La Rioja: village by village Page 2: Map of Rioja Superior with Bodega locations by village

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1 La Rioja: village by village Page 2: Map of Rioja Superior with Bodega locations by village Page 3-4: The Number of the Beast, or, how to encapsulate Rioja? There s no such thing as Rioja Alta, Rioja Alavesa, Rioja Baja Expressions of duality (claret bottle, burgundy bottle and variants thereof) Singular expressions by village (west to east, more or less) Page 5-12: a crib sheet, tasting Rioja in geographical order a tour of dualities: Cune versus Viña Real Blue note versus Red note Tempranillo in the wines of Bodegas Roda The limits of Remelluri: Labastida village versus San Vicente a tour of villages: Sajazarra and the wines of Oscar Alegre and Eva Valgañon Cuzcurrita de Rio Tiron, whence Senorio de Cuzcurrita Anguciana, Viña Olabarri Labastida, Remelluri Briñas, Las Beatas by Telmo Rodriguez and Pablo Eguzkiza Lantziego, the Lanzaga trilogy by Telmo and Pablo Alfaro, Palacios Remondo Page 13-35: all the producers, fully detailed notes Manuel Quintano is the author of Medoc Alavesa, a French style pioneered in Labastida in the 1860s. These wines occupied a short, but significant burst of history in the region, in between the oidium outbreak of 1850 and the arrival of the trains to Bordeaux in the 1870s, which degraged the idea, and the final rupture of filoxera in Page 1

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3 the number of the beast ONE RIOJA? This is what the Consejo Regulador (paid off by big-biz-rioja) gives us, a Generic Rioja in which village names are illegal. We call this the Reservas, etcetera model. Rioja without any specifics of place. Buy grapes, do industrial stuff in the Bodega, sell generic wine. Faceless, placeless. Really dull. THREE RIOJAS? Sort of an adjunct of the Reservas-etcetera model, the view of Rioja divided into Rioja Alta, Rioja Alavesa and Rioja Baja is UTTERLY MEANINGLESS. Rioja Alta and Rioja Alavesa are political distinctions between dirt that is in Castile (Spain) and that which is Basque. I dig politics, but it has nothing to do with wine. Alta, Alavesa and Baja share a discrete patch of dirt that s good for grapes, and also share a massive amount of dirt that is not well-suited to quality wine, without any useful distinction. The 3 Riojas model has nothing to say. TWO RIOJAS! There are, however, several ways in which we can approach Rioja as having a fundamental duality, and gain meaning and understanding in the process. Firstly, there s the soil, the division of Rioja into North and South shores, the cold limestone-clay soils above the Ebro river divided from the fertile alluvium below the river: simply, this divides Rioja into Rioja Superior and Rioja Regular. (See my lengthy article on the matter, published in Alquimie, downloadable from the TSA website: Eventually, this will take us to a villages-and-vineyards view of things, just as if we were talking about Mosel wine, Barolo or Burgundy. But, before we get to the Many Riojas, there is a fascinating, real, historical and utterly natural duality within Rioja Superior, a basic yin and yang through which we can explore Rioja in a simple but meaningful way. Variously, the There are Two Fundamental Riojas view of things can be expressed in several similar versions of duality: Claret bottle versus Burgundy bottle Haro versus Logroño Atlantic versus Mediterranean climatic influences Blue note versus Red note tendencies in Tempranillo` MANY RIOJAS (villages and vineyards, ok?)! Once we are clear that there are potentially two basic styles of Rioja, depending on winemaking choices as well as climatic influences, then we are free (really free, like wow!) to see how Rioja plays out on a villages and vineyards basis. Today s tasting attempts to deal with dualistic Rioja and pluralistic Rioja in as coherent (albeit nowhere near linear) fashion as makes sense. CUNE vs VIÑA REAL/CLARET BOTTLE, BURGUNDY BOTTLE So, we start with Cune and Viña Real. We are introducing Viña Real to the Australian market today for the first time, and have brought out Bruno Butragueno to speak for his wines: Cune make wines from Atlantic-influenced soils in vineyards north of Haro, served up in claret bottles. Yes, they are industrial Riojas with lots of bodega activity influencing the final style, but also the soil-climate-location factors contribute significantly to the claret-shaped palate of Cune wines. Viña Real is a property owned by Cune. It s just outside Logroño, in wamer soils influenced by the Mediterranean and the wines have naturally (above and prior to bodega/winemaking influences) rounder, earthier Barolo-Burgundy style palates. Then, more specifically, representing the plurality of Rioja sites, Cune s Contino wines are a village-specific single vineyard project, over the hill from Viña Real in the little hamlet of Page 3

4 Laserna. A warm, Mediterranean vineyard above a loop in Rio Ebro, Contino makes powerful, earthy eastern Rioja Superior wines. DUAL RODAS Next, we look at Rioja duality via Bodegas Roda. Like Cune, they are based in Haro. They make two different wines with IDENTICAL quality and process inputs there is little producer influence in what makes Roda 1 and Roda Reservas different, just fruit selection. Roda 1 is Tempranillo in an entirely blue fruits spectrum: road metal minerals, licorice, blueberry, tobacco, violets and all that, intensely mineral, long, road-like. Roda is made from a taste selection of Tempranillo that leaks into red fruit territory, and this softer, rounder, earthier natural variant in Tempranillo is tweaked a touch further in the same direction by blending in a bit of Garnacha or Graciano, to underpin the red-note, softer rounder earthier palate. In an ideal world, the latter wine would still be called Roda 2, and would be bottled in a burgundy bottle. REMELLURI AND A DUALITY OF VILLAGES Similarly, at Remelluri, there is a village-specific duality presented in the form of the Lindes de Remelluri wines, where 9 growers in Labastida and 8 growers in San Vicente are bottled as village wines. These are identically-handled Riojas which represent, on one hand the Atlantic-influenced cold-soiled tight under-the-mountain valleys of Labastida, in contrast to the warmer, more Mediterranean, open, out-in-the-valley soils of San Vicente two villages just 5km apart, either side of the Remelluri estate. So, that s three different versions of the same underlying Riojan duality. There are a dozen other producers who make two fundamentally different Riojas and bottle them in claret bottle/burgundy bottle oppositions as a tell, for example, Lopez de Herredia s Tondonia (claret) and Bosconia (burgundy). I mightn t recommend all such as great wines, but the underlying point is clear Rioja has two basic faces, which are natural terroir-and-climate expressions of difference. From here, we can now concentrate on outright village specificity, and our tasting then becomes a simple, fascinating tour of Rioja s specific village locations, starting in the cold wild west under the Atlantic-blitzed Montes Obarenes and ending in distinctly Mediterranean Alfaro in the south-east. Village by village we will visit: Sajazarra and the wines of Oscar Alegre and Eva Valgañon Cuzcurrita de Rio Tiron, whence Senorio de Cuzcurrita Anguciana, Viña Olabarri Labastida, Remelluri Briñas, Las Beatas by Telmo Rodriguez and Pablo Eguzkiza Lantziego, the Lanzaga trilogy by Telmo and Pablo Alfaro, Palacios Remondo Page 4

