winesofvalencia.com

My name is John Maher. The aim of this website is to provide guidance, information and random thoughts on the wines (and some other aspects) of the city and region of Valencia. It has its origins in my own difficulties in finding useful information about the excellent and endlessly varied wine that I found myself trying delightedly when I moved to the city in April 2006. There has been a remarkable surge in the quality of wine throughout Spain. Previously little-known areas like Priorat in Catalonia have produced superstars with prices to match. The region of Valencia (encompassing the three Denominaciones de Origen Alicante, Utiel-Requena and Valencia - plus Vins de la Terra de Castellón and Vino de la Tierra El Terrerazo - as well as producing Cava and independent Vinos de Mesa) had until recently concentrated on the bulk export of wine. The ongoing transformation in the quality of wines has been extraordinary, but received little attention locally, nationally or internationally. Only one in three bottles of wine opened in Valencia is from the region, with consumers still in thrall to Rioja and Ribera del Duero. This website and my corkscrew are on a mission to do something about this.

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We are very pleased to announce the publication of "Valencia Land of Wine: A Winemaker's Selection" (ISBN 9781901990041) by Joan C. Martín. This collection comprises over 60 articles on different wines and bodegas of the Comunidad Valenciana that originally appeared in El País. Here is what it says on the back of the book:

"Joan C. Martín is a prizewinning wine writer and winemaker. In 2005 he won Spain’s prestigious “Juan Mari Arzak National Prize for Gastronomy and the Media”, in 2006 he received an award from the Academia de Gastronomía Valenciana for his writing on Valencian wine, and in 2007 a gala was organized in his honour at Valencia’s Centro Cultural “La Beneficencia” in celebration of his 25 years writing about Valencian wine. This collection consists of articles that originally appeared in El País newspaper, and is the best introduction not only to the wines of the Comunidad Valenciana, but also to the people who make them and the landscape in which they are made. Almost uniquely for a wine writer, he is also a winemaker, who as director of some of the region’s leading wineries has been at the forefront of the transformation in the quality of the wines of the País Valencià. Apart from wine, his family and the land of Valencia, his other great passions are Ireland and the films of the great Irish-American director John Ford, to whose memory Joan dedicated his unforgettable Millennium Cordial Gran Reserva 1994."