You can’t know everything and it is clear that in life there is nothing like being advised. Wine guides are published for this purpose, most of them on an annual basis.
For those already initiated in the world of wine, and for those who are not so initiated, here are some more or less personal, but all of them highly recommended.
Gourmets Wine Guide 2020
This guide is the oldest of Spain’s wine publications. The wines are tasted blind, i.e. without knowing the brand, by the members of its Tasting Committee, made up of 25 practicing professionals, including oenologists, sommeliers, journalists and active tasters.
Over the course of 2019, this group of experts blind tasted around 4,360 Spanish wines, of which 2,098 are reviewed, commented on and rated.
Peñín Guide to the Wines of Spain 2020
The Peñín Guide to the Wines of Spain, the best-selling guide in Spain, has broken a record number of wines tasted in its latest edition, 11,800.
The new edition of the Peñín Guide to the Wines of Spain celebrates its 30th anniversary. Reds are the largest category, followed by whites, sparkling wines, rosés and, finally, fortified and sweet wines. Once again this year, Jerez is the most highly rated appellation of origin, ahead of Montilla-Moriles, Ribeira Sacra, Valdeorras and Priorat.
In addition, for the first time in the Guide’s history, six wines have reached 99 points, the highest score it awards and which does not necessarily appear in every edition.
The tasting team is led by Carlos González, its director, with the collaboration of three other tasters, Javier Luengo, editorial manager, Alberto Ruffoni and Boris Olivas, head of the Tasting School.
Proensa 2020 Guide
This is a personal guide prepared by specialized journalist Andrés Proensa. Since 2002 it has been publishing this manual, which reviews only the best wines of Spain.
The Proensa 2020 Guide is the eighteenth annual appearance of the selection of the best wines of Spain. The publication maintains its traditional outline, but the author has made changes to qualify the highest ratings and has adjusted the rating criteria to make it stricter and limit the number of wines included.
In this edition, the number of five hundred wines reviewed was once again far exceeded, which is the goal with which the director of PlanetAVino sets up his personal selection of the best. And no less than 61 of them are at the top, with scores of 98 points (28 wines), 99 (23) and eleven with 100 points.
El País Wine Yearbook 2020
Specialized journalists María Pilar Molestina and Javier Rueda are in charge of directing and tasting the Wine Yearbook. They also count with the collaboration of Luis García Torrens.
The volume, which celebrates its 26th edition this year, contains more than 4,000 wines tasted and covers all appellations of origin. On this occasion, 69 wines have reached the excellence band, the Honor Roll, with scores between 96 and 100 points.
ABC 2020 Wine Guide
Juan Fernández-Cuesta is a big name in wine criticism. His passionate nature has driven him to publish since 2008 one of the most relevant and widely distributed guidebooks in Spain. No less than 90,000 copies!
Between January and August, he travels throughout Spain to select some 1,300 wines. It is then that he asks for samples in order to be able to recatarize them. He uses the 100-point measure and puts it better than anyone else: 75 points would be like a 5, a pass. From this point on, they are added 5 by 5. 80 would be a 6; 85 would be a 7; 90 would be an 8, and so on.
What makes this guide unique is that only wines from 90 points and above appear in it, but also only labels below 30 euros in store.
Everyday Wine Guide 2019-2020
This is the tenth edition of this guide published by OpusWine, publisher of the magazine ‘MiVino’.
Among its peculiarities is that it is the only one that has wine and gastronomy professionals to analyze and select the best and cheapest wines in Spain, all of them under 10 euros retail price and with at least 80 points of valuation in the tasting.
A total of 800 wines have been selected, with more than 80 rating points.
La Semana Vitivinícola Wine and Oil Guide 2019
Semana Vitivinícola, Spain’s leading wine magazine, has been publishing its own wine guide for nine years.
This edition of the guide maintains a structure that gives it personality, with the classification of the wines according to the main varietal with which they are made. With more than 1,669 wines tasted, it is one of the Spanish guides that best represents the reality of the Spanish wine industry.
The 2019 edition significantly expands the varietal spectrum and includes wines from 58 different grape varieties and extra virgin olive oils. Each of these varieties is presented with an introduction, as well as a synthesis of the basic oenological aptitudes of the variety and its olive equivalent.
The technical tastings are signed by specialized journalist Antonio Casado, and the guide includes wines from 345 wineries and oil mills throughout Spain.
Blog
