Grape Variety: Tempranillo

Colour: Red

Tempranillo is Spain’s quintessential, indigenous “Noble Grape”. Jancis Robinson says in the “Oxford Companion to Wine”, that it is “Spain’s answer to Cabernet Sauvignon, while John Radford writes in the “The New Spain”, that “research indicates a possible common ancestor with Pinot Noir.” What the experts do agree on, however, is that it is a “classic” quality grape variety, and responsible for making some of Spain’s best wines. It’s a thick-skinned black grape used to make full-bodied red wines. Tempranillo responds sublimely to delicate integration of American and French oak, producing deep coloured smooth, elegant numbers capable of long aging, with sensuous notes of vanilla, cedar and soft spice. It is also ideal for making young wines, “jovenes”, where the grape imparts juicy strawberry and summer fruits flavours. The term “Tempranillo” is named after the Spanish word “Temprano”, for “early”, referring to the fact that this grape ripens sooner than the other traditional varietals in Spain (two weeks earlier than Garnacha, for example).

Its most famous expression is in the rich, velvety red wines of La Rioja, where it is mostly blended with Garnacha Tinta, Mazuelo and Graciano and aged in oak barricas. For some expensive and sophisticated modern Riojas, it is being blended with Cabernet Sauvignon. However, as Cabernet Sauvignon is prohibited in the DO, it can’t be mentioned on the bottle label. In Navarra, where such restrictions don’t apply, it is enthusiastically and eloquently blended with Merlot and Cabernet Sauvignon. Excellent examples include Guelbenzu’s “Lautus Crianza” which is comprised of 50% Tempranillo, 30% Merlot, 10% Cab Sauv, 10% Garnacha, and aged for12 months in French oak.

Unlike other classic grape varieties, like Merlot or Cabernet Sauvignon, Tempranillo has a bewildering array of aliases around Spain’s wine regions. In La Rioja, Navarra, Somontano (in the Pyrenees) and the Levante (south eastern Murcia and Valencia), it is known by its international name, “Tempranillo”. However, it is also called “Cencibel” in La Mancha and Valdepeñas; “Ull de Llebre” (eye of the hare) in Catalonia; “Tinta de País” or “Tinto Fino” in Ribera del Duero; “Tinta de Toro” in Toro; and completely lacking in imagination, it is called Tinto de Madrid” for wines from…as you might guess… Barcelona. Tempranillo is used in quality winemaking outside Spain, in Portugal (where it is known as Tinta Roriz in the Douro, and is a principal component of Port and as “Aragonêz” in the Alentejo region east of Lisbon) and extensively in Argentina and Mexico.

Just as Armagnac derives its flavour from the barrels in which it is aged, so does Tempranillo leach the vanillins from the oak. The wines of Bodegas Urbina are made in the traditional idiom: 18 months to two years in American oak and then a considerable time in bottle for release. They are tawny in colour with aromas of baked fruits (plums and prunes), and secondary notes of beeswax, mushroom and old wood. The Pago di Carraovejas Crianza from Ribera del Duero, mixing Tempranillo with the Bordeaux varieties, is raised in new French oak. The warp and weft here consequently is much finer; the tannins grainier and the fruit more instantly aromatic. Tempranillo also features - minus the strong oak component - in the more joven styles of Rioja and in a blend with Bonarda (a Piedmontese variety) in the Villa Vieja damson fruit buster.