Spain's spirit of resistance may be waning, but its wines still impress

It is more than 80 years since Ortega y Gasset wrote La Espana Invertebrada, foretelling the loss of virtue that Orwell saw, but Hemingway didn't, in the civil war. Spain recovered some of its spirit in recent times, though not enough to say no to those appalling British tourists. But it seems finally to be losing its sense of purpose - or, rather, the sublime sense of purposelessness that made Spain a byword for creative indolence. The country is now home to multinational banks, modernist buildings and public fun. Even in those matters in which Spaniards could be relied upon to cock a snook at liberal orthodoxy - the pomp of the Tridentine Church, the death-defying splendour of the torero, the celebration in song and dance of the man-woman divide - the spirit of resistance is waning. Soon there will be no more snooks to cock, and Spain will be just like everywhere else, only hotter.

Still, there is the wine, and the three Spanish bottles on offer this month from Corney & Barrow show that snooks remain in the bodegas. Particularly impressive is the white from Rueda, a region in the baked heart of the country, where a gravel-clay soil helps to freshen up the Verdejo and Viura grapes. This wine, with its crisp acidity and mineral base, gave real zest to a muggy summer evening. If you associate Spanish whites with the oily amber heavyweights from Rioja, you will be astonished at this lithe enchantress. The snooks sped from the bottle like dancing elves, flaunting their perfumed skirts in a provocative flamenco and reawakening those "me man, you woman" emotions.

Valdepenas has a mixed reputation, largely because the Tempranillo grape grows so well in this baked but well-watered region that just about anybody can turn it into wine. Like Rioja, Valdepenas has distinct grades of quality and maturation, and a Gran Reserva will often merit serious attention. This 1997 wine from Pata Negra is a fine example, whose colour has quietened to a jewel-like garnet and whose aroma has graduated from oak to fruitcake with the added years in the bottle. A serene and soothing wine, and a bargain at the price.

Cigales is a little-known region between Rueda and Rioja, officially recognised only in 1991. Here the Rioja mix of 92 per cent Tempranillo and 8 per cent Garnacha is planted on rocky soils, and new expertise is being brought to bear on its cultivation. But in place of a New World imitation, I discovered a wine as full of snooks as Ortega could have wished for: a rich, ruby-red potion with a fruitcake aroma and a leathery after-breath like a horse. Finally, a white from Portugal, a delightfully floral vinho verde, like a stream in which the stony bottom gleams up at you through cool, clear water. As refreshing as champagne, and without the affectation.

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