Macabeo

Macabeo is the workhorse white of northern Spain and it lives two separate lives. In Catalonia it is macabeo and it is the largest component of most Cava, where it gives the base wine its body and its apple and citrus fruit. In Rioja it is viura, and it is the region's principal white grape, made both fresh and in a long-aged oxidative style.

It buds late, which suits regions with spring frost, and it ripens early. The wine is moderate in everything: mild acidity, gentle apple and almond, no strong aroma. That neutrality is exactly why it works in a blend, and it is why it is normally combined with the sharper xarello and the aromatic parellada in Cava rather than used alone.

The old white Riojas are the surprise. Fermented and then aged for years in old oak barrels with air contact, viura loses its fruit and gains nut, dried apricot and beeswax, and some bottles run for forty years. Very few producers still make them. France grows the grape in Roussillon and the southern Rhône, where it is maccabeu.