The last reporting assignment I went on for this newspaper was a delightful caper that took me to Spain and California. The Magazine asked me to write one of a series of articles on famous families split by feuds. My target was the Torres winemakers, best known then for their Sangre de Toro, or bull’s blood, which had a little plastic bull dangling from the bottle.

When the Torres family heard about my project, they had the nous to embrace it. I was given interviews, hospitality, anything I wanted. Don Miguel, the patriarch, who remembered the privations of the Spanish civil war — “We lived on prawns!” — drove me to his club. Miguel Jr, his winemaking son, took me to eat Catalan hare in a hilltop restaurant.

They convinced me they weren’t so much feuding as each bubbling with a self-belief that pulled them in different directions. The greatest tension I could find between them was when papa ridiculed the flowery tasting notes his son put on the bottles: “Does this wine taste of plums? Is it jam?”

Don Miguel’s daughter, Marimar, was a spikier individual, however. She had skipped off to California to set up the West Coast branch of the empire. Driving me to her Russian River vineyard, she quoted King Lear.

Daddy is long gone now. Miguel Jr has taken the company to great heights. His wines can cost more than £50 a bottle, but the basic range is tasty, reliable and cheap. Torres has a strong presence in Chile and even a joint venture in China. It has taken a long time, however, to do something seemingly obvious much closer to home.

In the days when rioja was the only Spanish wine region most British drinkers could name, Don Miguel was emphatically different. His wines were bolder and his vineyards near Barcelona were 200 miles from the Rioja region. But Mireia, his granddaughter, is now the company’s technical director, and she has made the first Torres rioja. It’s called Ibericos and has some typically flowery nonsense on the bottle about Spanish oaks. What’s important is the stuff inside, which is delicious.

Rioja used to mean a thin red infused with vanilla from spending too long in American oak barrels. That old, attenuated style — just about drinkable with salty jamon serrano — barely survives. Modern rioja has texture.

Ibericos has the old vanilla overtones but is a wine of substance with a spicy nose and fresh, plummy, meaty flavours. At the moment only Waitrose sells it. Old Señor Torres had an odd distaste for supermarkets and perhaps that snobbery lives on. But there’s nothing upmarket about the price: £8.99. For this quality, it’s a bargain.

LIQUID HUNCHES

Campo Aldea Rioja Graciano 2005 (£9.99)

Most rioja is made from the tempranillo grape, sometimes blended with less well-known varieties. This unusual and delicious alternative is 100% graciano, which gives it an ethereal body but big, spicy flavours (M&S).

Barón de Barbón Oak-Aged Rioja 2006 (£7.79)

A good price for a textbook rioja, which is aged in oak for only three months, picking up hints of vanilla without sacrificing its lovely sweet raspberry freshness (sundaytimeswineclub.co.uk).

Domeco de Jarauta Viña Marro Tinto Rioja 2008 (£6.90)

Made by a family that used to send its grapes to the local co-operative winery, this unoaked tempranillo was bottled straight from the tank. Serve it in a jug and marvel as last year’s Spanish sunshine emerges in a flood of fruit (theatreofwine.com).

What are you drinking? Tell me at wine@sunday-times.co.uk

Times Recommends

• Champagne cocktail
• Food that's good for body and soul
• Joe McCanta’s never-fail hangover-relief shake