Anthony Rose: Along with Rioja and Priorat, Ribera del Duero vies for the title of Spain's leading red wine region

Pingus is an odd sort of name for a Spanish wine but it's no ordinary wine. Standing in a tiny cellar in the village of Quintanilla de Onesimo, I was enjoying a tasting sample of the new 2008 vintage straight from the barrel. How much? £650 for the 2005 vintage. Er, a bottle? Yes, that's right, a bottle. I stopped spitting and gulped. As you do. Lovely wine, yes, but £650 a bottle lovely? The American super-critic Robert Parker had given it 99 points out of 100 and it sold out. Cult status puts it on a par with Bordeaux's Château Le Pin. Like Le Pin, it was Spain's first famous garage wine: small volume, new-wave cult wine, that started out being made in a garage. Starting in 1995, Peter Sisseck, a Dane, makes Pingus from four hectares of 90-year-old vines in Ribera del Duero, north of Madrid.

The flip side of the coin to Rueda's whites, Ribera del Duero vies for the title of Spain's leading red wine region with Rioja and Priorat. Ascending north and south of the River Duero, 20,000 hectares of vineyards of mostly tempranillo, known locally as tinto fino or tinta del país, are planted on gentle limestone and sandy loam slopes. It doesn't feel high because you're on top of the great plain of Castille with its moonscape of arid, flat-topped pyramid-shaped hills carved out of the plateau by the river. But at up to 850 metres, Ribera is one of Europe's highest, and coldest, red wine regions.

Like neighbouring Rueda, the key to its reds is variations in temperature at altitude that bring perfume and deliciously pure flavours of strawberry, cherry and mulberry fruit.

Pingus's success has attracted high-profile investors like Antonio Banderas, but not everything here is out of reach price-wise. Back in the real world, one of the more affordable Ribera reds on the market is the 2006 Nos Riqueza, £9.99, Marks & Spencer, a succulently vibrant, red berry fruited tempranillo with a delicate touch of toasty oak. Tesco's 2007 Finest Ribera del Duero, £7.22, with its strawberryish perfume is good value, and the smoky, vanilla-scented 2004 Altos de Tamaron, on special offer at £4.98, Asda, is a steal. Pricier but still worth every penny, Abadia Retuerta produces some of the region's best value reds. The deliciously spicy, blackcurranty tempranillo/cabernet 2006 Rivola, around £11.99, Corks Out, Wholefoods Market, Secret Cellar, Villeneuve Wines, is marginally upstaged by the juicy strawberry fruit and gentle tannins of the 2006 Selecció*Especial, around £16.99, Bennetts (01386 840392), D Byrne (01200 423152), Philglas & Swiggot (020-7402 0002), and Harvey Nichols.

As traditional as Pingus is modern, Vega Sicilia's impressive track record of exceptional quality has grown since 1990 under winemaker Xavier Ausàs. In an extraordinarily complex process in which ageing in barrel and bottle for 10 years is part of the style, Vega Sicilia is released roughly 10 years after the vintage. It makes two other reds, the concentrated rich and savoury Valbuena, aged five years before release, and the more modern, mulberry and plum-scented Alion.

When the wines come on the market this month, the 1999 Vega Sicilia will be £248.25, Berry Bros, Goedhuis (goedhuis.com), and Roberson's (020-7371 2121), the 2004 Valbuena, £110, and a third wine, the 2005 Alion, £51.25. Expensive, yes, but great wine comes with a price.

anthonyrosewine.com