5 THE TASTING IN ORDER Viña Olabarri, Rioja Blanco, Viura Historically, Rioja Blancos made from Viura have had to be heavily and oxidatively worked and wooded to get positive flavour from this relatively neutral Riojan white variety. Olabarri s wine has a pleasing natural depth of flavour and is able to present for drinking without obvious winemaking being required to force style and flavour from bland grapes. It s the product of a long, cool stainless steel fermentation at 14 degrees over 25 days, wild yeast, no lees contact, free run juice with minimal skin contact. Viña Olabarri Viura 2015 A golden, earthy-mineral nose is surprisingly complex. There s sand soil with apple, nuts, flowers and some sweet-spicy apricot richness. A full palate that s not too rich features peach, nectarine and waxy pineapple fruits. It s a fresh, unwooded style and has good composure, with fruit richness yielding to savoury texture and run with mineral tang and fresh acid closure at back. Pulpy, savoury fine, elegant fruit tannins are a real feature here, issuing very good length. VIÑA REAL barrel fermented Viura (screwcap) Grapes from the valley floor in Elciego are picked at optimum ripeness and cold macerated for 6-8 hours, fermented with neutral yeast in new US oak barrels for days, then aged 4 months on lees in barrel, without malolactic or batonnage. The wine has soft peachy fruit with hay, warm apples and golden sandy aromas. Textured and mature, the palate is clean with good balance between creaminess and bitterness, and a pleasing pebbly raciness to finish. VIÑA REAL Blanco 2014, barrel fermented Viura (screwcap) The nose is grainy (toasted and ripe field barley) with subtle, constrained lees richness (columbine, meal and all that). Starting out full and lush, the palate quickly gains line and natural texture and has good overall harmony. The fruit is a complex of cut white nectarine, green apple and old yellow flowers, built on a layer of subtle oak, with a cleansing ping of subtle acid to finish. CUNE Tempranillo Rosado (screwcap) Hand picked fruit is handled in stainless steel, soaked at 12 degrees for 24 hours after crush, then bled off. The wine is fresh, bright and clear, fruity but dry. Cune Tempranillo Rosado 2015 Bright strawberry and floral; crisp with just a bit of phenolic body, bone dry. Served stunningly cold, it s flavourful and refreshing. CUNE Tempranillo Crianza Cune, along with Lopez de Heredia were the first producers of Rioja to make a Crianza style wine. Hand-picked grapes for Crianza from Cune are de-stemmed and fermented temperature-controlled at around 28 degrees in stainless steel, then aged a year in older US oak. The Crianza is bottled under natural cork and screwcap, and we ship according to which format displays the wine best on a year-by-year basis. Thus far each year, commencing with the 2009 vintage, we have shipped it closed by natural cork. Cune Crianza 2012 Harmonious dark-fruit-tea aroma with glacé cherry, and delicate chocolate touches. The palate is nicely formed with oak at the right weight for the fruit. Mouthfeel is in a crisp and savoury register, and there s no oxidation evident, all is mature, elegant, fine and integrated. Page 5

6 CUNE Reserva From the same vineyards as Crianza fruit, a better selection of grapes plus additional fruit downgraded from Imperial vineyards. The wine is aged 18 months in oak (70% US, 30% French), equal thirds new, one and two years old. Mature aromas of tobacco and red fruits mingling in moderate levels of harmonious oak. There s a pleasant savoury fruit balance, the wood is clean and gently intrinsic, and the wine finishes with fine acidity and delicate residual fruit tannins. These wines can live until 50 years age, given good cellaring. Cune Reserva Tempranillo 2011 Sweetly earthy and balsamic woodsy aromas wander by one another and mingle with subtle cherry, plum and rose. There are touches of briar, tobacco leaf and a hint of choc. The palate is perfectly resolved and graceful, with fruit, oak and earth all playing together in harmony. A mint-acid snip gives definition. Just mid-weight, gloriously glidey and relaxed. VIÑA REAL Crianza Tempranillo Fruit is sourced from Laguardia and Elciego, mainly Tempranillo with some Garnacha and Mazuelo. Destemmed grapes are fermented in stainless steel for days at degrees. Malo takes place in oak and the wine is matured in new oak (70% French, 30% American) for months, racked every 5-6 months. Vina Real has a house style I liken to decompressed Barolo. Cherry, fruit of the forest, balsamic, mature wood and tea aromatics, with sars, tobacco and red dirt. A ripe, open and round style, mature fruit edged by oak. VIÑA REAL Tempranillo Crianza 2012 Delicate floral red fruits, gently of the countryside, soft mature oak aromas and a hint of fruit tea. Soft, slightly creamy palate which lands on mature oak. Surprisingly deft. Not oxidised, and not overly extracted. Gentle and easy. VIÑA REAL Reserva Tempranillo 15 days maceration, fermentation in stainless with IFO-dropovers by gravity. Held in concrete for malo, then racked by gravity to new barrels (60% french). After cask ageing for 2 years, the wine is clarified with egg white to achieve silkiness and shiny final colour. Ageing in bottle 36 months. 40yo vines. Vina Real Reserva 2010 Vanilla, spice and mint overlay red fruit with a waxy clay soil aromatic thread, soft deep florals later. The palate is a nice soft, round mid-weight number ending with gentle spice. Vanilla, soft oak, a touch of acidity and gently mature (light and spicy) tannin mingle at the end. CONTINO Garnacha From 70 years-old vines planted by the river as well as typically contributing 2% of the Reserva wine s fruit and 15% of the Gran Reserva of Contino, Jesus has cautiously begun attempting a varietal wine. Aged in second year 500 litre barrels previously used for Contino Blanco, it spends two years un-racked in wood. Although a varietal, this wine has the shape and feel of Rioja first and utterly, with Garnacha as flavour fill. Contino Garnacha 2012 Red peppers, sour herbs and some nice meat and spice on the nose. The silky primal red berry fruit is nicely opened with oxidative handling. Both nose and palate have terrific harmony - fruit and tannin are earthy and together, oak gives support without marking the palate. Long as well as round, seamless and really delicious, a very well structured and complex Garnacha. Page 6

7 CONTINO Reserva Hand-picked and de-stemmed, fermented in 12,000 litre stainless at 30 degrees, macerated days. Aged 2 years in old oak, 60% French, 5 rackings. 85% Tempranillo, 10% Graciano, 5% mixed Mazuela and Garnacha. Deep and complex, the wine is a very high quality amalgam of oak, earth, fruit - the savoury, the meaty and the mystic. The red fruit confiture over hung meat and fine oak is subsidiary to a fabulous sense of wineness, it s all sweet and leathery with old wood aromatics, pimiento, allspice, black pepper. The palate glides from glyceric cherry through leather to sourberry. It s deep, smooth and meaty with subtle leather, sweet cedar, vanilla and wood spice depth brightened by pip-squeaky fruit and acid levity. Long and profound. CONTINO Reserva 2009 In a red fruit register, with floral lift and purply-mineral crushed spices, the open savoury nose has earthen depths of river silt and sweet old clay pipes. The palate has beautiful textural maturity, working in a rich-but-dry vein. The wonderfully adapted amalgam of fruit-tannin-oak-air-acid affects a hugely pleasing dusty-nutty-spicy freshness in a lingering finish of great gentleness. BODEGAS RODA Roda 1 Reserva 100% Tempranillo. As Agustin says, It is a wine with more structure, with deeper sensations of black fruits, greater wealth of minerals and more complexity. It is a wine for quietness and meditation with a style marked by black cherry. Roda 1 is handled identically to Roda, but the blue-note fruit has a heightened minerality with fine but determined structure resulting from great tannin maturity. The differences between Roda and Roda 1 are simply the product of fruit selection, not winemaking. It s a wine of power with enormous finesse. RODA 1 Reserva 2009 Rounded and mature tannins, the hallmark of 2009, drive the show here.blueberry, leather, cola, graphite, kelp, soy, angelica, mace - literally lashings of blue fruit+mineral perfume. Fruit sweetness is tempered by florals and spice. Nice mineral studding stops the wine being overly smooth and rounded. Licorice runs through jubey fruit along with a big slab of ferrous minerality. Swishy and very fine, with extra-good oak integration. This is a generous, stylish, very delicious Roda 1, and utterly composed - juice, spice, earth, oak, acid all run together. BODEGAS RODA Roda Reserva (formerly known as Roda 2) Roda, compared to Roda 1, is based on a selection of Tempranillo which exhibits some red fruits and earth in the mix with the stricter, more structured blue-note Tempranillo which becomes Roda 1. Roda is a wine of great depth, tannin texture and class but in a relatively fruity and approachable register. This tendency towards open-hearted red fruit and earth is augmented with judicious blending, depending on the year, of some Garnacha and/or Graciano. Roda is grown from vines between years age, all dry grown en vaso. Hand picked, hand everything, it is fermented in open foudre, gravity decanted to age 15 months in new+1yo French barrique, then gravity-decanted again for bottling (unfiltered, unfined) and cellar ageing before release. The garnacha component of Roda s wines comes from separate vineyards in Rioja Baja, at Tuldelilla and Alcanadre. RODA Reserva 2010 Cruisy, essential, long and effortless in the way of 2010s, this is a wine of perfectly natural, integral structure, carrying red-black lozenge fruits that are succulent and springy-soft with a nice crunch at the rim. All is gathered from the get-go: juice, steeliness, leafy relief and springy tannin look as if somehow they were made tight and then just loosened off a half-turn so all is both directional yet tranquil. There s a lovely lingering trace of fennel and a touch of pepper in the softly-spiced finish. Page 7

