Y viva Espãna

After our recent travels to the New World, it is time to get traditional again. Spain has been making wine for 5000 years, but wine is a very different drink since the advent of electricity and temperature controlled stainless steel tanks. Moreover, although Spain was a huge exporter of wine at the end of the 19th century, it did not have a happy 20th, at least not for two thirds of it. World wars one and two and a civil war which left the country for nearly 40 years under a dictatorship. So in terms of modern wine-making, Spain’s history is recent, greatly helped by entry into the European Union in 1986. So where is it now? It has more land planted to vines than any other country on the planet, yet it is only the third largest producer: it is generally hot and dry, so that many vines are planted much less densely to share the scarce water resource sometimes as low as 1000 vines a hectare (ten times less than can be found in Bordeaux). But it is also a country with mountains and rivers, a cold Atlantic coastline and a warm Mediterranean one, and many different soils. In short, you can make a diverse range of wine styles. Spain has some of the most exciting young wine-makers on the planet, who’ve been to wine-school, who’ve travelled the world to learn from the best and are now creating wines that are quite unique.

So please join me in a mix of the traditional and the revolutionary: four whites and six reds, together with a perhaps more authentic accompanying finger platter than the usual effort. You’ll be relieved to hear there are no plans for a chorus of “Y viva Espana”

About your host

Richard Pearey DipWSET, Chairman of the Society, has been passionate about wine from an embarrassingly early age. He began creating a cellar in 1984 and despite (or perhaps because of) a long career in advertising, film and sports marketing, then men’s luxury shirts, has been drinking steadily ever since. His addiction to the grape has led many of his friends to hand over their wine cellars to his care. He has organised and hosted wine evenings as corporate or staff entertainment for city firms, marketing agencies and private clients, from 8 to 200 people. He has run a wine course for friends, his own wine club – Who Nose – since 1985 and his old school dining society, the oldest in the world, for 23 years. He co-founded a wine event company, We Don’t Spit, in 2013 and learned to spit, at which point he began his official wine qualifications. He completed his Diploma in lockdown and works part time in Hedonism Wine in Mayfair , whilst now pursuing his ultimate dream of becoming a Master of Wine, of which there are still only 425 in the world. Part of this 3-5 year course involves blind tasting 24 wines from anywhere in the world. So he is hoping tasting with Society Members will help!