Move over Cava - sparkling Rioja is on its way

A HOST of Spanish wineries have started adding bubbles to red Rioja.

Eight vineyards are now producing sparkling versions of the traditional vino.

It comes after Rioja’s regulatory council created a new sparkling category, ‘espumosos de Calidad Rioja’, with bodegas included Muga, Faustino and Cune jumping on the bandwagon.

Last year saw 389 million bottles of Rioja sold worldwide while in the UK, it accounts for 37.8% of sales of Spanish wine.

Sales rose by 3.2% last year with an average price of around €7 a bottle.

Javier Pascual, from wine magazine La Prensa del Rioja, said: “Producing fizzy wine is the new fashion in Rioja and it is basically to diversify a brand which is doing very well.

“They are not trying to compete in the fizzy market with prosecco, champagne or cava . . . but simply want to offer customers something new.”

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Laurence Dollimore

Laurence Dollimore is a Spanish-speaking, NCTJ-trained journalist with almost a decade’s worth of experience.
The London native has a BA in International Relations from the University of Leeds and and an MA in the same subject from Queen Mary University London.
He earned his gold star diploma in multimedia journalism at the prestigious News Associates in London in 2016, before immediately joining the Olive Press at their offices on the Costa del Sol.
After a five-year stint, Laurence returned to the UK to work as a senior reporter at the Mail Online, where he remained for two years before coming back to the Olive Press as Digital Editor in 2023.
He continues to work for the biggest newspapers in the UK, who hire him to investigate and report on stories in Spain.
These include the Daily Mail, Telegraph, Mail Online, Mail on Sunday and The Sun and Sun Online.
He has broken world exclusives on everything from the Madeleine McCann case to the anti-tourism movement in Tenerife.

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