The other day, we tasted some very interesting wines from the Navarra wine region - not the 1st Spanish wine region to come to mind, but one of the oldest. In recent years, Navarra is coming back strong as an important winemaking area in Spain, blending old and new techniques and utilizing grapes from all over the world. Where the famous running of the bulls takes place, neighbor to Rioja - Navarra's winemaking dates back to the Middle-Ages. Old presses and stone fermentation vats were found in recent archeological discoveries.
In the 1980's Garnacha grapes took up about 90% of the available vineyard space. The wines produced were primarily robust rose wines. Currently that percentage has decreased to about 40% and now the wines are being treated with more respect and some fine
winemakers are showing off what they can do with properly yielded & handled Garnacha.
Navarra is in a unique geographical situation. The vineyards are sheltered from
the Atlantic rains by a chain of mountains and are irrigated by the waterways of the Rio Ebro. The poor clay and stone soils work for the winemakers as they are the ideal soil to grow grapes. Rolling hills allow growers to plant at a variety of altitudes and with varying d
egrees of exposure to the midday sun, thus allowing winemakers to experiment with their blends. The weather is optimum as well: long, hot summer days are balanced by cool nights, which provides the best ripening for the grapes.
