Events

This white is fresh and bright, but also dense, with a firm backbone of crisp acidity that carries pear, McIntosh apple and verbena flavors. The juicy, floral finish brings you back for another sip. Drink now through 2020.

90 pts Wine Advocate
All tertiary and balsamic aromas, the nose of the 2010 Monte Real Gran Reserva exploded in a mixture of cigar ash, incense, cold bonfire, used leather and forest floor. The palate was round and polished with some dusty tannins that should welcome some food.

100% Tempranillo from Cenicero. Classical vinification with destalked, crushed grapes, using new fermentation technologies and long maceration periods. Aged for 18 months in American oak barrels with the appropriate rackings and natural stabilization. Aged in the bottle for at least 6 months before release.

93 points James Suckling
A classical, typical Rioja Alta red with elegant notes of vanilla, coconut, smoked spices and strawberries. Refined and suave, with fine tannins and a long, creamy finish. Juicy and elegant. Really approachable now, but give it two more years to get more mushroom complexity.

92 points Wine Advocate
The younger wine here is the 2020 Vi??a Alberdi, a versatile version of the Haro reds. It was produced with Tempranillo fermented in stainless steel and matured in American oak barrels for two years (it's sold as Reserva in international markets and Crianza in Spain). It has 14% alcohol with a pH of 3.6 and five grams of acidity. It has a classical nose of ripe fruit, American oak and spices, the subtle notes of forest floor, still young. The palate is velvety and very balanced with polished tannins.

Organic

97 points Wine Advocate
I was greatly impressed by the 2008 El Puntido Gran Reserva, a wine with a more traditional profile than the majority of wines from the Eguren family. At age 14, the wine is glorious, still young and with a mixture of primary and more developed notes. It goes more in the direction of the old wines, with balsamic notes of incense and cedarwood, mushrooms and some berries and herbs. It's complex and elegant, with fully resolved tannins. This was bottled back in May 2011, so it's been in bottle for over a decade, and the texture shows it. It has 14% alcohol and a pH of 3.55. This matured in brand-new French oak barrels for 28 months, and the wine has absorbed the oak completely. (07/22)

97+ points Wine Advocate
The expressive, complex and nuanced 2016 Prado Enea Gran Reserva is a textbook traditional Rioja in the making. 2016 was a very elegant year, with aging potential, volume and very good acidity and freshness. It's full-bodied but fine-boned, has 14.5% alcohol, a pH of 3.6 and 5.25 grams per liter acidity. It has terrific balance, with all the components in the right proportion to age superbly in bottle. They have also been working on the selection of wood used. This wine matured in French and American oak barrels for three years, and the oak is super integrated. 127,808 bottles produced. It was bottled in January 2020. It was an exceptional year with volume and quality. Drinking Window 2024 - 2040

93 points Wine Advocate
The textbook Rioja Alavesa red 2016 Vi??a Real Reserva was produced with 90% Tempranillo and 10% Graciano, Garnacha and Mazuelo, mostly from their own grapes. It fermented in stainless steel vats and matured in new and second use barriques for 22 months. This is a more delicate version of the Reserva with added freshness and a touch of red fruit. It has contained ripeness, elegance and balance with very tasty flavors and abundant fine-grained tannins.

92 points Vinous
Deep, shimmering ruby. Expressive, spice-accented red berry and cherry preserve and floral aromas are complemented by suggestions of smoky minerals, vanilla and cured tobacco. Sweet and energetic on the palate, offering juicy black raspberry and cherry flavors that flesh out slowly with air. In a lively style, displaying sharp clarity, discreet tannins and an echo of candied rose on the long, penetrating finish.

94 points Wine Advocate
The 2015 Reserva is a blend of 85% Tempranillo, 10% Graciano and 5% split between Mazuelo and Garnacha that wants to express the character of the Contino estate. It fermented in 12,000-liter stainless steel at 28 degrees to 30 degrees Cesius with 15 to 20 days of maceration and an ??levage in 60% French and 40% American oak barrels for two years. It feels fresher than the 2014, and it also shows younger, with better integrated oak, subtle aromas and nice balance. It's medium-bodied, with very fine tannins and good freshness, integrated and balanced. I look forward to tasting the 2016 of this wine, because this 2015 is going in a direction that I like..

