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If you are an aficionado of fine wine, Spain is the place for you.
With a wine-making tradition spanning two millennia, and with more vineyard acreage than any other country in the world, Spain is producing wines of increasingly good quality.
Wine in Andalucia is produced in four “Denominación de Origen” areas (equivalent to France's Appellation d'origine controllée).
Jerez – Andalucia produces one of the most famous wines in the world, Sherry, grown in the area around Jerez de la Frontera in the province of Cádiz
Malaga and Sierras de Malaga – Traditionally the sweet Malaga desert wines additionally a handful of innovative vintners who are now prodicing interesting red table wines. Located in the Province of Malaga.
Montilla Moriles – Traditionally Sweet desert wines and fortified wines. Today includes a wde range of production.
Condado de Huelva – A selection of dry and sweet white wines
In addition, there are several Comarcas Vinícolas (smaller wine making districts), not to mention a handful of innovative vintners who are starting to produce interesting red table wines.
In the Beginning
Nobody knows when wine-making was first introduced to Andalusia. It could have been brought there by the Greeks 2,500 years ago or even earlier, by seafaring Phoenician traders from the east. What we do know for sure is that by the time of the Romans wine was being made in Andalusia in a big way, and the activity has continued more or less uninterruptedly ever since. Wine was appreciated even during the centuries of Moorish domination: the Koran frowns on the consumption of alcohol, but the Moors made wine and imbibed it with gusto, for "medicinal" purposes. They even introduced the technique of distilling into Spain. The Spanish word for still, alambique, is Arabic in origin, as is the English and Spanish word, "alcohol".
From the 15th century onwards, Andalusian wines were shipped to appreciative drinkers elsewhere in Europe, particularly England, where there was a great fondness for Sack (as Sherry was called) and sweet wines from Málaga. This happy situation prevailed until the 19th century when European vineyards were affected by oidium (a fungus), followed by an even more devastating plague of Phylloxera, the American vine root louse, which first appeared in Bordeaux in 1868 and spread to Jerez and Málaga 20 years later. Jerez's vineyards were replanted with plague-resistant American rootstock, but some areas never fully recovered.
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