93

2019 Altolandon Mil Historias Bobal Organic Wine, Manchuela

( £10.99-£12.95, 14%, Bush Vines, Cambridge Wine Merchants, Hay Wines, Kwoff, other stockists from Alliance Wine )

Here’s a paradox: Bobal is Spain’s second most planted red grape, but doesn’t have much of an image outside the country. Maybe that’s starting to change, thanks to wines like this one from the talented Roselia Molina in the high-altitude Manchuela appellation, where she makes a range of low-intervention reds and whites from organically farmed vineyards at 1,100 metres. Wonderfully peppery, juicy and fresh with amazing vibrancy, plum, wild strawberry and black cherry fruit and a long, zingy finish. Stunning value at around £12.

BuyDrinking window: 2021-26Similar Wines: £10-15, 90-94, Spain, Red, Bobal
93

2018 Naia, Rueda

( £11.89, 13.5%, Bentley's Wine Merchants, Blanco & Gomez, Connolly's Wines, Harrogate Wines, John Hattersley Wines, Kwoff, Mill Hill Wines, North & South Wines )

Made from old vines grown at 750 metres in the village of La Seca, this is a brilliant value Verdejo from Bodegas Naia, which tastes every bit as good it looks. Combining unoaked and lightly wooded components, both of them aged on their lees for four months, it has a winning combination of pear and citrus fruit framed by subtle oak spice and a taut, chalky, mineral-edged tang.

BuyDrinking window: 2020-23Similar Wines: £10-15, 90-94, Spain, White, Verdejo