Intense red cherry colour. Complex and elegant on the nose with aromas of plum and sweet spices such as cinnamon and nutmeg. Slight notes of almonds with the oak very well integrated. Good structure on the mouth with notes of mature fruit and chocolate. A lively wine with good tannic concentration. Long and persistent. Food Matching: Ideal with red meats, game and cheese

Limited Edition Gift Pack includes two bottles of Gran Reserva Rioja 2015 and a decanter.

93 pts Vinous
Glistening ruby. Expansive red and blue fruit, pipe tobacco, potpourri and baking spice aromas, with vanilla and smoky mineral notes slowly emerging. Sappy and gently chewy on the palate, offering spice-accented black raspberry, bitter cherry and rose pastille flavors that turn sweeter on the back half. Shows sharp focus and repeating florality on the long, subtly tannic finish, which leaves behind notes of candied blue fruits and cola.

85% Tempranillo, 10% Graciano, 5% Mazuelo o 36 months of age in American & French oak o Hand selected grapes from "Rioja Alta" subzone o 36 additional months of age in bottle

Organic

95% Viura, 5% Garnacha Blanca from Rioja Alta and Alavesa.
Dry farmed, sustainable/non-certified organic plots from Sot??s, Cenicero, Hornos de Moncalvillo, Uru??uela and Hornilleja, ranging from 40-100 years old vines. Continental climate and higher altitudes lead to warm days and cool, fresh nights.The regions Calcareous clay and alluvial silt soils retain beautiful acidity allowing the wine to retain maximum freshness and aging potential Production: Hand-picked fruit is destemmed, and allowed to go through native fermentation with ambient yeast. Post fermentation, the wine is aged in 90% French, 10% American Oak for 36 months before bottling without fining or filtration. The wine spends 30 months in the cellar before release.

Soft, smoky fruits with candied peach and hints of almonds and dried flowers are incredibly giving on the nose. There are subtle notes of oak and a touch of that aging development with a gorgeous presence of acidity and creamy balance. Chamomile, grilled lemon and citrus curd all tempt the palate. This is a serious wine with aging potential that could also be enjoyed today in a very big
way.

"Good full red. Deeply pitched aromas of smoke, minerals, leather and truffle. Supple and silky but nicely penetrating, with ripe, intense flavors of cherry, minerals and oak perfectly framed by harmonious acids. Subtle, textured Rioja finishing with good grip and thrust." 90pts Vinous

"This red shows depth and complexity, maturing but still fresh. It's generous on the palate, with plum, raisin, cedar and chocolate notes. A true expression of Rioja character. Drink now through 2010. 5,000 cases made." 90pts WS

85% Tempranillo, 10% Graciano, 5% Mazuelo. Aging in French and American oak cask 36 months and aging in bottle 48 months before going to market. This wine is produced from grapes harvested in vineyards that are over 20 years old. They are bush pruned, with low yields, and hand harvested. Only the healthiest and ripest grapes are selected, and following destalking, the grapes are cold macerated prior to a cold temperature fermentation. Following a long maceration to achieve optimum colour and structure, the wine goes through a malolactic fermentation, to refine the wine, and to leave it with the necessary acidity.

Imperial is one of the renowned references in the entire history of Spanish winemaking. It is a true classic in Rioja and was first bottled in the 1920?????s. Its name was originally adopted after a special bottling for the English market in a bottle called ?????Pinta Imperial????? or ?????Imperial Pint????? (an Imperial pint, half a litre approximately). The grapes to make Imperial have always come from our own 28 hectares of vineyards in Villalba (Rioja Alta), and selected vineyards in the nearby communes of Briones and Montalvo, where our vines average age is kept over 20 years to secure quality.

Rioja Alta is the westernmost part of Rioja's three subregions. Its climate is noticeably influenced by the Atlantic Ocean. The soil in Rioja Alta is rich in iron salts, limestone and clay, along with nutrients deposited in the region by the tributaries of the Ebro River. Rioja Alta is known for producing full-bodied wines with a medium alcohol content and a high acidity level that are suitable for being aged in casks, forming the basis of most red Rioja.

