Welcome to another addition of Iberian Links around the web! Despite Labor Day being celebrated yesterday throughout the EU, in addition to family and friends arriving from both London and Madrid, we still found a little space in the day to collect a few news bits that you might be interested in to share your thoughts on in the comments below!

The Ultimate Luxury: You’re Very Own, Vineyard in a Box!
Ever want to purchase a vineyard but were afraid that you’d kill the vines in the first year? Maybe you know a decent amount about winemaking, but have a perfectionist side of you that only wants to craft the ultimate, world-renowned wine? Well, guess what? Now is your chance! Decanter recently covered a story on La Melonera, a 200-hectare ready-made vineyard and residence development near Ronda in southern Spain and headed up by Spanish winemaker, Jose Luis Perez Verdum. Over the past five years, €22 million have been spent on restoring their cork oaks and landscaping the property so that you can purchase your own private estate for a starting cost of €3.5 million, which will buy anywhere between 5.5 hectares and 18 hectares of land. As the owner of your private estate, you can make your wines, aided not only by a technical team residing at la Melonara, but you may also harvest advice from big names like Denis Dubourdieu or Dirk van der Niepoort! Sounds rather extravagant, doesn’t it? But by the end of the day, if you’ve got a few million euros hanging out of your back pocket, why not? There is a really good reason why not. This project was launched at the …

To start off our Friday links, I’d like to make a formal apology to a tiny bodega making incredible wine in Rioja. Although we had mentioned Bodegas Arranz-Argote in our Rioja report, we failed to put them in our buying guide as a “must find” wine. For that, we are very sorry, because there is nothing we’d like more than for you to try their one and only wine, ARAR, and see for yourself how a small family run bodega can make some killer wine. Check out Excel Wines for more information on how to get a hold of their wine outside of Spain.

Now, on to the news:

Kosher Spanish Wine Jessica Yadegaran published an article in the Contra Costa Times, a San Fransisco based newspaper, regarding the increase in both quality and quantity of Kosher wines throughout the winemaking world, quoting a 20% annual growth over the past two years. Interesting, I thought, but what does Kosher actually mean? According to Jessica, Kosher law requires that, “the processing must be handled by Sabbath-observant Jews. Kosher law also calls for harvesting from vines more than 4 years old, leaving the vineyards fallow every seven years, and growing no fruits, vegetables or grains between the vines.” Having seen only a handful of kosher wines here in Spain, I was intrigued by this article because the author highlights Spain as one of the upcoming wine regions for producing great kosher wines that pair well with traditional Jewish foods such as grilled beef, cumin-and-dried-mint lamb burgers and brisket. Check out her article for more information on specific Iberian kosher wines.

Calling all Port lovers! For the Love of Port has recently launched its new and improved website, which includes: producer profiles, a blog, featured articles, …

Now that our Rioja is coming to a close, with only a few remaining articles in queue to be published, it’s time to give you the skinny on whether or not it’s worth your time to pick up the all knowing Spanish wine expert, John Radford’s, book on La Rioja. Published in 2004 by Mitchell Beazley, now Octopus Publishing, this a great book for anyone with deep passion for Rioja wine or who simply enjoy a good reference book for their library.

Having already read several of Mitchell Beazley’s books, we weren’t entirely sure what to expect. Would it be a bone dry read that could be used a sedative before bed, or would it actually be engaging, adding a little depth and spice to a rich cultural tradition? To be honest, it was a bit of both. The majority of the book is used as a directly of over 400 wineries in La Rioja, containing everything from the name of the winemaker to how many hectoliters are produced annually. However, as a result of John’s wit and curiosity, you’ve also got a great story on John’s visit to the wineries, an in depth looks at the history of the region, as well as several cultural tidbits of information that give you more than simply a directory.

Over the past two months, I’ve used this book to aid in my research on the etymology of Rioja, the different classifications of Rioja wine and general information about specific wineries that we couldn’t visit but tasted their wines, such as :Martinez Laorden, La …