Expert’s Choice: Navarra’s native Garnacha rises once more

In Death in the Afternoon, Ernest Hemingway tells us that Pamplona had changed since he had been there as a younger man, but after a drink (we assume more than one) it seemed to go back to the way it always was. Wines from Navarra have also changed over time, but they are returning to their roots, reflecting the character of their vineyards – as Hemingway would put it – as they always were.

Scroll down to see tasting notes and scores for 18 Navarra wines to try

To the southwest of Bilbao in Spain’s north, the Navarra region’s capital Pamplona is full of raucous tapas bars and is the setting for San Fermín, the festival that Hemingway famously evoked in The Sun also Rises. Up in the region’s northeast, Navarra borders France where the Pyrenees form a natural frontier of dramatic peaks, and dense forests. Dotted with ancient caves dripping with stalactites, this is home to the witches and wizards of Navarran folklore.

Heading south, through wild mountains under expansive skies, the protected biosphere natural park of Bardenas Reales creates an entirely different scene. Just as Navarra meets Aragón, this moon-like landscape is a semi-desert area of rocky canyons and plateaus. Las Bardenas would have made Neil Armstrong feel at home.

Garnacha revival

Planted at the highest latitude in Spain, more than 10,000ha of vines make up the Denominación de Origen Navarra. The re-emerging star is Garnacha, the region’s indigenous grape. As Sarah Jane Evans MW notes in The Wines of Northern Spain, Garnacha made up 90% of vineyard plantings at the start of the 1980s, but a boom in plantings of international varieties saw that figure fall drastically. According to the DO’s register for 2022, today international varieties total 35.5% of the vineyard area and Tempranillo is the single most important variety (30.1%), although Garnacha (red and white) is coming back with 27.6% of plantings.

While some very good wines are made using international varieties, Garnacha dominates my selection of Navarra wines here. Many come from old vines, some 100 years old, and one sub-zone stands out, with several wines coming from the Baja Montaña area, particularly the town of San Martín de Unx. Here, Garnacha tends to be very fresh with marked acidity and striking herbal and garrigue aromas.

It is pleasing to see some great examples of traditional, dark-coloured rosado in a market dominated by pale pink. Rosado is the second most important wine in Navarra – nearly 9.2 million litres were made in 2022, according to the DO’s figures, while Navarra is still the leading region in Spain in rosé sales and makes up 30% of the domestic market.

The quality of the wines in this selection shows the potential of Navarra to make some of the best Garnachas in Spain. Navarra offers incredible value and, as producers place more emphasis on their unique terroir, it is worth delving deeper into the region’s mountain vineyards and old vines. It’s yet another example of a region in Spain returning to its past… to the way it always was.

Navarra: 18 wines to try

Wines were tasted non-blind

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