Macabeo

Macabeo leads a double life. In Catalonia it is the volume grape of Cava, supplying fresh apple and citrus fruit and a generous, easy body to the blend. Two hundred kilometres west in Rioja it is called Viura, and it is the grape behind almost every white Rioja ever made — including the oxidative, barrel-aged bottlings that spend a decade in cask and come out tasting of hazelnut, dried apricot and old wood.

Same variety, entirely different intent. That range is possible because Macabeo is fundamentally a neutral grape: moderate acidity, thin-skinned, not strongly aromatic, and therefore an unusually honest carrier of whatever the winemaker and the site put into it. Picked early and fermented cool it is crisp, faintly floral and forgettable in the best way. Left to hang, fermented in oak and aged under a slow trickle of oxygen, it becomes one of the most distinctive white wines in Europe.

It buds late, which makes it useful in frost-prone inland sites, and it crops reliably — two qualities that explain why it is one of the most planted white varieties in Spain. It also crosses the border: in Roussillon it is Maccabéo, where it goes into both dry whites and the fortified Rivesaltes.

The modern white Rioja argument runs straight through this grape. Producers who want freshness pick early and stay in steel; traditionalists insist that Viura only becomes interesting after years in barrel, and that everything before that is just a young wine waiting. Both camps are making the same grape, which is rather the point of it.

The Rioja argument over this grape is genuinely unresolved and worth understanding before buying. The modernist position is that Viura should be picked early, fermented cool in steel and drunk young, giving a clean, citrus-driven white. The traditional position is that it becomes interesting only after years in old oak under slow oxidation, developing hazelnut, dried apricot and a nutty complexity nothing else quite matches.

Both camps are right about their own wines, and the split is unusually stark: a young steel-fermented Viura and a ten-year-old barrel-aged white Rioja share almost no flavour characteristics.

In Cava it is the volume grape rather than the quality one, supplying fruit and body while Xarel·lo supplies structure and ageing capacity. Its late budding makes it valuable in frost-prone inland sites, which is a large part of why it became the most planted white variety in Spain.