CVNE (Compania Vinicola del Norte de Espana) is one of the most renowned and historic bodegas in all of Spain. Founded in 1879 by the Real de Asua brothers, Eusebio and Raimundo, the company has been an integral part of the Rioja region?????s ascendance in the world of fine wine. With their combination of traditional roots and innovative vision, CVNE has been one of Rioja?????s most reliable sources for high quality wine. The company is still run by descendants of the Real de Asua brothers, now represented by the fifth generation with current CEO Victor Urrutia Ybarra. Since its founding, CVNE?????s goal has been to increase the scope of production while maintaining the level of quality on which their reputation was built. Forty years after the original bodega was created, CVNE expanded into the Alavesa region. Today, CVNE is comprised of three separate bodegas: Cune, Vina Real, and Contino. Each of the three estates produces a distinct style of wine from a distinct terroir, and each of their flagship bottlings occupies a well-deserved place in the pantheon of great Spanish wine.

91 points James Suckling
Savory, dried meat and spiced plums and cherries with a hint of rust and walnut to the nose. Elegant and juicy on the palate with some tart red plums and light berry fruit. Long and almost a bit ethereal with firm tannins.

"2001 is a great vintage for all the wines from La Rioja Alta but the long-awaited 2001 Gran Reserva 890 is otherworldly. 2001 was a slow maturing vintage which produced smaller grapes especially in the old vineyards on the slopes of the Sierra Cantabria in the villages of Brinas, Labastida and Villalba where the vineyards that make it into this wine are located. The final blend contains a majority of Tempranillo with 3% Graciano and 2% Mazuelo. The wine ferments with the natural yeasts attached to the grapes in stainless steel vats and is aged for six years in used American oak barrels with 12 manual rackings. A selection of the best barrels were blended together and bottled unfiltered in March 2008. Only 15,000 bottles were produced. It shows (even) younger and more concentrated than the 2004 904, a darker shade of red and a somehow backward and reticent nose (relatively speaking) of forest floor, cold bonfire, antique shop, truffles, game, sandalwood, nutmeg and clove. The fruit is also a little darker and the palate more austere, but still showing vibrant and supple, with clean flavors and a great finish. This is my favorite modern time 890. Bravo! Drink 2016-2026." 95pts WA

The Bodega was formed in 1890 as a partnership of 5 quality-conscious growers keen to exploit the export potential for well-made, ?????modern????? Rioja. At this time, French vineyards were ravaged by phylloxera, and connoisseurs were having to look elsewhere for supplies of fine wine. Rioja, with its excellent climate and soils, had already attracted attention, and experiments with Bordeaux-style vinification and barrique-aging were proving very successful. The region?????s only real disadvantage was its remoteness, cut off from the lucrative markets to the north by the same mountains that ensured its favorable climate. This problem was solved by construction of the rail link to Bilbao, and it is no coincidence that Bodegas La Rioja Alta was established next to the Haro railway station in the same year it opened. In 1904, La Rioja Alta absorbed Bodegas Ardanza, and gained access to some of the finest vineyards in the Rioja Alta district. The luxury 904 bottling commemorates this important milestone in the company?????s development. Since then Rioja has seen more bad times than good, and many producers have harmed the reputation of the region and its production methods, releasing sloppily-aged wines which were never good enough to support a long time in cask. But La Rioja Alta has never let standards slip, and continues to this day the tradition of careful long-aging that gives Rioja its unique character. These wines offer a wonderfully complex bouquet, rich flavours, a seductively smooth texture, and are all ready to drink on release.

