Under-the-radar wines from southern Spain

Valencia might be famous for its sweet wines, but the lesser known bottles from the region are well worth a try

One of the best ways to learn about wine is to explore the local vino when you’re on holiday. That doesn’t always happen, of course: you find your favourite restaurant, and you eat the same dish and order the same bottle on repeat.

Valencian wine, for example, wasn’t on my radar when I went to language school in that city back in February, in an attempt to improve my Spanish, but it would have been a dereliction of my duty as a wine writer if I hadn’t done a bit of digging around. And in Valencia that was less easy than you might think – despite the region having some very interesting wines of its own, rioja and ribera del duero were those I found most often on the city’s wine lists.

For more by Fiona Beckett, go to fionabeckett.substack.com