The Best of Rueda Wine Tasting with Tim Atkin MW & Beth Willard

A tasting showcasing the wines selected from the Tim Atkin MW Rueda Top 100 Report written by Beth Willard.

“Rueda is a region whose wines deserve a lot more attention for their quality and complexity. Verdejo may be the main grape, but its distinctive soils, varied sub-zones and talented winemakers are the protagonists. With wines that offer both immediate appeal and an enviable ability to age, the DO is one of the most innovative and exciting regions of Spain.” Tim Atkin MW

Think you know Rueda? It’s time to take another look. One of Spain’s great white regions, it is home to some of the country’s most complex and age-worthy wines.

For the past three years, we have been visiting Rueda regardless of rain, fog or snow – surely next year in spring?! - and we have tasted hundreds and hundreds of wines. This tasting is the result, and we can now bring together the best of the region’s wineries under one roof, here in London.

What can you expect at the tasting…

The Perfect Score

You will have the chance to taste our first ever 100 point wine from Rueda made by Bodegas De Alberto. This is a very rare Dorado, a wine that was first aged under the sun in demijohns before entering the winery’s 80 year old solera-like barrels. This special release “VORR” (Very Old Rare Rueda) comes from a single cask that hasn’t been touched since 1999. Exciting!

Aged Classics

There will also be plenty of wines from the DO Rueda’s Gran Vino category that shows off the aging potential of the region’s old vines. With a significant number of 100 year old vineyards – the region’s sandier soils were a natural frontier for pesky phylloxera – Rueda can produce impressive complexity. Its stony or canto rodado landscape lends structure to the wines that gracefully unfurls with time.

Our Wine of the Year, Martínsancho’s 2022 Gran Vino (98 points) will be poured. It is a wine with the classic structure and poise of La Seca’s old vines, and while it is still elegantly shy now, its potential to age is enormous. Marqués de Riscal will also be present with their classy Limousin 2024, a wine layered with creamy texture and balanced with the region’s hallmark acidity.

Exploring the Limits

Rueda is a region of impressive innovation. Many wines in the region are now fermented and aged in amphora (or tinaja), like Emilio Pita’s Terracota 2024. From the sandy vineyards of Rubí de Bracamonte, the wine is a beautiful blend of fleshy stone fruit, dried herbal notes and a stony, textured core. On the other hand, Javier Rodríguez (Rodríguez y Sanzo) will bring his Palo Norte, a Verdejo made in the style of Jerez with a touch of flor and long aging in Sherry botas. A fabulous curiosity that is well worth trying!

A Wine for Every Occasion

While many of Rueda’s wines are worthy of long cellaring, it is important to remember that not all of us have the patience to wait! Lucky for us, the quality of the region’s young wines keeps improving every year: they are honest and authentic expressions of this exceptional terroir.

José Pariente continues to produce young white wines with great typicity, blending some of their best, old vines from across the region. They are wines that offer the elegance of sandier soils and the muscular frame of vines planted on stonier terrain, as well as the complexity that comes from fermentations in a mix of concrete, stainless steel and foudre.

Montxo Martínez, our 2026 Winemaker of the Year from Bodegas Yllera, experiments with concrete and clay in his fermentations which has brought beautiful texture and mouthfeel to his young wines. Yllera’s Sauvignon Blanc also reveals the progress made with this variety, and while it remains very much in the shadow of Verdejo, it is quickly gaining a personality of its own in Rueda.

The Tasting

Only wines with 93 points or more will be on show and 30 wineries will be present, many of whom will be represented by the winemaker.

Producers pouring their wines:

Alvarez y Diez

Arroyo Izquierdo

Avelino Vegas

Beronia

Bodega Cuatro Rayas

Bodega De Alberto

Bodega Eresma

Bodega La Granadilla

Bodega Valdecuevas

Bodegas Campo Eliseo

Bodegas de Los Herederos del Marqués de Riscal

Bodegas Grupo Yllera

Bodegas Muelas de Tordesillas

Bodegas Naia

Bodegas Pandora

Bodegas Pita

Bodegas Protos

Bodegas Rodriguez y Sanzo

Bodegas Verdeal

Bodegas y Viñedos Shaya

Diez Siglos de Verdejo

Felix Lorenzo Cachazo

Finca Montepedroso

Hermanos del Villar

Javier Sanz

José Pariente

Martinsancho Bodegas y Viñedos

Palacio de Bornos

Rámon Bilbao

Viñas Murillo