Muscatel Sparkling Joy by 103-Year-Old Bodegas Reymos - First Wine Cooperative in Valencia, Spain #WorldWineTravel

Reymos Classic Moscato Sparkler is ideal for dessert pairing such as the Chinese moon cake ($13 at Costco) which is made of cooked egg yolks wrapped with sweetened lotus seed paste and is baked with a thin layer of pastry 

Valencia and Murcia are central eastern coastal regions in Spain, locating at the south of Catalonia and north of Andalucia. Cindy from Grape Experiences invites the #WorldWineTravel bloggers to explore the wines of Murcia and Valencia. I got to taste a low-alcohol sparkling wine made from Muscat of Alexandria, produced by the 103-Year-Old Bodegas Reymos - first wine cooperative in Valencia, and am pleased to add this semi-sweet fun sparkler to my late summer party wine list. Let's find out how Bodegas Reymos becomes the king of sparkling wines in Valencia, making award-winning and affordable wines year after year.

Bodegas Reymos, which was founded in 1918, was the first wine cooperative ("co-op") established in Valencia. It is also one of the oldest wine co-ops in Spain. Located in the Valencian town of Cheste, with an average altitude of 715 feet above the sea and well-drained soil conditions that are flood plains and alluvial fans, the proximity of its location to the Mediterrenean sea forms the ideal microclimate for Bodegas Reymos to grow the Muscat of Alexandria grape variety. 

Reymos Classic (SRP$9): Intense freshly harvested grape aromas on the nose, perfect acidity-residual sugar balance, low alcohol with an ABV 7.5% 

Out of its 4942 acres of vineyards and an average annual production of 42 million pounds of grapes, 90% of these grapes are Muscat of Alexandria, and the rest is a combination of Garnacha, Tempranillo, Merseguera, and Malvasia. Bodegas Reymos is one of the three co-op wineries, which partners with Anecoop Bodegas to produce and to export wines of various price ranges and varieties. Anecoop Bodegas was founded in 1986.

Bodegas Reymos at Cheste, Valencia (Photo Credit: VinosDOValencia)

So what is a wine co-op? A winemaking co-op is a group of vineyard owners working together to produce and sell wine to leverage the economy of scale. These owners become members, sell their grapes to the co-op who produces the wine and sells it to international and domestic markets. Using communal facilities and shared market efforts help spread out costs such as marketing and bottling. Co-ops are a big deal in winemaking in Spain, contributing to approximately 60% of the wine production in the country. 

Bodegas Reymos has a bottling plant with a capacity of 5,000 bottles per hour for still and sparkling wines (Photo Credit: VinosDOValencia)

Reymos Classic of D.O. Valencia is a sparkling wine made with the Charmat method. This is the simplest and most used method to capture fermentation carbonation, trapping the "bubbles" in a bulk way within the large stainless steel tanks. This is also the method used to produce Italian Procesco wines. Through Charmat, the base wine is made from the grape of choice, Muscat of Alexandria in the case of Reymos Classic. After adding a small amount of yeast and sugar, the yeast converts the sugar in the wine to CO2 and alcohol. The CO2 is trapped in these large tanks for secondary fermentation, ranging from one to six weeks. After the fermentation, the bulk wine is filtered to remove the dead yeast (lees). The winemakers may at that point add dosage - either liquor from still wines or sugar, to finetune the taste of the wines prior to bottling. 

Photo Credit: GoodPairDays

Check out the blog post of other #WorldWineTravel bloggers and see what wines they choose for this wine adventure in Spain: 

• Monastrell from Murcia and Valencia Paired with Lamb-Beef Burgers and El Taberno from Gwendolyn Alley at Wine Predator......Gwendolyn Alley
• Getting to Know the Grape Known in Spain as Monastrell from Linda Whipple at My Full Wine Glass.
• Rosados from Jumilla from Susannah Gold on Avvinare.
• Valencia Inspires My First Paella from Jeff Burrows at Food Wine Click!
• Light up the Grill and Open that Bottle of Jumilla Wine from Wendy Klik at A Day in the Life on the Farm.
• To Valencia with Sobrasada, Other Spanish Nibbles, and Enrique Mendoza Alicante La Tremenda Monastrell 2018 from Camilla Mann at Culinary Adventures with Camilla.
• Muscatel Sparkling Joy by 100-Year-Old Bodegas Reymos – First Wine Cooperative in Valencia, Spain from Pinny Tam at Chinese Food & Wine Pairings.
• Coca am Recapte and Chopo Jumilla Monastrell Rose on a Summer’s Day by Terri Steffes at Our Good Life
• On Monastrell, Three Wines from D.O. Jumilla and Foods for Pairing by Cindy Rynning at Grape Experiences.