Winetrackworld - North Spain and France

In order after Rioja:

Navarra: reds, a bit more earthy than Rioja.
Basque country: a variety of wines, this one if you a looking for a white that's distinctly different to confuse guests:
https://www.agerretxakolina.com/
Jurançon near Pau is famous for its doux - white pudding wines that have a touch of acidity, I really like them - an alternative to Sauterne. There's a co-op that does tasting in Gan.
Madiran: a rustic earthy red to contrast with light fruity Bordeaux reds.
Bordeaux: Reds, whites, sweet whites. If I'm hoping to please myself and guests it'll be a Cru Bourgeois red from the Medoc.

Chateau Poujeaux, 'president's wine', Moulis Medoc. I shall be driving down there at the first opportunity. Their vintages do vary a bit so you have to be there to sample. Then have a nice drive out and camp at Hourtin. This is very good, tried and tested, advice.
NB I was taken there by a French oenologist (family friend) who reckoned he'd worked on all the major estates in the area and this was the best value/quality.

Have you got a halfway decent wine merchant close to home that has some good Spanish wine? You're looking for something like Lay & Wheeler who will run tastings and offers. Sign up and go freeload on the tastings to find out what you like.

I'll put in a suggestion of Priorat area wines from Southern Catalonia (inland from Camabrils), there are some lovely reds produced there. Sauternes village has a cracking shop for sweet whites, they are online, I passed a pleasant couple of hours there tasting sweet whites. St Emilion has several places in the village for wine tasting. Something from one of the Garagiste makers will probably fit the bill.

+1 for the Priorat suggestion, I live in Southern Cataluña about 20km from the Priorat. Since getting it's DOQ certification, prices have increased dramatically. The next door region of Montsant is equally good but a fraction of the price as is my favourite Terra Alta. Up towards Barcelona there is the Penedes which does good white and of course Cataluña is the home of some very good Cavas. We are friendly with a local small bodega that produces award winning organic wine and cava. If you're planning a road trip, let me know and I'll give you more detailed info.

Great idea, however, since Brexit the limit you can bring into the UK is 24 bottles per person. If you don't need more than this then go for it.

I work for a UK-wide wine merchant so feel free to PM me for any help/advice

Nothing -ve about any recommendations ^^^
Would add...
- cahors; never tasted the legendary 'black wine' which was, apparently, a challenge but today's versions are good.
- languedoc-roussillon; paul mas is probably the best known name
- anything from Torres; at the top end esmerelda, milmanda and la plana are exceptional
- my personal preferred red in bordeaux is pomerol; as for dessert wines..chateau filhot is invariably excellent but needs a few years to bring out nuances
- normandy for cidre and calvados

Don't under-estimate how big these geographical areas are so you could be logging up mega-miles!
In addition, as most know from experience, some wines which taste good at the vineyard don't travel well.
Might post more later; off to check cellar for more inspiration...

Reds

- Ribera del Duero (rioja is for tourists .... well that's what my Special friend tells me)

- Fronton (SW French red) is lovely

White

- Rueda is excellent but has to be very very cold

Brands

Anything Jaboulet is nice

Avoid Cune

Ribera del Duero - a few are really good; recently had a 2003 Pesquera which was exceptional and have been drinking 2016 Muga which is very good
Rioja ranges from moderate to sublime and, on average, is better than Ribera del Duero; superior examples are from La Rioja Alta - gran reserva 890 or 904.
Jaboulet is a long way from bordeaux and now produce a reasonable range of unexceptional wines; I've had vintages of La Chapelle going back to the 80's which were truly memorable but am yet to be convinced that they've recovered their mojo following the change of ownership.
As for avoiding Cvne - why? Try some of their imperials and gran reservas; they should cause you to re-assess.

Rioja has to be done, just because it's Spain's most famous wine, but its quite touristy and you will have more fun visiting smaller wineries in more off the beaten track areas.

A couple of northern Spain's best kept secrets are Rias Baixas, Ribeira Sacra, and Bierzo.