Few dispute that La Rioja Alta S.A. is the leading quality orientated producer in the Rioja. With more than 50,000 casks and 6.4 million bottles stored at any one time, the equivalent of about 8 years sales, La Rioja Alta S.A. is unique in its ability to supply large quantities of fully mature wines of world class quality. The company owns 300 hectares of vineyards in different parts of the best zones of the Rioja Alta region. La Rioja Alta S.A. is specialized in red wines. The leading grape variety is the Tempranillo with small doses of Mazuelo and Graciano. The Vina Ardanza differs from the other wines with some 25% Garnacha in the blend. After vinification in the new ultra modern vinification plant near Haro, aging is in traditional Bordeaux casks, all made from American oak. Racking is by hand every 6 months with 8 teams working full time racking the 51,000 casks. There is no filtration prior to bottling and further long aging in bottle before release. In short the wines are made in the traditional Rioja manner. The company is adamant about not using French oak, keeping the unique Rioja style which has been developed since the end of the 19th century. In spite of the varying amount of time in cask and bottle the wines all display a wonderful rich ruby colour, gorgeous aromas of oak, spices and fruit followed by a sensational feel on the palate, with a wonderful smooth texture, clean rich oaky/fruity flavours and a long lingering finish. All the wines are ready for consumption on release but will keep for many more years in bottle. This situation is almost unique in the world of wine and is the reason why so many restaurants list La Rioja Alta?????s outstanding range of truly classic Rioja wines.

94 points Wine Spectaor
A fresh, graceful red, with dense, sculpted tannins creating good tension while finding fine integration with a lovely range of ripe black plum and black cherry, cured tobacco, balsamico and minerally iron and tar notes. Firm and racy on the lasting, spiced finish. Tempranillo, Graciano and Mazuelo. Best from 2025 through 2035. 4,166 cases made, 500 cases imported

Organic

90 points Vinous
The 2020 Crianza is a blend of 90% Tempranillo and 10% Graciano sourced from Sotes, Cenicero, Hu??rcanos and Oy??n in Rioja. Aged for 12 months in French and American oak barrels, this garnet-hued wine presents aromas of wild herbs and black fruit, complemented by oak layers. On the palate, it is dry, rich and fairly taut with a lingering juicy profile, offering notes of black fruit and a clingy texture.

Aromas of minerally pencil lead and smoky plum, berry and a little vanilla. This is slightly tight at first but opens beautifully. Plum and berry flavors offer more than enough support for the oak, while the finish is dominated by wood-spice. This wine is in the happy place between traditional Rioja and new age Rioja.

94 points Wine Advocate
The 2019 San Vicente was produced with Tempranillo Peludo, a special strain of Tempranillo planted from a massale selection in 1985 in the village of San Vicente de la Sonsierra. Like all their reds (except the carbonic maceration ones), the destemmed grapes fermented in French oak vats, and the wine matured in new oak barrels (90% French, 10% American) for 20 months. This wine is quite regular, and I found similar wines in 2019 and 2018, the two vintages that I tasted together, combining power and elegance and juicy fruit with good ripeness but without excess and good acidity and balance and fine-grained tannins. - Luis Gutierrez,

One finca and one 18-hectare vineyard supply the Tempranillo fruit for this ultra modern, 90% new oak-aged red from clay-limestone soils at 580 metres. - Tim Atkin

94+ points Wine Advocate
The 2020 Rioja Reserva, their flagship wine, comes from the 300 hectares of estate vineyards. Here, Tempranillo is the backbone, making up 82% of the blend in the low-yielding vintage of 2019, complemented with 8% Graciano, 7% Mazuelo and 3% Garnacha. It has controlled ripeness at 14% alcohol, with a pH of 3.65 and 5.1 grams of acidity. I loved the aromatics here?€?floral and elegant, more in the style of the 2018 than the 2019. it's lighter, more elegant, fine-boned and has a silky texture and very fine tannins. Both 2019 and 2020 are very good, but 2020 is more my style.

In September 2023, the Cebri??n-Sagarriga family celebrated its 40th anniversary as owners of Marqu??s de Murrieta, which they bought in 1983. In 1996, Vicente Dalmau Cebri??n took the reins of the winery, driving a deep transformation, and he continues today, relentlessly trying to improve every year. It's pretty amazing how the wines feel better each year, like a winery on its way up.

