Spanish wines look to score

How was a Spanish football fan to wash away the memory of that 5-1 drubbing at the hands of The Netherlands last Friday night? Well, drinking wine and eating tapas in the sun was one way to do it. Certainly, the many Spanish people at Tapas Fantasticas in London last Saturday didn’t seem overly concerned by their side’s dismal display in the World Cup .

Not that Tapas Fantasticas was aimed at Spanish people, mind you (they already seem pretty keen on Spanish food and wine). This outdoor event was targeted squarely at British consumers – and a few incognito wine buyers. Wines By Rioja, the control board and marketing force behind Tapas Fantasticas, was expecting 12,000 punters to pass through the event – held on Potters Field Park next to City Hall – over the course of the weekend.

Despite its name, and the stalls from half a dozen or so of London’s best Spanish restaurants, Tapas Fantasticas was all about the wine. More than 40 bodegas were represented, serving reds, whites and rosés from Rioja’s three distinct growing regions.

“This is just a way to remind English consumers that Rioja is one of the top wine regions in the world,” explained Rebeca Gomez Aiello, international promotions manager for Wines By Rioja. “Each bodega here has a range of between three, four, even five different wines. For us it’s very important that the consumer also finds out that Rioja can produce not just reds but also very high-quality whites and rosés.”

The Rioja denomination of origin dates back to 1925; in 2013, the region’s 75 square miles produced 263 million litres. The UK is Rioja’s biggest foreign market, soaking up 35% of its exports - or 44.7 million bottles a year. Sales were up in both volume and value last year, but Rioja makes up just 3% of the UK wine market, so there’s still scope to grow – which is where Tapas Fantasticas comes in.

The wineries don’t make any money from the event (£3.50 on the door grants visitors four 25ml samples of wine), but with seminars by the likes of Susy Atkins, Olly Smith and Spanish chef Jose Pizarro, Tapas Fantasticas hopes to reinforce the idea of Rioja as a wine for any occasion. “We try to explain how well Rioja wines pair with different types of food, not only Spanish but international cuisine,” Gomez said. “They’re very good, food-friendly wines, and they’re very affordable.”

Certainly, Rioja is well placed to capitalise on the enduring British love affair with Spanish food and drink. You can’t move for new Spanish restaurants in London, and Spanish food businesses can be found from Yorkshire to Narbeth. The major multiples all offer their own take on paella (indeed Asda’s Chicken & Chorizo Paella won the Chairman’s Award at The Grocer Own Label Awards last month). M&S even launched an España ready-meal range in 2012. But it seems to me more could be done to exploit the trend. After all, Spain is the UK’s number-one holiday destination, with 11.7 million visits there last year; we love the place so much one million of us have moved there permanently (as did I – for two years, at least).

World domination is next on the agenda for Rioja’s wineries; with Tapas Fantasticas in its sixth year in London, the event is now being exported to Hamburg, Frankfurt and New York for the first time. The message is clear: Spanish football may rise and fall like Don Quixote on his horse, but the food and the drink is consistent.