The Albariño from the far north west is, for me, Spain's signature white grape and it knocks the socks off the Verdejo from Rueda. Likewise, a decent Godello from here has an ethereal quality, especially if you can track down one with a bit of oak.

Mencia from Bierzo is a cracking red grape that needs more exposure. Again, worth tracking down some good examples. Petalos (and the more expensive siblings) is a good wine to try.

If you nip back into France around Perpignan there's a fantastic area (Languedoc-Roussillon) that used to have a bad reputation for producing cheap plonk, but now puts out some incredible red blends similar to Côtes du Rhône.

Great idea, however, since Brexit the limit you can bring into the UK is 24 bottles per person. If you don’t need more than this then go for it.

I've not actually got a ferry from France since 'proper' brexit, is a vehicle check a likely thing?

Thanks for all the suggestions. At worst it sounds like a great way to spend 2 weeks

Lots of good suggestions above. It sounds like you're more interested in visiting the regions at the moment than specific wine recommendations.

I really enjoy northern Spain as a place to visit. Rías Baixas and the local grape albariño are quite unique (and really good with food). But it's a bit of a dog-leg coming from Santander and doubling back adds a lot of miles. Generally, I prefer the wines of Ribera del Duero to Rioja - the wineries tend to be a bit more adventurous, the grapes are grown higher, and the wines tend to be much better value - but it's a less pretty landscape than Rioja. Rioja has the fancy wineries but that's not necessarily a good thing! Laguardia and Logroño are good bases.

To the east, Priorat is a spectacular landscape to visit but generally I find the reds a little too big and powerful, especially for a wedding. It's an interesting place to tour though. To the north, the Empordá region is within reach of Girona, which I find much more enjoyable than Barcelona.

Then I guess the dilemma is whether you go back via the Dijon direction and Burgundy or Bordeaux and the Loire. It would be a lot of miles and a lot of tolls!

@frankconway - it always seems very average for the price, or it's just expensive. I shouldn't have to pay £25 for a nice rioja.

As above, Albariño is lovely, Bierzo too. We had 2 weeks in Galicia and Asturias 15yrs ago, it was seafood and wine heaven

I’ve not actually got a ferry from France since ‘proper’ brexit, is a vehicle check a likely thing?

Random checks but boxes of wine might trigger suspicion. And the loss would be significant.

Firstly good wine to drink is not necessarily good wine for the table. Its a wedding, people will drink, a lot, and then they will keep drinking a lot.
Good wine for the table is something you can have glass after glass of and still enjoy your dinner etc. Nothing heavy, nothing exciting just drinkable drinkable drinkable. When you taste wine you're going to sample a sip, maybe a small glass and think about how it tastes, don't, instead think about how it will taste after four or five glasses

Heading back up from santander the whole of France is your oyster. I'd be heading for languedoc, provence and (god forbid) beaujolais for the reds, rose and bit of white, into rhone maybe for the rose and white. Up to loire for cremant for the sparkling.

In those three/four you'll find unassuming inoffensive and and inexpensive wines of a sensible %vol, all of which will out do anything you'll find in the UK at a reasonable price and, if you get lucky, some of which will be truly remarkable but absolutely drinkable by the bottle.

For a wedding, unless you're showy, you want the stuff that comes in carafes not dusty bottles, the regions you've not heard of do it by the bucket and do it well.

[then] For pleasure heading north rhone reds* (maybe get a few cases for the end of the do but the good ones are heavy, rich, sit and drink don't swig), burgundy for white (there are fantastic reds if you've deep pockets or only there for a bottle or two but good burgundy is bloody expensive) in either event, you'll find good stuff from very small producers but given how they produce in burgundy most of the wine comes from big cellars, so if you want something beyond jadot you're looking to find someone selling their own over production, think plastic bottles of wonderment in a layby not cellar tours.

Avoid bordeaux unless you're simply "sightseeing" or know exactly what you're looking for. It's, for want of a better comparison, a souk, a brilliant experience if you just want to enjoy it but if you go to buy you'll just come out with over priced crap. The locales are all very marketable and a lot of people earn a very good living here meaning aything good is bought long before you get there.