93+ points Wine Advocate
The 2013 Vi??a Bosconia Reserva even in a cooler and rainier year, like 2013, has a rounder body and still 13.5% alcohol. They also insisted that "remember that we can use 15% of wine from another vintage, and perhaps we topped this one up with wine from 2015. We want consistency year after year." This matured in barrels for five years and was bottled unfiltered but fined with egg whites. It's expressive, elegant and subtle, clean and complex, with polished tannins and very good acidity (pH 3.3 and 6.7 grams of tartaric acid per liter of wine).

"The 2004 Gran Reserva 890 is the top of the range here, a wine that is only released three/four times per decade in exceptional years. They start by sourcing grapes from their oldest vineyards and going through a slow process of aging the wine in American oak barrels for six years, with ten manual rackings, and each time there is a selection of only the best barrels. The bottled wine is 13.5% alcohol with a remarkably low pH (3.0) that to me means 'quality' of the acidity, which is a healthy six grams per liter (in tartaric). The nose is all about forest floor aromas, game, cigar ash, incense, old furniture and some smoked meat. The palate shows what the technical data was hinting--very fresh with slightly dusty tannins and nice acidity. It's polished, but feels livelier than some older vintages. 38,000 numbered bottles." 94+pts WA

Tempranillo (95%) and Mazuelo (2%) from estate-owned vineyards in Bri??as, Labastida and Villalba and, in addition, Graciano (3%) from our Montecillo vineyard. This is the first Gran Reserva 890 in which we use Graciano grapes from this vineyard. The wine was aged for 6 years in American oak barrels. The barrels were manufactured in our cooperage, with wood imported from the USA and dried at our facilities for three years. During the 10 rackings, we carried out a further selection of the barrels to be used for the final blend, which was bottled in March 2011.

The Bodega was formed in 1890 as a partnership of 5 quality-conscious growers keen to exploit the export potential for well-made, ?????modern????? Rioja. At this time, French vineyards were ravaged by phylloxera, and connoisseurs were having to look elsewhere for supplies of fine wine. Rioja, with its excellent climate and soils, had already attracted attention, and experiments with Bordeaux-style vinification and barrique-aging were proving very successful. The region?????s only real disadvantage was its remoteness, cut off from the lucrative markets to the north by the same mountains that ensured its favorable climate. This problem was solved by construction of the rail link to Bilbao, and it is no coincidence that Bodegas La Rioja Alta was established next to the Haro railway station in the same year it opened. In 1904, La Rioja Alta absorbed Bodegas Ardanza, and gained access to some of the finest vineyards in the Rioja Alta district. The luxury 904 bottling commemorates this important milestone in the company?????s development. Since then Rioja has seen more bad times than good, and many producers have harmed the reputation of the region and its production methods, releasing sloppily-aged wines which were never good enough to support a long time in cask. But La Rioja Alta has never let standards slip, and continues to this day the tradition of careful long-aging that gives Rioja its unique character. These wines offer a wonderfully complex bouquet, rich flavours, a seductively smooth texture, and are all ready to drink on release.

Few dispute that La Rioja Alta S.A. is the leading quality orientated producer in the Rioja. With more than 50,000 casks and 6.4 million bottles stored at any one time, the equivalent of about 8 years sales, La Rioja Alta S.A. is unique in its ability to supply large quantities of fully mature wines of world class quality. The company owns 300 hectares of vineyards in different parts of the best zones of the Rioja Alta region. La Rioja Alta S.A. is specialized in red wines. The leading grape variety is the Tempranillo with small doses of Mazuelo and Graciano. The Vina Ardanza differs from the other wines with some 25% Garnacha in the blend. After vinification in the new ultra modern vinification plant near Haro, aging is in traditional Bordeaux casks, all made from American oak. Racking is by hand every 6 months with 8 teams working full time racking the 51,000 casks. There is no filtration prior to bottling and further long aging in bottle before release. In short the wines are made in the traditional Rioja manner. The company is adamant about not using French oak, keeping the unique Rioja style which has been developed since the end of the 19th century. In spite of the varying amount of time in cask and bottle the wines all display a wonderful rich ruby colour, gorgeous aromas of oak, spices and fruit followed by a sensational feel on the palate, with a wonderful smooth texture, clean rich oaky/fruity flavours and a long lingering finish. All the wines are ready for consumption on release but will keep for many more years in bottle. This situation is almost unique in the world of wine and is the reason why so many restaurants list La Rioja Alta?????s outstanding range of truly classic Rioja wines.

