Producer La Mancha, Spain
Valdemoreda
Valdemoreda is a range of straightforward Spanish varietal wines: a Macabeo white, a Garnacha rosado and a Tempranillo red, each labelled with little more than the brand, the vintage and the grape. There is no estate story on the bottle and no appellation seal on the front label, and that is how a lot of good, honest, inexpensive Spanish wine reaches this country.
These are not fine wines and they are not sold as such. They are the sort of bottles that get drunk rather than admired: cold, in quantity, with food, on a weeknight or at a party. They are young and unoaked, and they sit between 12 and 13.5 per cent alcohol, which in Spanish terms means the grapes have been picked for freshness rather than for power.
If you are stocking up for a summer of people in the garden, or you want a house red that does not need thinking about, this is what they are for.
The Macabeo is the same grape Rioja calls Viura, and it makes a light, dry, aperitif-style white. The Garnacha rosado is a dry pink, not a sweet one. The Tempranillo is unoaked, so it tastes of the fruit rather than of the barrel, which makes it a better match for lighter meat than a Rioja Crianza would be.