As for Spanish wines, leaving from santander you're not really into Spain unless you want to be and personally I wouldn't bother unless you're planning on tootling round Spain particularly (not to say its not worth it, it's just not worth it from Santander then through France). They produce some belters of wines in Spain but don't be too concerned about which region to head for. Outside of rijoa 5 minutes on wiki will tell you if it's likely to be what you're after or not, there are great examples in every region and there are bad but the regions are fairly consistent over wide areas.

That being said rijoa is huge, they produce everything there, from utter crap to exceptional whites and deep syrupy fruity reds. Like bordeaux, unless you know where you're going you're as likely to end up with bolocks as brilliance, stop here and there but don't expect to find anything staggering by anything more than luck. (as hinted above "rijoa" sells, its a brand not a mark of quality,however for my money urbina do some wonderful bottles).

FWIW you'll fill your boot well enough in calais for a wedding just by looking at the label unless one of you has HRH on your business card.

Go wine searching and enjoying by all means but don't waste it on wedding guests**, as long as its not awful its a waste and the ones who do appreciate wine will prefer a great "jaques' merlot" over a crap medoc. If you're really out to "impress", go to Spain then France, go olive oil tasting, and bring back good, single producer olive oil, do little bottles as favours.

*I like gutsy but rounded and complex reds, Hermitage is probably my favourite and most consistent red and that really is saying something. For the same money I'd gamble on a barolo or barbaresco over Hermitage every time and 2 out of three times I'd be wrong.

**they're there for you and the party, if it's not vinegar anyone who has an opinion on the wine they're served at a wedding is not someone to ever invite to anything ever again.

I think the Op's idea is great, a holiday first but with the additional objective of a bootful of wine. You've dismissed some interesting areas and a lot of your post doesn't correspond to what I've lived, Dangeeourbrain.

Avoid Bordeaux... The locales are all very marketable and a lot of people earn a very good living here meaning aything good is bought long before you get there.

There's plenty of good Bordeaux to be had, direct from the producer (just follow the signs as you drive through), wine merchants (BillMC mentioned camping in Hourtin where there is a wine merchant in the village centre with good wines for all budgets), the local supermarkets will have a selection and probably sell at least one Cru Bourgeois. La Rue st Catherine in Bordeaux is a good window shop (use the park and ride, th etraffic in Bordeaux is dreadful), the waterfront worth a walk, there's 200km of sandy beach west of the vinyards which in themselves are worth a visit and lakes such as Hourtin.

it’s just not worth it from Santander then through France

The coastline Deba, Zumaia, Getaria, Zarautz is spectacular - a great walk or MTB. The fish restaurant on the beach in Getaria is possibly the best meal out I've ever had and the wine served with it matched perfectly. The area is a favourite with our MTB club along with Ainsa.

so if you want something beyond jadot you’re looking to find someone selling their own over production, think plastic bottles of wonderment in a layby not cellar tours.

Burgundy isn't sold in plastic bottles, even the cheapest. If you buy something in Burgundy in a plastic bottle the contents will be mainly Spanish or Italian, produce of the EU even if the label looks French. The same is true even in the areas that used to produce vinasse, they've improved quality and use glass.

What with replanted vines, grape varieties to suit the terroir, osmosis to increase the sugar content in bad years, better controlled vinification... it's harder to find a bad wine than a good one - bar a flood, hail, fungus... . Each region has it particularities and a price range that is usually a pretty good guide to how good the contents will be. It's really quite hard to beat the system - you get what you pay for.

Sometimes you get lucky, our local lidl had some 2017 Cahors, we bought a couple of bottles for an MTB club appero where it got a univeral thumbs up, the next time we went to Lidl it had been cleared out. Sometimes unlucky. The idea of touring through some spectacular landscapes and tasting a few wines along the way that get used at the wedding means that each wine served will have been tasted and will mean something to the happy couple - don't be put off OP, it's a great idea.