8 LINDES de REMELLURI 'Viñedos de Labastida' (Atlantic), 'Viñedos de San Vicente' (Mediterranean) When Telmo took over Remelluri in 2009 he found that his father had increasingly been buying wines from the villages either side of Remelluri Estate (Labastida on the western linde or limit of Remelluri, on the track to Haro, and San Vicente on the eastern boundary towards Logroño). Telmo immediately culled the grower fruit. However, instead of simply cancelling their contracts, leaving the villagers without income, he decided to make a grower s wine from the villages either side of the estate. Telmo decided the little village project was a really worthwhile interpretation and expression of Rioja, and he has continued to make the Lindes de Remelluri grower-village wines since. 9 Labastida families and another 8 in San Vicente are all the better for it! Both wines are made similarly and simply, with fermentation in 5,000 litre old French oak vats, then 12 months maturation in old French barriques. Labastida and San Vicente offer quite different terroir expressions, with no winemaking to influence the differences. The two villages are just 5km apart on a small country road, the A-124 from Haro to Logroño which winds just under the mountains above the north shore of the Ebro. Labastida is nestled beneath the Sierra Cantabria, with cold soils in tight valleys marked by the Atlantic. The Labastida wine is concentrated, sweet and slick with nice lines - a cool-soils wine of inky-blue fruits, glossily sweet-seeded and creamy. The village of San Vicente de Sonsierra has a warmer aspect and richer ferrous red soils, with its vineyards out in the valley and open to the Mediterranean. LINDES de REMELLURI 'Viñedos de Labastida' Tempranillo 2012 The steep, enclosed valley at Labastida nestled under the Cantabrias yields a structured, elegant but soft, fluid wine. Labastida is vibrant and satin-spiced, sweetpipped red with florals afore and after (red florals not unlike a Ted Leamon wine). Red cherry, earth, field herbs, sweet pips, crunchy, concentrated elegance. LINDES de REMELLURI 'Viñedos de San Vicente 2012 Open and spicy, more volatile, earthy and really delicious. You can feel how open the valley is here, with warmer and redder soils open to the Mediterranean below San Vicente on its hilltop. Open, spicy, warm and earthy, really delicious countryside wine. The palate has a touch of chocolate in its distinct earthiness, expressed through a distinctly granular tannin profile. ALEGRE y VALGAÑON Tempranillo-Garnacha, Sajazarra and other villages While we await the single vineyard Tempranillo that Oscare Alegre and Eva Valgañon have made from the family plot in the village of Fonzaleche, here s their wine of the valley under Montes Obarenes. The idea is to blend villages, some which suit Tempranillo and some which yield great Garnacha. Effectively this means blending the soils of Rioja Superior, the cold clay-limestone of the hills above the river, with the warmer alluvialstone soils of the Rio Ebro delta. The first such Alegre y Valgañon was 2012, a blend of 40% Sajazarra with 35% Tempranillo from San Vicente and 25% Garnacha from Tudelilla. ALEGRE y VALGAÑON Tempranillo-Garnacha 2012, Sajazarra, San Vicente y Tudelilla Aged 26 months in oak, some new (future releases will have shorter and older oak regimes). With dark, brambly fruits, a hint of roasted meat and lovely herbs, it s satin-sheened and ravishingly spiced. Juniper and rosemary mix with cardamom, pomegranate and violet, a touch of leather, anise and fennel. It feels like a fresh and vital update on the old Viña Real Reservas that Oscar adores bravo! The wine has a perfect fit in the mouth: it snugs down solidly in the middle, runs out on a fine leathery line and has a wafting floral lift. Page 8

9 Cuzcurrita Senorio de Cuzcurrita Reserva Fruit is de-stemmed, hand sorted and basket pressed with IFO gravity pump overs. Malo takes place in barrel after fermentation in stainless foudre, and ageing is in 1/3 each new, one and two year old barriques. After ageing, the assembly is rested in large concrete for a few months prior to bottling. Cuzcurrita Senorio de Cuzcurrita Reserva 2010 A twitch of dark herb runs through blackberry fruitfulness on nose and palate. There s a touch of roof brick, dark mulch and river soil all adding a sense of place. Gently structured, soft mid-palate tannin runs into gentle acidity typical of this producer and of the cold soils out west of Haro under the Obarenes. Balance is excellent, with nice movement and great elegance. Vina Olabarri, Gran Reserva Tempranillo with a touch of Garnacha, matured for 24 months in French and American oak and racked to age 3 years in bottle before release. Vina Olabarri Gran Reserva 2007 Deep and fine, it has a faded sweetness on nose with integrated wood and dark husky spice yielding an appealing cloud of coffee, licorice, angelica, carob, curacao orange, tobacco leaf, and old wood. With good length, it s a dark, gentle, truffly old-schooler. Open and wide in the mouth, it gently arcs back and away - gloriously smooth with fine wood and spice, subtle and elegant. Wonderful gentle drinking now, it probably has 15 years up it's sleeve just like this! Remelluri Reserva Today s Remelluri Reservas are consistent in style with those of the past, fine and elegant, and not much marked by racking, and all oak influence is clean and meaningful. I would say thought that the refined Reserva since Telmo s return is noticeably brighter, marginally richer, fabulously brambly red berry wine with wonderful florals. The Reserva is comprised of Tempranillo predominantly, with a little each of Graciano and Garnacha, plus some white Viura and Malvasia. After about 17 months oak ageing, it s bottled unfiltered. Fermentation takes place in large conical oak vats and pigeage is carried out. Malo is mainly in large vats, although a small portion undergoes malo in barrique. New barrique ageing is reserved for only the most structured fruit, with most gaining secondary character from oxidative ageing in older French barriques. Remelluri Reserva 2010 Fine, fresh and clear, with mountain herb, indeed mountain air clear in the mix on the nose. There is also cedar, clay dirt, tobacco, brush and vanilla in the floral red berry fruit, marked with briary herbs. The presence of the smell of the mountain countryside is remarkable. Even-tempered in the mouth, savoury and fine, it s just mid-weight, pure, delicate and open with nice oak-spice harmony. Remelluri Gran Reserva Tempranillo 85% or so with Garnacha, Graciano and traces of Moscatel, Viura and Malvasia. Spontaneous wild yeast fermentation in large oak vats precedes 27 months in oak, with 7 years of total bodega maturation before release into the market. As with the Reserva, nowadays the Remelluri reds are made in a mix of materials larger foudre as well as barrique, but also cement and even in glass demijohns. Remelluri Gran Reserva 2009 Smells like a hall cupboard full of old coats, one of which has some licorice and tobacco in its pockets. Leading with ripe fruit dark cherry, blackberry, ripe plum, it gains complexity through pepper and clove spices, cedar, orange peel, forest mulch. It s very well balanced, finishing with complex spicy acidity. The typical leatherchestnut texture is long and elegant with a swish of 09 s easy and balanced richness. Page 9

