2020 Bodega Reina de Castilla Verdejo Isabelino Rueda 750 ml

When you find the real-life equivalent of Santiago from Hemingway’s The Old Man and the Sea, you know he’ll choose the right bottle to go with the roast octopus and smoked mackerel. 

That’s how, in a sun-splashed seaside cafe in San Sebastián, we found the impossible Spanish white wine: both in that it’s all but impossible to find in the US, and because it pulls off a seemingly impossible marriage of raciness and weight, citrus bite and full-bodied richness—something only the best old-vine Verdejos do.

An offshore breeze was ruffling the red-and-white striped umbrella over our table. Seagulls were cawing from sailboat masts, and our white-haired, sun-bronzed waiter looked like he’d never spent a day inside. 

He came out with the bottle in one hand and the stems of several short, fat wine glasses between the fingers of his other—a few for us and one for him, it turned out. The silvery, flashing wine hit us like an injection of Mediterranean sunshine, as refreshing as ocean water washing your toes on a hot beach.

As our waiter sipped alongside us and nodded approvingly, he told us he knew a few of the families that belong to the Bodega Reina de Castilla cooperative. He was from the same village where the winery is based, La Seca. There, 35-year-old vines provide the concentration and smoky, mineral depth that’s found only in the elite expressions of this grape.

As Rueda sits on an exposed, rugged plateau, the vineyards absorb tons of dry heat during the day, which bides the grapes over through the cold, black nights. That provides the scintillating acidity that makes the Isabelino such a mouthwatering drink.