie MacLean 00:41:32 That’s good. There’s hope. So this is your second major book on Spain. Where would you go for a third one, or are you done? I don’t think you’re done. Are you done?

Sarah Jane Evans 00:41:41 I’m never done. No, I think I’m almost certainly going. My next one is a book on sherry, so. it needs to be done. So you walked into that one. I think it was sort of obvious that the next one, but I have soon enough had to be updating my first one on northern Spain. But it’s going to I think it’s going to be rotating through Spain. If I had time, which I don’t yet have at the moment, I would definitely do something in Greece because I think if Spain is an interesting and established country, the up and coming one with all sorts of interesting stories to tell and fascinating winemakers and lovely wines and not particularly loved, I think a lot of people don’t really believe in Greek wine. Then that would give me a reason for writing about Greece.

Natalie MacLean 00:42:26 Oh wow, that would be wonderful. Do you have your current book there Close By Sarah.

Sarah Jane Evans 00:42:30 Jane I do, you.

Natalie MacLean 00:42:31 Can put it up and for those who are listening, we will put the cover and links to your book in the show notes and the title.

Sarah Jane Evans 00:42:39 I shall explain that to the title is The Wines of Central and Southern Spain now. So that’s everything south of Madrid, but it has a subtitle because it explains everything else from Catalonia to. It is because it does also include that Mediterranean and the islands.

Natalie MacLean 00:42:55 Okay, beautiful book though, and I don’t know if you want to flip through it. Does it have photographs and things like that inside.

Sarah Jane Evans 00:43:01 Oh well I wonder if we can see. Yes, a lot of photographs of my own with winemakers of all kinds. Yes.

Natalie MacLean 00:43:08 Oh that’s great. What a great book. And as I said, two of you will win one copy if you contact me at Nathalie at Natalie MacLean. Com. Wonderful. Sarah Jane, this time has flown by.

Natalie MacLean 00:43:19 Is there anything that we haven’t covered that you wanted to mention before we wrap up?

Sarah Jane Evans 00:43:26 I see we’ve done a fabulous, fabulous tour of and only part. You know, we haven’t covered Rioja, Ribera de la Galicia, all of that.

Natalie MacLean 00:43:35 I know we focused. Yes.

Sarah Jane Evans 00:43:37 So yes, I would just say if if you’re going to buy a wine from the shops next time you go Make it Spanish.

Natalie MacLean 00:43:45 Spanish. Well, you are a great advocate. No wonder Isabella and the whole crew love you. so I will say goodbye for now, but I look forward to continuing this conversation, preferably over a glass of wine or three Sarah Jane. So, cheers. Well, there you have it. I hope you enjoyed our chat with Sarah Jane. Here are my takeaways. Number one. How is the Spanish sparkling wine cava different from the Italian bubbly Prosecco? Prosecco bubbles are created and captured in the tank to make it a pleasantly fizzy drink. Sarah Jane explains Where’s Cava is made exactly like champagne. It’s aged in the bottle with its yeast, and it begins to develop other aromas which have nothing to do with flowers and fruit.

Natalie MacLean 00:44:34 The youngest cava can be released at nine months, which is much younger than the youngest champagne. So she suggests, if you want a young, fizzy, fruity wine. Go for prosecco. It’s also a bit sweeter than cava. However, there is a big movement in Spain to have cava released and aged after 10 to 12 years like champagne, and they’re really being celebrated there. And as she says, they are exceptional. Number two, what makes Carrillo stand out from Spain’s other traditional cava grapes? Sarah Jane gives us a helpful primer on pronouncing this grape. It is spelt x a r e l period l o, so the x is sh, pronounced sh in Spain. And then where there’s a double l because it’s from Catalonia on the east coast, there’s a full stop period punctuation mark between the two L’s. Anyway, she says, just throw yourself into it and call it Cirillo. For years I’ve been saying x Cirillo Anyway. Traditionally, she explains that when they were making sparkling wine in Catalonia using the traditional champagne method, Carrillo was one of the three grape varieties.

Natalie MacLean 00:45:53 But people since then have started to identify this white grape variety, which was traditionally only a component in blending, can actually stand alone and makes lovely, fresh, exciting white wines not very high in alcohol. And as she also notes in cava, Carrillo is the grape that will last. It has the capacity to age. And number three, how did Alicante Monastero grape give rise to the rare Fondazione wine? And what makes it different from Porto? Sherry Alicante is one of the best regions for the Monastero grape. Sarah-Jane explains historically they used to make wine out of this red grape that got so ripe they didn’t need to fortify it because the grape had so much natural sweetness that turned into higher levels of alcohol, and then the wine was stable enough that you could ship it in barrel to India or Africa around the world. That’s why port and Madeira and sherry all became very popular early on, because they could be sent around or shipped around the world with no problem in terms of damage or oxidation. These wines made from Monastero were called fondue, and there are very few of them left.

Natalie MacLean 00:47:10 What excites her is that these curiosities are still made today by people who care enough about the tradition. In the show notes, you’ll find a full transcript of my conversation with Sarah Jane, links to her website, and books the video versions of these conversations on Facebook and YouTube live, and where you can order my books online now, no matter where you live. If you missed episode 162, go back and take a listen. I chat about Sherry, Rioja, cava and other Spanish wine gems with Lawrence Francis. I’ll share a short clip with you now to whet your appetite.

Lawrence Francis 00:47:45 Sherry is one of the most complex wines out there, so turn is always going to have this amazing length and intensity. But Sherry, in the right hands, you can almost just turn it up. There’s so many different colors and different flavors to paint from it. I think they’re on the right track and talking about how well it goes with food. Food is a wonderful way to hook people and to get them to want to know more about a wine.

Natalie MacLean 00:48:11 That’s a great way into wine itself, but also categories of wine that have maybe suffered from misconceptions like sherry has often been pegged as the Oxford Don University professor, wine behind the books, or granny’s wine or whatever. But it is complex. It’s nutty, it’s wonderful. It has this range of.

Natalie MacLean 00:48:30 Styles.

Natalie MacLean 00:48:30 From sweet.

Natalie MacLean 00:48:31 To dry.

Natalie MacLean 00:48:37 You won’t want to miss next week when we chat with Jane Masters and Andy Neither co-authors of the terrific new book Rooted in Change The Stories Behind Sustainable Wine. If you liked this episode or learned even one thing from it, please email or tell a friend about the podcast this week, someone you know would be interested in learning more about Spanish wines. It’s easy to find the Unreserved Wine Talk podcast, just tell them to search for that title or my name Natalie MacLean wine. On Apple Podcasts, Spotify, their favorite podcast app. Or they can listen to the show on my website at Natalie MacLean. Email me if you have a tip, question, or if you’d like to win one of four copies of the books I have to give away.

Natalie MacLean 00:49:21 I’d love to hear your thoughts on this episode. Email me at Natalie at Natalie MacLean dot com. In the show notes, you’ll also find a link to take a free online food and wine pairing class with me, called the five Wine and Food pairing mistakes that can ruin your dinner and how to fix them forever. At Natalie MacLean. Com. And that is all in the show notes at Natalie MacLean. 359. Thank you for taking the time to join me here. I hope something great is in your glass this week. Perhaps a zesty cava or a toe warming sherry?

Natalie MacLean 00:50:03 You don’t want to miss one juicy episode of this podcast, especially the secret full bodied bonus episodes that I don’t announce on social media. So subscribe for free now at Natalie MacLean. Com forward. Meet me here next week. Cheers.