10 Telmo Rodriguez Las Beatas Rioja Las Beatas is a spectacular 1.9 hectare property into which Telmo and Pablo have invested tremendous time and energy. 15 years of renovative viticultural work took place before a single bottle was realised. Las Beatas is extremely cold sandy soil facing north-west. There are ten or eleven grape varieties grown on eight terrace levels, predominantly Tempranillo with 30% Garnacha, some Viura and traces of many other rare, perhaps unidentified cultivars. The vines are densely planted and hand-worked. Purchased in 1998, Las Beatas has 0.8 hectares of very old field blend material and the rest are young vines massale-selected from the original genetics of the place. In 2011 a small harvest of the old gear and about 10% of the young plantings yielded 500 bottles; in 2012, 1500 bottles were produced from the old vines plus about 20% of the young vines. One day, this will be known as the Glory of Rioja. Telmo Rodriguez las Beatas Rioja 2012 Violet, fennel, cherry blossom and fresh clay soil. It is very floral, very much of the soil, lovely and very delicate. Open, purple and electric. There s cranberry in the violet, angelica, mountain air, and lots of space in a palate which is fine and clear, featuring very lovely delicate tannins. The Lantziego Wines of Telmo Rodriguez and Pablo Eguzkiza Corriente the Cosecheros wine At the beginning of last century, cosecheros or growers from Rioja Alavesa usually produced a village wine called Rioja Corriente : common wine, young but honest, for everyday drinking, leaving Riojas Selectos for special occasions. The idea of such a wine held great appeal to Telmo and Pablo, who now reproduce the style with bush-vine fruit from six such cosecheros in the Lantziego municipality. Many of these are old vineyards with a natural mix of Garnacha, Graciano and even some white vines among the Tempranillo. Corriente is made in raw concrete and aged in a mixed regime of barrel and foudre for a year. As an exercise in resurrecting history, Corriente speculates at how lovely regular Rioja may have been in the late 19 th century, and thus demonstrates how far things had slid by Perhaps also it signals a future Rioja whose everyday wines are a little more real than factory Crianzas Telmo Rodriguez Rioja Corriente 2013 The cold clay soil of Lantziego speaks very clearly on the nose, partnered by equally typical red heather smells of the locale (thyme, lavender and more). No fruit bomb, it s a countryside wine, with meat, cherry, mint and licorice all in a swirl. There are hints of sweet spice and it has great freshness. The palate opens with succulence, juicy and laden with red berries, then glides out and down into the mineral-flecked beauty of gravelly natural fruit tannin, and closes with perfectly judged astringency. TELMO RODRIGUEZ 'LZ' Tempranillo LZ is a summary of the Lantziego village vineyards, a free-range expression via gravity and concrete. Un-oaked, juicy, deft, utterly typical of its place. Telmo Rodriguez LZ 2014 Wonderfully expressive of the cold clay dirt of Lantziego with a burst of Crimson spices, flower petals and all of the herbs! Wonderfully focused without any creamy vanilla but with plenty of depth and deeply satisfying. The palate is built beautifully on a trademark fruit tannin-natural acid twin-track. The wine is spiced, earthily perfumed, ovoid, lissom. Page 10

11 TELMO RODRIGUEZ Lanzaga Tempranillo Lanzaga is the gently-oaked big sister to LZ. It s a village wine, combining 35 plots, handled separately, blended after selection, then aged a year or so in an oak regime where half the wine is aged in relatively neutral 1500 litre wood and the rest in a mix of 225 and 600 litre barrels (at most 10% new oak). A natural wine of the earth, there s no winemaking in sight when drinking Lanzaga. Telmo Rodriguez Lanzaga 2010 Red cherry and red heather with the freshness of a herb-laden mountain breeze and a touch of undergrowthy savouriness. The palate is easy and flowing, the fruit s juiciness wonderfully cut by natural structure. The brilliant fleshy tannins give a great sense of movement down the palate line. Indelibly marked by the great energy and vibration typical of the best 2010s. PALACIOS REMONDO 'La Vendimia' Garnacha-Tempranillo An unfiltered, organic Rioja regional blend, with Garnacha from below Rio Ebro and Tempranillo from the river s north shore. Alvaro s precise-yet-barely-tutored wines gently but unfailingly reflect the earth in which they grow, and this hallmark is seen in spades here. 4 months in barrique. PALACIOS REMONDO La Vendimia Garnacha-Tempranillo 2015 Smelling for all the world like an apple orchard in blossom (flowers, leaves and tree boughs), the Garnacha in this is really pretty, and marries beautifully to the grey-clay smell of the damp soils up under Mount Yerga out back of Alfaro. Crisper in tannin-line than unwooded Tempranillos such as LZ, and with a more pronounced, broader natural acidity, it s a very lively and linear Garnacha-based blend. Kee-runch! Both bright and earthily-fruited, this juicy little wine balances neat, modest tannins and soft red dirt acidity. Mid-weight, round and complete, gently spiced and perfumed, it s classy and delicious. PALACIOS REMONDO 'La Montesa' Garnacha La Montesa is the Palacios name for the shovel-nosed hill-slope above the town of Alfaro from which their main wines are selected. Three passes yield the Viura blanco, the joven tinto La Vendimia and its big sister La Montesa which is aged in older French oak. It s just a little more than La Vendimia more savoury, more mineral, more structured, yet still extremely gentle and open-weave. It s all things to all people affordable to quaff, stylish enough for a dinner party. The wine is aged a year in new to 4 year-old barriques. These are extremely clean, with all wood in Palacios Remondo s bodega washed in hot water, rinsed in cold, then re-washed with jets of ozone. PALACIOS REMONDO La Montesa Garnacha % Garnacha and a touch of local Tempranillo, and stunning value as in 2013 all the select vineyard fruit from the five vineyards which usually go to make Propiedad went into la Montesa. The vintage was a very small crop of healthy fruit and very easy to guide through the bodega processes. Has a beautiful red dirt nose, full of energy, with nice tart herbs mingling in Valencia orange peel. Exquisitely tart, with fine delicate sweet tannins strung along a nervous acid line; red dirt has a chalky edge. Extremely elegant. PALACIOS REMONDO Propiedad Viñas Tradicionales Garnacha de Alfaro 95% Garnacha with a touch of Monastrell and field blend Viura, this is a blend of five old vineyards at 600+ metres altitude under Mt Yerga. Las Mulgas is the oldest of these, at 90 years old and 650m. the others are Corral de Serrano, Valviejo, Valfrio and Valmira (from the 2014 harvest onward, Valmira is a stand-alone single Cru bottling). These vineyards represent the limit for Garnacha Page 11

12 any higher than this and you get unripe, thin-skinned Garnachas. Fermented in Tinas, aged in 650 litre French oak and bottled unfiltered. Since the 2010 harvest, Propiedad rewards a decade s intense labour by Alvaro in returning the Alfaro vineyards to their natural viticultural direction. PALACIOS REMONDO Propiedad 2011 Viñas Tradicionales Garnacha de Alfaro An axis-shifter, as Alvaro terms it, this 2011 is deep and energetic and without any fanfare, gently rips the cover off the idea of Rioja Baja. Fleshy, vegetal, and softly earthy with lantana herb-florals, wild rose and hawthorn above the heartwood smells of the old vines. There s orange and grapefruit peel and a saline streak. With wonderful volume, it s open, with nice textural maturity a lovely gently juicy wine in the direct and transparent way of the 2011s. Full of light and air, vibrant with soft fresh acidity. Page 12

13 Alegre y Valgañon The future is now Folks, unless I radically miss my mark, the wines of Oscar Alegre and his wife Eva Valgañon will very soon be cult stars of the Riojan firmament. But, you ll see no heroic winemaking from these two. You ll not be prompted to wonder which fabulously expensive oak barrels you are tasting, nor to ponder what proportion of whole bunches configures their winemaking. Alegre y Valgañon wines are far too real for such stuff. Utterly informed by the deep history of Rioja (the wines which came before the Industrial Bodegas and chemical growing-making all too often described as traditional Rioja ), Oscar and Eva make gentle and natural wines expressing the earth and air in their specific sector of Rioja. These are wonderful, characterful wines, and inexpensive. In 3 years time you ll need an allocation - don t say I didn t tell you well in advance! Oscar is a long-standing friend of TSA, having been Alvaro Palacios s export manager for a decade before stepping out into this personal venture. He s one of the top 10 most loveable rogues in the world of booze and we are proud and delighted to represent him. The villages of Rioja s Wild West Oscar and Eva are intent on a village-specific approach to making Rioja wines. Their key vineyard ( la Calleja ) is part of the Valgañon family s farm in the little village of Fonzaleche. This pueblo of 80 people is situated in the very limit of la Rioja, way out west of Haro. This north-western sub-region is defined by the Montes Obarenes and the valley of Rio Tiron (a Rio Ebro tributary). Just 70km inland from the Atlantic (via Sierra Cantabria), this area, Conchas de Haro, perfectly sums western Rioja s Continental-Atlantic duality. La Calleja is the last vineyard of Rioja as you depart for Burgos. At 580 metres altitude, Fonzaleche is one of the highest and coldest villages of Rioja. It s situated west of Rio Ebro, sheltered below the Montes Obarenes (the western range within the part of Sierra de Cantabria which frames Rioja to the north). The soils are continuous with those of Rioja Superior (the north shore of the Ebro) - predominantly chalky limestone. Oscar and Eva make a single vineyard wine from Fonzaleche la Calleja itself. Their other wines blend specific attributes of neighbouring cool hilly villages, Sajazarra (Sa-kha-tha-rrra) and Cihuri (Chee-hoo-ree), as well as the alluvial-soiled village Cardenas (a warmer site, pebbly and iron-rich), south of the Ebro, whence very special Garnacha is sourced. Page 13

