Have made it my goal this year to break out of my usual loop and discover new places and it is already paying dividends. Strictly speaking Vino & Compañía (Plaza del Olavide 5) isn’t a new place or even new to me, because I remember buying a few bottles here a while ago, but since then they have made a massive, quantum leap in their offering of wines from el marco, and it felt like a different reality this time.

The above pictures give you an idea – the shelves are stuffed to the rafters with almost everything you could wish for. Andrés, the owner, was kind enough to ask me what was missing – I came up with a few suggestions but it wasn’t easy and there were not many.

And that was before he explained that they were still trying to find an arrangement so they could have all the wines from the region on display. For instance, they have all three UBEs and all the Tres Miradas, but just didn’t have a big enough space for all the unfortified white wines from Andalucía (and who would have imagined that a couple of years ago?) and were working on a solution. Moreover, the reason space is limited in general is that the rest of the wide world of wine is amply represented – a really fantastic range of wines from every corner of Spain and key regions abroad (including Champagne).

It is a quality offering, and Andrés was telling me that a reason for the growing weight of the traditional wines of Andalucia was that they have seen an increase in demand and, in particular, a lot of interest in tastings to introduce wines of the region.

On that front these guys take tastings seriously – they have a dedicated space, have tastings for beginners every Friday and tastings with cheeses every Saturday and will set up a private tasting for groups of six or more. It is a fantastic effort with visible results – in the short while that I was in the shop on a rainy Friday afternoon they knew almost everyone who came in by name.

There’s no doubt about it, if you are a winelover in Madrid, and in particular a fan of the wines of Andalucia, this store should be on your radar – although they are busy making their own crop of winelovers just in case.