Rediscover Spain: what we're pouring by the glass this summer

For a lot of us, Spanish wine barely needs an introduction. Rioja is a name even the most casual wine drinker already knows, and Albariño from the leafy, rain-soaked northwest of Galicia, in Rías Baixas, has gone from holiday discovery to a regular fixture on wine lists. There's also lot's of it available: Spain produced 3.1 billion litres of wine in 2024, one of the top three wine-producing countries in the world by volume, and sent over 135 million litres of it to the UK alone. That's a lot of bottles, though a good chunk of what Spain exports leaves the country as simple bulk wine, shipped in tankers to be bottled somewhere else entirely.

Away from those well-known regions and budget blends, there are hundreds of smaller producers working on a much smaller scale, making regionally focused wines from the wide range of grape varieties native to the country. There's always something new to find if you go looking, and our buyer Nic went looking this year: and he discovered some wonderful wines from producers working in Bierzo and Cariñena, regions perhaps you haven't tried. Plus a generation in Rioja Alavesa quietly rewriting what "Rioja" even means.

So if you've had enough of oaky Rioja reds or love Albariño but aren't sure what to try next, this selection is for you. This summer, late July through August, we're pouring three of these wines by the glass across all our bars, and featuring more new discoveries on our shelves. Read on to find out what we've got lined up.

By the glass this summer

Three wines are pouring across all our venues throughout the summer.

• UKAN, NAKU 2025 This is the one we're most excited to have on. NAKU is UK-exclusive to Reserve Wines: nowhere else in the country is currently pouring it. It's a young, fresh Rioja Alavesa Tempranillo, red cherry and wild strawberry with a chalky thread underneath, soft tannins, and genuinely good with a slight chill, which is not something you can usually say about Rioja. Pour it generously.

• El Escocés Volante, Manga del Brujo Blanco 2024, a high-altitude white from Calatayud, Aragón, made by Norrel Robertson MW, a Scotsman who settled in the region for its old-vine Garnacha. Ripe peach and apricot, a thread of white spice, and a long, saline finish from vines planted as high as 1,000 metres.

• K Pilota Getariako Txakolina, a Basque Txakoli grown a few hundred metres from the Cantabrian Sea. Electric acidity, a mineral streak and a clean, salty finish. This wine can have a little effervescence in the bottle when opened - so the locals have developed a technique of pouring it from a height to force out the bubbles, leaving you with a zesty still wine. Pour it cold with anything from the sea.

Ask your site for exact availability by date.

A different side of Rioja

NAKU comes from UKAN Winery, and UKAN is the reason Rioja is even part of this story. Most Rioja on a UK shelf is labelled by how long it aged: Crianza, Reserva, Gran Reserva. That system says nothing about which village or vineyard the grapes came from, because for decades that wasn't really the point; Rioja was mostly made by blending fruit from across the whole region into a consistent house style.

Koldo Eguren, fifth generation of a well-known Rioja family, is doing something different. His vineyards sit in Rioja Alavesa, one of three sub-zones inside the wider DOCa Rioja, and instead of blending across the region he's bottling single vineyards from named Cru villages around Laguardia, some planted as far back as the 1940s. NAKU is his young, everyday expression of that project; the flagship UKAN red (94pts Tim Atkin, 93pts Peñín) and the genuinely rare UKAN Blanco (94pts Tim Atkin, only 2,302 bottles made) sit at the top of the range. Full story in our UKAN producer profile.

Two regions worth meeting

Away from Rioja entirely, we've found two producers doing something that runs against the big, oaky idea of Spanish red altogether: lighter fruit, less new oak, wild yeasts instead of commercial ones.

Cantarina, Bierzo

New to us this summer. A family winery near Villafranca del Bierzo, on the Camino de Santiago, bringing century-old vineyards that had been sold off to bigger producers back in-house and fermenting them with wild, indigenous yeasts. Their Mencía red is young-vine, fresh and crunchy, made to be poured without ceremony; their white comes from vines planted in 1903–1910 and made in just 1,000 bottles. Read the story in our Cantarina producer profile.

Libre y Salvaje, Cariñena, Aragón

Back in the range after we retasted them in March. Centuries-old Cariñena and Garnacha vines, farmed organically, vinified in a four-level winery that moves fruit by gravity alone, with no pumps anywhere in the building. The wines are deep, dark and full of verve. Full story in our Libre y Salvaje producer profile.

Also on the shelf this summer

A few more bottles from the wider range, worth seeking out alongside the three featured producers:

• PITA Finca la Cantera 2016, a decade-old, barrel-fermented Verdejo from Rueda that's still going strong and should really cost a lot more than it does.
• Adaras La Lluvia Blanco and Adaras Aldea Tinto, an organic white-and-red duo from DO Almansa, back in the range after a break, great value and genuinely good in the glass.

Why we're talking about these wines now.

None of this is about walking away from Rioja, Albariño or Ribera del Duero. They're famous for good reason and they're not going anywhere on our shelves. This is about what sits alongside them: a new generation inside Rioja itself, and two regions that most people trading up from the supermarket have never had the chance to try.

Find NAKU by the glass at any of our bars this summer, or head to Didsbury to see the full range side by side. We think you'll find something to fall for.