14 Third time lucky (?!) We are very much looking forward to early 2017, at which point, Oscar and Eva s full range will be available as a coherent group for the first time yielded the first ever production of their Blanco and Clarete, while the A-V village blend Tinto dates from the cosechas of 2012 and These three wines will be in the market together by the second half of 2016, awaiting their big sister, la Calleja - effectively the flagship wine. La Calleja was first made in 2010, was not made in 2013, and went missing in 2011 and 2012 vintages, so the release of 2014 is being anticipated greatly. But, back up a bit: 2011 and 2012 went missing? What does that even mean, Scott (I hear you ask)?? While setting up their wine business, Oscar and Eva also went the family way twice in 3 years (they now have 3 lovely young kids, including twins). During this time, they shared winemaking duties at another bodega a venture south of Logroño called Finca de los Arandinos. Arandinos is a nice property with a lovely hotel and dining room as well as a bodega (the wines themselves are just ok). Oscar and/or Eva (depending on baby-making and other temporal responsibilities and distractions) were contracted to oversee winemaking for Arandinos, and were allowed to make and store their own wine in the bodega. I visited them at Arandinos in 2012, and tasted the finished 2010 as well as the soon-to-be-ready Impressive first efforts they were (although Oscar, with typical candour insisted they would really start to get there from 2012). We shipped and immediately sold a small allocation of the 2010, and after an interval I asked Oscar to sell us some No reply. A few texts, a few s, a few un-answered phone calls later, and we still didn t have 2011 la Calleja on the water. Eventually, I got hold of Oscar and wrestled the following from him Oscar: so, I went to Arandinos one day to oversee bottling of our second vintage of la Calleja the 2011 that you tasted already. I walked around the corner of the bodega to where our wine was resting in tank, to see No Tank! I grabbed the cellar hand and asked where my wine was? Cellar Dude: we bottled last week. Oscar: I know Arandinos was bottled last week I arranged the bottling, and now I m here to bottle my own wine, which is meant to be THERE! Dude: all the wine was bottled last week. Oscar: uffhh! Oscar and Eva s little gem was blended away into and bottled as part of Arandinos run-of-the-mill Crianza. La Calleja had ceased to be Unbelievably, a year later, when Oscar and Eva had made 2012 la Calleja (this time made and stored in a different bodega closer to home), more-or-less the same thing happened la Calleja was stolen from them too! Unhappy with the 2013 harvest (from which, but by choice, they also bottled no wine), Oscar and Eva have finally made a 2014 la Calleja, currently pending bottling and safely resting in a warehouse of their own in the local village, Sajazarra, where they also rent vineyards. In the meantime, they have fleshed out the range of wines they will make to interpret their little part of la Rioja. Welcome to the wines of Rioja s Wild West! Rioja on a human scale the wines of Alegre y Valgañon Oscar and Eva work with 3 parcels they own, totalling 1.8 hectares. These were part of Eva s family holdings (17 parcels totalling 15 hectares of conventionally grown vineyards) and have been taken over to farm organically for Alegre y Valgañon. La Calleja is a hectare in Fonzaleche, a north-facing mountainous site (600 metres, 600 litres of rain) with stones Page 14

15 high up in the soil, making light and fluid wines with excellent acid structure. Their other two vineyards are in nearby Sajazarra. Carra Santa Domingo is a field blend of vines over 100 years age, 40% white, facing south at 550 metres. La Morija/La Marina has a dual north-south aspect with old tertiary-era seabed soils, deep and stony with alluvium over limestone and quartz. They rent other vineyards to source the balance of their needs. Oscar holds that industrialism in Rioja constituted a second Filoxera and says he wants to reestablish the taste of the villages, to make wines on a personal scale, rather than the giant agribusiness version of Rioja as administered by the Consejo Regulador, for whom Rioja s 400 million kilos means the lottery comes every year! With la Calleja as a single-vineyard varietal, Oscar and Eva s other interests are deeply historical. They make an updated version of barrel-fermented Viura Blanco. There will be a single vineyard, field blend natural Clarete wine (very loosely a part of the Rosado spectrum) which blends light and crisp Garnacha with a significant amount of white grapes to make a fresh and pale red wine that drinks like a white wine. Rounding out the portfolio is a historical Tinto, blending the poor soils above the river with the rich soils below it to make a regional Tempranillo-Garnacha blend. ALEGRE y VALGAÑON La Calleja Single Vineyard Tempranillo, Fonzeleche La Calleja is a plot of 1.07 hectares planted in 1992 when Eva was a little girl (she helped her father plant it). In the village of Fonzaleche, La Calleja is planted to 100% Tempranillo and typically yields 4500 litres (although the first vintage, 2010 produced just 3000 bottles). Its name means little street. The vineyard is in conversion to organic and biodynamic viticulture. Mountainous, with lots of stone in the soil, Fonzaleche village produces light and fluid wines with excellent acid structure. Fruity-floral with violets, a fresh, mineral acidity and lovely texture, La Calleja is a genuine voice distinct from the me-too choir of industrial-process Rioja. Typical handling regime: lightly crushed (yield is only a half-litre per kilo of fruit), open fermentation in medium-sized old wood during 6 days, without additions, total sulphur of just 40mg/l. Gentle, medium length maceration with pigeage and 30% whole bunches, ageing 14 months in 500 litre new, 1 and 2 year-old French oak. Ageing in 500 litres barrels means the wine can't be labeled as Crianza or Reserva (300 litres is the maximum size authorized for wood-aged appellates in Rioja). ALEGRE y VALGAÑON La Calleja 2014 Tempranillo Fresh and floral, with ripe, sweet and elegant tannins, hold on tight, it s forthcoming! ALEGRE y VALGAÑON Tempranillo-Garnacha, Sajazarra and Cardenas The second Tinto reflects Oscar and Eva s interest in the deep history of Rioja. The idea is to blend villages, some which suit Tempranillo and some which yield great Garnacha. Effectively this means blending the soils of Rioja Superior, the cold clay-limestone of the hills above the river, with the warmer alluvial-stone soils of the Rio Ebro delta. The first such Alegre y Valgañon was 2012, a blend of 40% own vineyards in Sajazarra with 35% Tempranillo from San Vicente and 25% Garnacha from Tudelilla. From 2014, Garnacha from the southern village of Cardenas is blended with Sajazarra fruit. ALEGRE y VALGAÑON Tempranillo-Garnacha 2012, Sajazarra, San Vicente y Tudelilla Aged 26 months in oak, some new (future releases will have shorter and older oak regimes). With dark, brambly fruits, a hint of roasted meat and lovely herbs, it s satin-sheened and ravishingly spiced. Juniper and rosemary mix with cardamom, pomegranate and violet, a touch of leather, anise and fennel. It feels like a fresh and vital update on the old Viña Real Reservas that Oscar adores bravo! The wine has a perfect fit in the mouth: it snugs down solidly in the middle, runs out on a fine leathery line and has a wafting floral lift. Page 15

16 ALEGRE y VALGAÑON Clarete, Cordovin Forthcoming! Although the temptation is to view this pink wine as a Rosado, technically, it s a Clarete a virtually clear red, blending low colour Garnacha with a big swodge of vibrant Viura. Chalky and savoury with tannin grip like a light red wine, but the feel, weight and run of a (non-yeasty) white. Oscar is pictured below in Carra Santa Domingo, a south-facing vineyard in Sajazarra, planted to 40% white grown at 550m altitude. It s a field blend vineyard with vines well over 100 years old, and eventually Oscar will produce a single Cru Clarete from this vineyard. For now, the Alegre y Valgañon Clarete is purchased from the nearby village of Cordovin, historically famous for the style. Claretes used to be extremely popular in Rioja and Ribera del Duero however, nowadays the Consejos Reguladores don t even list the style name as any form of appellation. Although they no longer officially exist, Claretes are still made and drunk in surprising number: most are sold anonymously as Rosados. The wine bar in Sajazarra even has a section of Clars on its winelist. ALEGRE y VALGAÑON Viura Blanco, Sajazarra y Cihuri This white actually contains 10% Garnacha, so it s kind of a reverse Clarete! Fruit from Villalba and Sajazarra (4500 kg yielded just 2200 litres). Aged on lees 9 months after fermentation in new oak, it s a remarkably fresh wine despite plenty of textural material. At 3.1ph, it s very high acid, long and fine, aching of chalk, with grapefruit tang and lemonade fruit sweetness. Page 16