WS 94
Tea, tobacco, cedar and spice notes mingle with deeper licorice, plum and iron flavors in this savory red. The texture is supple and polished, but there's a firm tannic backbone. Focused and harmonious, in the traditional style. Drink now through 2024. 1,166 cases made.

Organic

95 points Wine Advocate
There is a change in the 2022 La Canoca, as this year it's no longer a single-vineyard wine but a paraje, or lieu-dit, wine that includes more plots from the same place. Therefore, volumes have grown from 500 bottles in the previous vintage to 3,200 in 2022. This is surprisingly fresh, harmonious and elegant, getting closer to the character of the 2021s, closer than any of the other 2022s. It slowly opened up in the glass to floral notes, hints of wild herbs and crushed stones. The palate is solid and complete, with fine, chalky tannins and a long and tasty finish. It was bottled in September 2023.

Jose currently farms 5 hectares of vines located in the villages of San Vicente, Labastida, and Briones. Practices are manual and organic although he is not certified. The vines range in age from 5 to 130 years old with the majority Tempranillo, a small percentage of Viura. The oldest vineyard plots are co-planted with tiny percentages of other grape varieties which include Garnacha and Palomino. When the grapes reach the cellar after being harvested by hand, they are fermented either whole-cluster, or partially destemmed. All fermentations are by indigenous yeasts and extraction is gentle. After pressing the wines are racked into 225-300L French oak barrels and transported to the aging cellar in San Vicente.

97 points Wine Advocate
It wasproduced with grapes from three vineyards in San Vicente de la Sonsierra at different altitudes and is a blend of Tempranillo with 8% Garnacha with limited yields because of mildew. It matured in new French barriques for 20 months. He wanted a more classical image and perhaps a more classical profile of wine. It's perfumed and floral, with notes of aromatic herbs, a little balsamic and quite showy, with very fine tannins and freshness, as he used more grapes from the higher-altitude zones. It's powerful and elegant, and in a way it reminds me of the style of the initial vintages of La Cueva de Contador; it's clean and elegant. It's 14.5% alcohol with a pH of 3.55. It's very young but still drinkable, as the quality of the tannins is very good. I think this is the one wine I'd buy from their portfolio if I could only buy one. It transported me to the wines from the early 2000s. 10,000 bottles produced

92 points Wine Advocate
The new young red 2021 El Predilecto recovers Predilecto, which was a historic brand of the house, a wine with less aging than the rest and more fruity character. In this case, they want it to show the fruit expression of the vineyard without oak. They call it the new old concept in Rioja, what the wines used to be before the arrival of the French, pure fruit. It's a blend of 65% Garnacha from C??rdenas and Cordov??n and 35% Tempranillo from Samaniego that fermented destemmed but uncrushed (so not exactly a carbonic maceration) with clean and fresh aromas and flavors. It's ripe and hedonistic, with 14.5% alcohol and good freshness. It matured in concrete for five months.

"1978 was a very short vintage for Rioja with "only" 78 million liters of wine produced (compared with 135 million in 1981 or 128 million in 1973). That year Egypt and Israel signed the Camp David Accords, Vietnam invaded Cambodia and in Italy the terrorist group Red Brigades kidnapped and killed ex-Prime Minister Aldo Moro. The Vatican saw Pope John Paul I succeeding Pope Paul IV and Pope John Paul II succeeding Pope John Paul I shortly after. ?????Grease????? opened in cinemas and cult TV series ?????Mazinger Z????? aired in Spain, surely the first (and probably the last!) super robot manga series that I watched on TV. The vintage was officially declared "Muy Buena" (very good), while at CVNE they were a little more conservative about the quality of their wines and considered it simply "Buena." The 1978 Vi??a Real Gran Reserva was bottled unusually late, in February 1987. That might explain why I found the wine exceptionally dry, with smoky notes." WA

