Spain beckons wine lovers for its diversity, with its often complex and always drinkable offerings dialing in outstanding quality and great value with focused terroir transparency. Our Top 100 Wines of Spain list is a blend of established names and emerging projects interspersed with a selection of smart buys, all with dynamic winemakers behind them.
Our Spanish wine of this year, the Guímaro Mencía Ribeira Sacra Finca Meixeman 2022, comes from a region renowned for its stunning, terraced vineyards, which are predominantly found along the winding banks of the Sil, Miño, and Cabe rivers. The wine captures Spain’s shift toward site-specific offerings perfectly, showcasing the drinkability that is typical of Ribeira Sacra wines while highlighting the exceptional quality of the 2022 vintage.
The wine is sourced from the terraced Finca Meixeman vineyard in the Amandi subzone of Ribeira Sacra. The single parcel comprises approximately 70 percent mencia, alongside a field blend of caiño, brancellao, merenzao (trousseau), garnacha and negreda. The vineyard features two orientations – southeast and southwest – and has a unique geological profile, with one side granite and the other schist.
The 2022 vintage across much of Spain and Portugal was characterized by hot, dry conditions, with average temperatures reaching record highs due to persistent heat waves of over 40 degrees Celsius (104 Fahrenheit) in many areas. According to data from Spain’s meteorological agency (AEMET) and Portugal’s IPMA, the average temperature across the peninsula was approximately 25.4 degrees Celsius (77.7 Fahrenheit), or about 2.1 degrees above the typical summer average.
While Ribeira Sacra avoided the most extreme heat spikes, it did have to contend with drought. Pedro Rodríguez, the owner and winemaker of Guimaro, explained that the lack of rain meant the vines in the Finca Meixeman vineyard were “suffering a bit by the end of summer,” but that relief came in the first week of September, with a “light but persistent drizzle that lasted about four to five days.”
This rain slightly diluted the grapes but gave the plants about 100 days to recover. The result was a linear and floral yet concentrated and balanced wine. Around 7,000 bottles of the Finca Meixeman 2022 were produced, making it one of the most accessible bottlings of all of Guimaro’s parcel-specific wines.
At No. 2 comes one of our best deals from Spain this year, the Bodegas y Viñedos Ponce Bobal Manchuela Pino 2023, which only costs about $30 and is made from the workhorse bobal grape.
Bobal can be rustic, with a high potential for tannins and acid, and in the past it was mostly used for bulk wine production. But Juan Antonio Ponce, the owner and wineaker for Bodegas y Vinedos, has taken the grape to a new level with the Pino, which comes from 40-year-old vines planted on a small, elevated and limestone-rich plot in the Manchuela D.O.C. It is a meaty bobal and reminiscent of a powerful syrah, with a Rhoneesque touch, yet brighter and showing ample tension, linearity and lots of minerality.
And don’t miss Ponce’s other place-sensitive wines, both bobals and garnachas. The more delicate, elegant and transparent La Estrecha 2023 (No. 16), for example, is a completely different kind of bobal that’s soulful, textural and almost Burgundian.
Rioja took three spots among the Spanish Top 10 this year, with the Bodega Lanzaga Rioja Las Beatas 2021 leading the way as the only wine we rated 100 points – the fourth perfect score Las Beatas has received after the striking 2016, 2018 and 2019 bottlings.
The cooler 2021 vintage in Rioja produced many well-balanced wines that are refined, nuanced, complex and classical in style, and Las Beatas is at the apex. The full flavor of the 1.9-hectare Las Beatas vineyard comes through on the nose of this wine through floral perfumes, precision, polish and length. It’s a complete and multidimensional offering with spot-on symmetry between fruit flesh and mineral bones.
According to Telmo Rodriguez, the ubiquitous Spanish producer who heads Bodega Lanzaga, among his many other projects, 1,521 bottles of Las Beatas were made this year, and the average price is around $300 – on the high end in terms of fitting within our selection criteria for our Top 100 lists, which put quality and price first. We also consider each wine’s “wow” factor and general availability.
The other two wines from Rioja in the top 10 this year represent two distinctive winemaking styles. Our No. 8 wine, the Bodegas Artuke Rioja La Condenada 2022, is an austere, precise and pristine wine – a unique, single-vineyard expression from an artisanal, biodynamic winery. Although it has a relatively with lower pH, it also carries plenty of tension. It comes from the 100-year-old, 0.75-hectare La Condenada vineyard, which is set at an altitude of 550 meters in the village of Baños de Ebro. The vineyard, like the wine, is mostly tempranillo with graciano, garnacha and some palomino fino, which are all represented in the final blend. The wine is reasonably priced at $90, although only about 2,000 bottles were made.
The Bodegas Roda Rioja Cirsion 2021 (No. 9) is a modern, fresh yet opulent expression from one of the biggest wine houses of Haro. It blends their best terroirs, including a higher percentage of Graciano (14 percent) from Haro and Rioja Media, conferring a unique touch of spice and pepperiness to the Rioja Alta tempranillos in the blend.
There are several other exciting wines from Rioja on this list, including a super drinkable and ethereal garnacha, the Palacios Remondo Rioja Quiñón de Valmira 2022 (No. 56) and the rare, legendary López de Heredia Rioja Gran Reserva Viña Tondonia White 2004 (No. 96), which is only made in special vintages. Although superb, their high price makes them less accessible for average consumers, which is why they are not in the Top 10.
The same can be said for the top wines from Ribera del Duero, such as the 2025 release of Vega Sicilia Ribera del Duero Reserva Especial Unico NV (No. 58) – a mix of 2011, 2012 and 2013 – as well as the Dominio de Es Ribera del Duero La Mata 2022 (No. 100). Both of these wines sell for about $500 per bottle, which pushes our “value” element to the limit.
There are four wines from Galicia in our Top 10 and 16 in our Top 100, highlighting a region known for its temperate Atlantic climate, expansive coastline and complex landscapes, characterized by dramatic cliffs, fragmented mountain ranges and an array of meandering rivers.
There are also a number of excellent sherries on this list, whether finos, manzanillas, amontillados or unfortified white wines. The JamesSuckling.com team – including James, his wife, Marie, Creative Director Ryan Chau and I – made a special trip to Jerez this year (check out the video, above) and discovered several exceptional examples. These included our No. 3 wine, the Bodegas San Francisco Javier Jerez Fino Viña Corrales Balbaína L.2024, as well as the González Byass Jerez Tío Pepe Cuatro Palmas Amontillado (No. 11), the Equipo Navazos Montilla-Moriles La Bota de Amontillado 117 (No. 43), the Luis Pérez Jerez La Barajuela Cortado 2017 (No. 45), and the Reta Spain Miraflores Alta Ta/Mira Blanco 2022 (No. 87).
For a thorough drenching in Spain’s diversity, try out the nervy, gastronomic and saline albariños from Rías Baixas on this list, like the Rodrigo Méndez Rías Baixas Sálvora 2023 (No. 5) and Bodegas Fulcro Rías Baixas a Cesteira 2022 (No. 12), or the elegant and intriguing Mencia-based blends from Bierzo, such as the César Marquez Mencia Bierzo Sufreiral Vino de Paraje 2021 (No. 7).
We hope you enjoy exploring this list. You’re spoiled for choice here, but finding great value with eminent drinkability won’t be a difficult proposition.
– Zekun Shuai and Jacobo Garcia-Andrade, Senior Editors
Note: The list of wines below is comprised of bottles tasted and rated in 2024 by the tasters at JamesSuckling.com. You can sort the wines by vintage, score and alphabetically by winery name. You can also search for specific wines in the search bar.