17 CASTILLO de CUZCURRITA, Cuzcurrita de Rio Tiron The cold wild west of Rioja It s yer Cuzzy E-bro. Senorio de Cuzcurrita Half an hour out west of Haro, the hamlet of Cuzcurrita de Rio Tiron approaches the limit of La Rioja. Out here a local typicity due to the cold(shared with the other significant local maker - Oscar Alegre and Eva Valgañon) delivers acid freshness unusual in Tempranillo. The property is 7 hectares of old vines on a hill above the 14 th century castle or Castillo of Cuzcurrita del Rio Tiron. The Tiron is a tributary of Rio Ebro, the river which defines la Rioja. Here in the limits of north-western Rioja above 550m altitude, freshness is guaranteed ripeness is marginal. Cuzcurrita s first vintage was 2000, winemaking is by Ana Martin. Two wines are made, both of which are Reservas : Senorio de Cuzcurrita, which is bright, briary, fresh lively, springy even, with spicy acidity. The second wine, Cerrado de Castillo, is a sandy soil vineyard selection featuring heavier, earthier tannins and spends 15 rather than 12 months in wood. The wines are 100% Tempranillo and all are en vaso goblet-pruned bush vines. The wines are worked only with gravity and are aged in French oak. With the outstanding acidity found here, the wines can be largely left alone in the winery, they are handled including racking as little as possible. The main vineyard was planted in Initially very vigorous, organics and yield reduction now see production reduced to a startlingly low ½ kilo/vine from the sandy, stony soil. Harvest is very late, usually commencing in mid-october. Cuzcurrita Senorio de Cuzcurrita Reserva Fruit is de-stemmed, hand sorted and basket pressed with gravity pump overs. Malo takes place in barrel after fermentation in stainless foudre, and ageing is in 1/3 each new, one and two year old barriques. After ageing, the assembly is rested in large concrete for a few months prior to bottling. Cuzcurrita Senorio de Cuzcurrita Reserva 2010 A twitch of dark herb runs through blackberry fruitfulness on nose and palate. There s a touch of roof brick, dark mulch and river soil all adding a sense of place. Gently structured, soft mid-palate tannin runs into gentle acidity typical of this producer and of the cold soils out west of Haro under the Obarenes. Balance is excellent, with nice movement and great elegance. Page 17

18 Bodegas Viña Olabarri, Anguciana Olabarri is a family-owned property, with a bodega near Haro in la Rioja Alta. Founded in 1985 by Pablo Olabarri, Pablo s son Luis Olabarri Bikandi now owns and runs the winery. For 20 years, Fernando Salgado has been winemaker to the Olabarris. Vina Olabarri s vineyards are in three locations: they grow red grapes outside Haro at Anguciana and also in Fuenmayor on the way to Logrono on the Bikandi farm, and Viura white (along with small amounts of Garnacha blanca and Malvasia) is grown in the village of Cenicero. They work with 40 hectares in total, half owned, half rented, half organic, growing on terraces overlooking the Ebro River. The soil is a stony sandy loam over an alluvial substrate. The bodega in the tiny village of Anguciana is in fact two wineries, one extremely old cellar and a recently built one; in one US oak is used, and in the other, French. For fun, they have a cellar club, where you can taste from barrel, buy the barrel you prefer and have it bottled exclusively. Vina Olabarri, Rioja Blanco, Viura Historically, Rioja Blancos made from Viura have had to be heavily and oxidatively worked and wooded to get positive flavour from this relatively neutral Riojan white variety. Olabarri s wine has a pleasing natural depth of flavour and is able to present for drinking without obvious winemaking being required to force style and flavour from bland grapes. It s the product of a long, cool stainless steel fermentation at 14 degrees over 25 days, wild yeast, no lees contact, free run juice with minimal skin contact. A golden, earthy-mineral nose is surprisingly complex. There s sand soil with apple, nuts, flowers and some sweet-spicy apricot richness. A full palate that s not too rich features peach, nectarine and waxy pineapple fruits. It s a fresh, unwooded style and has good composure, with fruit richness yielding to savoury texture and run with mineral tang and fresh acid closure at back. Pulpy, savoury fine, elegant fruit tannins are a real feature here, issuing very good length. Vina Olabarri, Reserva Made from 90% Tempranillo and 10% Graciano, it sees 12 months each in French and American oak before maturing for a further 12 months in bottle. Bright ruby, the wine has dusty cranberry and faded tobacco fruit laced with vanilla and angelica and the oak affects a sense of creamed nut. On palate, the red fruit is cherry-floral and leathery, with lots of savoury, secondary complexity. The mouthfeel is restrained, framed by persistent tannin giving a long cold sweet tea finish after a long and beautifully settled palate ride. Vina Olabarri, Gran Reserva Tempranillo with a touch of Garnacha, matured for 24 months in French and American oak and racked to age 3 years in bottle before release. Deep and fine, it has a faded sweetness on nose with integrated wood and dark husky spice yielding an appealing cloud of coffee, licorice, angelica, carob, curacao orange, tobacco leaf, and old wood. With good length, it s a dark, gentle, truffly old-schooler. Open and wide in the mouth, it gently arcs back and away - gloriously smooth with fine wood and spice, subtle and elegant. Wonderful gentle drinking now, it probably has 15 years up it's sleeve just like this! Page 18

19 Bodegas Roda, haro Ro-Da is the contraction of the surnames of the two owners, Mario Rottlant and Carmen Daurella. (Note that their wonderful extra virgin olive oil, Dauro, uses their surnames starting letters in reverse.) Since 1987, they have sought to establish a unique expression of Rioja, based on 17 different vineyards of old vines in poor soils (a mixture of sandstone and clay/limestone) all with long histories in quality Rioja wine growing. Roda s main vineyards are in the Estacion district near Haro. For the first years, no wines meeting their intentions were achieved, but Roda has successfully released wines since 1992, starting with Roda 1 and Roda (aka Roda 2, ), which have been produced each year since, save 1993 when only Roda 2 was produced. In 1998, these were joined by the deluxe Cirsion and since 2008, a young vines wine, Sela. Roda wines are essentially vinos de viñas viejas (old vines wines), from vineyards 2/3 owned, and all entirely managed by Roda. In Roda s case, old vines are determined as 35 years or more, though most are 50+. The greater depth of roots and the larger volume of soil encompassed by old vines reduces the influence of drought or excess rain, balances yield and stabilises character. Old vines set smaller, more concentrated berries with much lower juice-skin ratios and more faithfully reflect the mineral nuances of soil through mature natural tannins and acid. Of late, Roda have introduced a new wine, Sela, which is not an old vines release. When the Roda project was set up, extensive vineyard plantings were undertaken. For many years, this material planted by Roda was sold off on the bulk grape market. Nowadays, these 20yo+ plantings, while not old vines, are mature and characterful enough to warrant a release, Sela. All wines are from dry grown bush vines with three branches pruned en vaso. The vase-pruning form ventilates the plant and gives an excellent balance of light and shade for the fruit. Most of Roda s plantings are Tempranillo, but depending on the year and the wine in question, some blending with Garnacha and or Graciano is undertaken. Mazuelo was used in earlier years. Roda s viticulture is organic, with vineyard (design-andmanagement) plus biological controls taking care of pests. Yields average around 30 hl/ha. Each vineyard is hand-picked several times over by Roda s own picking team. To underscore their viticultural commitment, at 550m altitude near Cubillas they maintain the Enit research vineyard of some 582 distinct cultivars of Riojan vines! This vineyard-museum was planted in 2000 after 3 years fulltime work by a team of viticultors identifying all possible distinct cultivars of Riojan wine grapes. Roda are obsessed with the close study of ripening, particularly phenolic ripeness, and over time this has evolved a truly unique house feel for textural tannins not to mention a singular wine, Cirsion, entirely devoted to silky tannin expression. Their concern is to make plush, violet-velvet wines Page 19