I think context is very important in wine, and when I drink old bottles I always think how the world was when they harvested the grapes: what happened that year, how people lived and how they made the wine. It's sometimes mind boggling to drink some very old wines, a real privilege which, I often say, is as close as you can get to time travel. So I've given some context to all these wines. I'm told nobody reads the tasting notes and people only look at the scores, let's see if we get some reaction on these. Even though the tasting was excellent, I expected even more; we had too many corked wines and some vintages had shown better on other occasions. But such is the case with old wines, there are no great vintages anymore, only great bottles. Highlights of the tasting were 1959, 1947 and 1938. On top of those, there was one outstanding and perfect wine that day, and, as I might not find better excuse to publish a note on it than now, I've included it here. It's an historical wine, a one-off, semi-sweet white produced at the end of the Spanish Civil War, a wine impossible to replicate, fruit of impossible circumstances, a wine I've had the luck to drink and share with many people on a number of occasions and which never fails to impress everyone.

Organic

92 points Wine Advocate
I also tasted the 2022 Vi??edos en Labastida. The wines are produced in a similar way to highlight the differences of the places and vintages. In 2022, it's a similar blend of different plots with some 85% Tempranillo, 10% Garnacha and 5% white grapes, and it had a similar vinification and ??levage in 500- and 600-liter oak foudres in their cave. It's very primary and fruit-driven, with a nose of ripe berries and herbs, a lactic twist and a fine thread in the palate, with surprisingly fine tannins for a 2022. 3,600 bottles were filled in September 2023.

These are some of the most exciting new Riojas in the market.
Before modern or traditional Rioja, there was a simpler style of whole-cluster, co-fermented, and shortly-aged wines that were as naked and honest an expression of Rioja as one could find. So it's no surprise that Jos?? Gil followed in his ancestors' footsteps with focus in the vineyard rather than the cellar - which happens to be a cave in the outskirts of San Vicente.

Jose currently farms 5 hectares of vines located in the villages of San Vicente, Labastida, and Briones. Practices are manual and organic although he is not certified. The vines range in age from 5 to 130 years old with the majority Tempranillo, a small percentage of Viura. The oldest vineyard plots are co-planted with tiny percentages of other grape varieties which include Garnacha and Palomino. When the grapes reach the cellar after being harvested by hand, they are fermented either whole-cluster, or partially destemmed. All fermentations are by indigenous yeasts and extraction is gentle. After pressing the wines are racked into 225-300L French oak barrels and transported to the aging cellar in San Vicente.

Organic

94 points Wine Advocate
As with La Canoca, the 2022 El Bardallo changes from a single-vineyard to a paraje (lieu-dit) wine and includes more plots in the same place to increase the volume of wine produced. It's Tempranillo with some 10% white grapes, mostly Viura. It fermented with some whole-cluster fruit and indigenous yeasts and matured in 500- and 600-liter barrels. It's quite fruit-driven, aromatic and reminiscent of the old carbonic-fermentation reds matured in barrel, juicy and velvety, with abundant, chalky tannins and a dry finish. 3,200 bottles were filled in September 2023.

Jose currently farms 5 hectares of vines located in the villages of San Vicente, Labastida, and Briones. Practices are manual and organic although he is not certified. The vines range in age from 5 to 130 years old with the majority Tempranillo, a small percentage of Viura. The oldest vineyard plots are co-planted with tiny percentages of other grape varieties which include Garnacha and Palomino. When the grapes reach the cellar after being harvested by hand, they are fermented either whole-cluster, or partially destemmed. All fermentations are by indigenous yeasts and extraction is gentle. After pressing the wines are racked into 225-300L French oak barrels and transported to the aging cellar in San Vicente.

"Thirty years after the vintage the two 1976 Gran Reservas still fully express the qualities of their unique terroirs. The outstanding 1976 Vina Tondonia Gran Reserva offers a multitude of tertiary nuances in its suggestions of leather, licorice, coffee beans, earthiness and dried prunes on a medium-bodied frame of notable elegance. It is sweeter and riper than the Bosconia Gran Reserva, with a resonating note of alcoholic warmth that frames the long, lingering finish. 92/Anticipated maturity: 2006-?" 92pts WA