The 2005 edition of our guide to fine Spanish wines, La Guía MMV, is now available. We tasted almost every wine produced in Spain in order to produce it, and believe it covers the 743 best wines in the country.

La Guía MMV is now on the market in Spanish. In the next few months we will be offering an online version for download and consultation on this website.

La Guía MMV contains more than 1,100 pages with consistent and detailed profiles of 743 wines and the wineries that produce them. The label of every single wine is included in order to help the reader identify the wine. In addition, readers will find technical information, tasting notes, recommended ageing and suggested food parings. Printed on bible paper, it’s in hardcover cloth binding and elegantly boxed.

The wines do not receive a points rating. The valuation is by “red seals”, a system similar to the Italian Gambero Rosso guide’s tre bicchieri. We award up to a maximum of three seals to the wines. There are also wines with no seals, but their inclusion in La Guía is in itself a distinction given its mission to select only the best wines in Spain.

Steven Spurrier, who attended our annual Red Seals tasting in Madrid in November, has written that “Spain is the most interesting wine country in the world at this moment. her top of the range wines deserve close attention, for they are less influenced by international varietals than Italy, more consistent than most wines from France and avoid the high food-unfriendly alcohol of much of the New World. They are not copying, but creating.”

His colleague Jancis Robinson, who attended the previous year’s event, also enjoyed tasting such a rich and varied selection of fine Spanish wines. Jancis was particularly impressed with an unusual non-D.O. wine from Mallorca made from obscure local grape varieties. She subsequently wrote in her Financial Times column that “Spain has a greater area of vineyard than any other country in the world but has only recently become truly excited about wine. One of many results is the rediscovery of these proud indigenous grape varieties. Another is that ambition, money and technology have been flowing (in that order) in to all sorts of Hispanic nooks and crannies so that the Spanish wine map needs to be redrawn almost on a monthly basis. A third is the rapid development of wine as a serious leisure interest for better-heeled Spaniards.”

It appears, then, that the new elite wines of Spain have little or nothing in common with the traditional image that many of the world’s wine consumers have of Spanish wines. To illustrate, this is the list of the wines awarded three red seals in La Guía MMV:

• Aalto PS 2001 Tinto, Ribera del Duero
• Amancio 2001 Tinto, Rioja
• Aurus 2001 Tinto, Rioja
• Casta Diva Cosecha Miel 2002 Dulce, Alicante
• Chivite Colección 125 Vendimia Tardía 2002 Dulce, Navarra
• Cirsion 2003 Tinto, Rioja
• Clos Mogador 2002 Tinto, Priorat
• Contino Viña de Olivo 2001 Tinto, Rioja
• Dalmau Reserva 2000 Tinto, Rioja
• Finca Dofí 2002 Tinto, Priorat
• Finca Garbet de Castillo Perelada 2001 Tinto, Empordà-Costa Brava
• Hiru 3 Racimos 2002 Tinto, Rioja
• Leda Viñas Viejas 2002 Tinto, VT Castilla y León
• L’Ermita 2002 Tinto, Priorat
• Malleolus de Valderramiro 2002 Tinto, Ribera del Duero
• Mauro Vendimia Seleccionada 2000 Tinto, VT Castilla y León
• Molino Real Dulce 2002, Málaga
• Pérez Pascuas Gran Selección Gran Reserva 1999 Tinto, Ribera del Duero
• Pintia 2002 Tinto, Toro
• Pujanza Norte 2002 Tinto, Rioja
• Remírez de Ganuza Reserva 2001 Tinto, Rioja
• Termanthia 2002 Tinto, Toro
• Torre Muga 2001 Tinto, Rioja
• Valbuena 5ª Reserva 2000 Tinto, Ribera del Duero
• Vega Sicilia Único Gran Reserva 1994 Tinto, Ribera del Duero
• Vega Sicilia Único Reserva Especial Gran Reserva, Ribera del Duero
• Viña El Pisón 2002 Tinto, Rioja