20 with rich fruit and full, soft tannins pushing to the margins of the fruit, but always contained within. The wines of Roda are destined for the table, and explicitly stand against the stream of (for want of a better word) Parkery fruit and artefact bombs. As GM of Roda, Agustin Santolaya remarks, such wines are only good for making an impression at tastings their strength of flavour prevents enjoying more than one glass. Agustin claims instead that Roda s wines find that magic balance between volume and airiness, voluptuousness and freshness; wines for enjoying from the moment they appear on the market but which live through many decades. For Bodegas Roda, everything is about the production and retention of grape quality: the approach to wine through viticulture is nowhere given more commitment, managed in the vineyard by Isidro Palacios and in the bodega by oenologist Carlos Diez. The winery is built into a mountain, and is a gravity-fed free run operation (you take a freight elevator to travel down through the hill from one stage of making to another). All frut is hand de-stemmed and cooled before a spontaneous (indigenous yeast) fermentation is in Seguin Moreau foudre - 17 large clean vats, one per vineyard. Fermentation takes 7-8 days, then there is a short maceration. Natural cold settling takes place in vat after malolactic. Each parcel ages separately until tasting for red/black spectrum and division into Roda/Roda 1 barrels. After spring there is a single assemblage racking - the young wine is gravity decanted down one level to age in French barrels, with a minimum of oxidative handling. Over time, the period spent in oak (for Roda and Roda 1) has come down from months in earlier years, to nowadays, and barrels are 40% new and the balance 1yo. The barrel ageing hall is climate-controlled, with a north-facing glass wall which opens to allow cold winter air in after malolactic fermentation is complete, stabilising the wine naturally. Once mature in barrel, the wines are decanted by gravity to bottle unfiltered, fined by nature. THE WINES OF BODEGAS RODA Roda Reserva (formerly known as Roda 2) Roda, compared to Roda 1, is based on a selection of Tempranillo which exhibits some red fruits and earth in the mix with the stricter, more structured blue-note Tempranillo which becomes Roda 1. Roda is a wine of great depth, tannin texture and class but in a relatively fruity and approachable register. This tendency towards openhearted red fruit and earth is augmented with judicious blending, depending on the year, of some Garnacha and/or Graciano. Roda is grown from vines between years age, all dry grown en vaso. Hand picked, hand everything, it is fermented in open foudre, gravity decanted to age 15 months in new+1yo French barrique, then gravity-decanted again for bottling (unfiltered, unfined) and cellar ageing before release. The garnacha component of Roda s wines comes from separate vineyards in Rioja Baja, at Tuldelilla and Alcanadre. RODA Reserva 2010 Cruisy, essential, long and effortless in the way of 2010s, this is a wine of perfectly natural, integral structure, carrying red-black lozenge fruits that are succulent and springy-soft with a nice crunch at the rim. All is gathered from the get-go: juice, steeliness, leafy relief and springy tannin look as if somehow they were made tight and then just loosened off a half-turn so all is both directional yet tranquil. There s a lovely lingering trace of fennel and a touch of pepper in the softly-spiced finish. Roda 1 Reserva 100% Tempranillo. As Agustin says, It is a wine with more structure, with deeper sensations of black fruits, greater wealth of minerals and more complexity. It is a wine for quietness and meditation with a style marked by black cherry. Roda 1 is handled identically to Roda, but the blue-note fruit Page 20

21 has a heightened minerality with fine but determined structure resulting from great tannin maturity. The differences between Roda and Roda 1 are simply the product of fruit selection, not winemaking. It s a wine of power with enormous finesse. RODA 1 Reserva 2009 Rounded and mature tannins, the hallmark of 2009, drive the show here.blueberry, leather, cola, graphite, kelp, soy, angelica, mace - literally lashings of blue fruit+mineral perfume. Fruit sweetness is tempered by florals and spice. Nice mineral studding stops the wine being overly smooth and rounded. Licorice runs through jubey fruit along with a big slab of ferrous minerality. Swishy and very fine, with extra-good oak integration. This is a generous, stylish, very delicious Roda 1, and utterly composed - juice, spice, earth, oak, acid all run together. Roda Sela Sela is Roda s younger plantings, established in the late 80s. These three vineyards are north of Haro towards Villalba. Until now, this great young material was simply sold off on the bulk fruit market. Now, these vineyards are over 20 years age, nicely mature and deserving release in their own right. Hence, from 2008 we see Sela (note, this is named for the Scandinavian village where Mario and Carmen go for ski holidays, the name is not a Rioja reference). Sela maintains Roda s hallmark of elegance and tannin fineness. 89% Tempranillo, 11% Graciano from sustainable vineyards, crianza of 12 months in used oak. The vines were tutored on poles for their first 12 years, then released to be true bushvines en vaso. Roda Sela 2012 Field herbs, soft, round tannins are nicely rustic, with a nice squareness which sits the wine up in the mouth, pert and relaxed, it then folds out slowly to a gentle finish. Roda 'Cirsion' First released in 1998, Cirsion is Roda's in-vineyard tannin selection project. Cirsion (latin for the thistle, which is Roda's logo) is based on a theory of tannin development in perfect old vine Tempranillo. Under exceptional conditions (not mere hyper-ripening), Roda are able to identify very small parcels which naturally exhibit 'long-chain' (ie 'wine-like') tannins in berry, rather than the more usual model of softening shorter brittle tannins with barrel and bottle maturation. This should not connote a soft-fruity-round wine, however. Cirsion is a very serious, concentrated, complex, powerful beast but this power, extract and expression is amazingly harnessed by the full, unbelievably supple tannin structure. A 'grand cru' anywhere in the world. 100% Tempranillo. RODA Cirsion 2010 Arrowroot succotash bark anisey medicinal herbs, elsuperbalsmicio! Red cherry, violet, great tannins, nutty, spicy-soft controlled richness. Yumme! Page 21

22 Compania Vinicola del Norte de Espana C.V.N.E, aka Cune, Haro VIŇEDOS del CONTINO, Laserna VIŇA REAL, Logroño The 4 Bodegas of Eusebio Asua C.V.N.E (hereafter, Cune, pronounced Coo-nay) was founded in 1879 by the Real de Asua brothers (Raimondo and Eusebio) of Bilbao. The company is still run by a descendant of the brothers. CVNE have three wineries based in distinct locations (one of which is a double bodega). As well as Cune in Haro, there are Contino and Viña Real from near Logrono to the east. Contino is a single-site project from a warm south-facing vineyard. While Contino is an expression of place, the Cune and Viña Real wines are somewhat more expressions of 20 th century Riojan process racking and oak influence, all that stuff. However, there is a placeness which separates Cune and Viña Real, and one which is quite traditional in Rioja. The Haro-environs wines of Cune are sold in Claret bottles, while the Logroño-area fruit for Viña Real is in Burgundy bottles. Logroño in the east is a slightly warmer, more open part of the valley, nearer to and more influenced by the Mediterranean, whereas Haro in the west is more influenced by the Atlantic chill coming in over the Sierra Cantabria, and here the valley is tighter, hillier. Haro wines tend to be lighter, less tannic and more linear, ie very roughly Claret in style, whereas Logroño wines are fuller, rounder, earthier and more tannic, a little like a relaxed version of Barbaresco or such. Many producers have historically released wines both in Claret and Burgundy bottlings, expressing Rioja in two valid (westy or easty) structural styles. Get me to the Estacion on time The business was established in Haro, near Barrio de la Estacion. The train station at Haro was a direct link to Bordeaux in France, stricken at the time by phylloxera and oidium, and many of Rioja s most famous names gathered in the train station suburb on Haro s north-western corner. From here, the new wave of Bordeaux-style Rioja producers which sprang up in the second half of the 19th century (many of which were owned and/or managed by displaced French) could easily ship Rioja wine to cover the vacant markets for Claret. Thus, Cune first made an income as a negociant house supplying bulk wine to France. A similar short term boom occurred in other parts of Spain, such as Mallorca, whose plantings increased four-fold in the second half of the 19th century, before the collapse when phylloxera eventually devastated most of Spain s vineyards too. By the time this happened, however, Cune had matured into a genuine wine producer in its own right. The brothers soon moved away from bulk wine shipping and began purchasing and planting vineyards around Rioja Alta and employed cellar masters from Bordeaux. The colloquial brand name, Cune is the result of a slight mistake in their first order of packaging: the direction to stamp wooden wine cases as 1886 C.V.N.E were simply mis-read by the package company, and by a happy typo slip, the homonym Cune was born. Cune have four distinct bodegas: The Cune bodega in Haro since 1879, servicing vineyards from Haro and nearby Villalba. There is a technically distinct bodega within the Haro mainframe, within which the high end wines under the Real de Asua brand are made as a subset of Cune. CVNE are partners with Jesus Madrazo in a single vineyard property, Viñedos del Contino, located in the tiny village of Laserna just north of Logroño. Finally, nearby to Contino, also just out of Logroño, is a distinct wine business, Viña Real a space-age bodega built into a hilltop. VR has occupied its own bodega here since 2000, previously being housed in nearby Elciego. Page 22

23 C.V.N.E (Compania Vinicola del Norte de Espana), aka Cune, La Rioja Alta Haro is home to Cune, where the company began in 1879 and still resides on its original site, Barrio de la Estacion, directly next to the train station in Rioja Alta. This suburb of the railway station is a tiny cluster of some of the big names of old school Rioja Cune, Lopez de Herredia, Muga, La Rioja Alta and more. Whether or not we consider these to be anachronistic dinosaurs peddling low-brow industrial Rioja, they constitute an enormous chunk of the visible and known story of La Rioja. CUNE Tempranillo Rosado (screwcap) Hand picked fruit is handled in stainless steel, soaked at 12 degrees for 24 hours after crush, then bled off. The wine is fresh, bright and clear, fruity but dry. Cune Tempranillo Rosado 2015 Bright strawberry and floral; crisp with just a bit of phenolic body, bone dry. Served stunningly cold, it s flavourful and refreshing. CUNE Tempranillo Crianza Cune, along with Lopez de Heredia were the first producers of Rioja to make a Crianza style wine. Hand-picked grapes for Crianza from Cune are de-stemmed and fermented temperature-controlled at around 28 degrees in stainless steel, then aged a year in older US oak. The Crianza is bottled under natural cork and screwcap, and we ship according to which format displays the wine best on a year-by-year basis. Thus far each year, commencing with the 2009 vintage, we have shipped it closed by natural cork. Cune Crianza 2012 Harmonious dark-fruit-tea aroma with glacé cherry, and delicate chocolate touches. The palate is nicely formed with oak at the right weight for the fruit. Mouthfeel is in a crisp and savoury register, and there s no oxidation evident, all is mature, elegant, fine and integrated. CUNE Reserva From the same vineyards as Crianza fruit, a better selection of grapes plus additional fruit down-graded from Imperial vineyards. The wine is aged 18 months in oak (70% US, 30% French), equal thirds new, one and two years old. Mature aromas of tobacco and red fruits mingling in moderate levels of harmonious oak. There s a pleasant savoury fruit balance, the wood is clean and gently intrinsic, and the wine finishes with fine acidity and delicate residual fruit tannins. These wines can live until 50 years age, given good cellaring. Cune Reserva Tempranillo 2011 Sweetly earthy and balsamic woodsy aromas wander by one another and mingle with subtle cherry, plum and rose. There are touches of briar, tobacco leaf and a hint of choc. The palate is perfectly resolved and graceful, with fruit, oak and earth all playing together in harmony. A mint-acid snip gives definition. Just mid-weight, gloriously glidey and relaxed. CUNE Imperial Gran Reserva Not made each year, IGR is harvested from Cune s best patch of goblet-pruned dry-grown bush-vines in Villalba and Haro. 24 days maceration and 30 months ageing in US and French oak. Cune Imperial Gran Reserva 2009 Blackcurrant, cassis and wild cherry fruits meet violet, peony, leather and old ink. Imagine taking two sheets of fine parchment with dried inkblots on them, and between them pressing and drying peonies now, slowly rehydrate them with your mind, follow the ethereal dance, the subtle wafting of ink, earth, paper and flower sweetness becomes spice, oak becomes space utterly fabulous. Page 23

24 CONTINO Contino is a single-estate bodega of 150 acres based in a 200 year old farmhouse in Laserna, between Logroño and Laguardia. The name comes from the royal guard of 100 soldiers who guarded the monarch, and the label features the bust of San Gregorio, the patron saint and protector of vineyards. Created in 1974 by C.V.N.E and Jose Madrazo Real de Asua (father of Contino s current winemaker, Jesus Madrazo), the family owner of the estate. Jesus, an engineer as well as enologist, took over in 1994 and is constantly revising the growing and making of the 7 distinct plots on the estate, each of which is vinified as a separate wine prior to selection and blending the house range. Genetic material for planting comes from massale selection. The estate sits tucked inside one of the bends of the Ebro River (which sometimes floods in winter and spills into the vineyards). There are alluvial stone and sand plots which drain freely and the underlying heavy clay and marl soils take care of water retention during the hot summers. All fruit is dry grown. The south-facing pebbly and very warm site is particularly well suited to ripening Graciano, ordinarily tending to greenness and very high acidity. Jesus s grandfather was responsible for the invention and commercialisation of IFOs Identified Flying Objects the large-scale mobile grape buckets which are used (nowhere more spectacularly than at Viña Real see below) by many Riojan producers to handle must and wine by gravity and thus avoid pumping, even in pumpovers, the correct, if clunky term for which is dropovers. CONTINO Garnacha From 70 years-old vines planted by the river as well as typically contributing 2% of the Reserva wine s fruit and 15% of the Gran Reserva of Contino, Jesus has cautiously begun attempting a varietal wine. Aged in second year 500 litre barrels previously used for Contino Blanco, it spends two years un-racked in wood. Although a varietal, this wine has the shape and feel of Rioja first and utterly, with Garnacha as flavour fill. Contino Garnacha 2012 Red peppers, sour herbs and some nice meat and spice on the nose. The silky primal red berry fruit is nicely opened with oxidative handling. Both nose and palate have terrific harmony - fruit and tannin are earthy and together, oak gives support without marking the palate. Long as well as round, seamless and really delicious, a very well structured and complex Garnacha. CONTINO Reserva Hand-picked and de-stemmed, fermented in 12,000 litre stainless at 30 degrees, macerated days. Aged 2 years in old oak, 60% French, 5 rackings. 85% Tempranillo, 10% Graciano, 5% mixed Mazuelo and Garnacha. CONTINO Reserva 2009 In a red fruit register, with floral lift and purply-mineral crushed spices, the open savoury nose has earthen depths of river silt and sweet old clay pipes. The palate has beautiful textural maturity, working in a rich-but-dry vein. The wonderfully adapted amalgam of fruit-tannin-oak-air-acid affects a hugely pleasing dusty-nutty-spicy freshness in a lingering finish of great gentleness. Page 24

25 Viña Real While the Cune bodega in Haro represents CVNE s commitment to tradition, Viña Real exemplifies their embrace of modern technology. Viña Real wines are in a rounder, more fruit forward style, yet have the structure and ability to age for half a century. Viña Real started in the 1920s and old VR Gran Reservas are among Rioja s legendary wines. Since 2004, Viña Real has been housed in a modern purposebuilt winery designed by Bordelaise architect Philippe Mazieres. The foyer entrance sits atop the hill known as Cerro de la Mesa and commands sweeping views of both the Alavesa vineyards (looking directly down on Contino just to the North) and South to Logroño. The heart of the facility is a cavernous circular chamber which, when viewed from the outside, resembles the upper portion of a giant wine barrel. Inside, technology and modernity reigns. The above-ground portion houses the winemaking facility, designed with the goal of complete reliance on gravity-flow, made possible in large part by a rotating central crane, delivering giant IFOs to each fermenter. Anytime grapes or juice need to be moved, for example to pump-over, it is done by gravity thanks to the IFOs. The bodega features twin 3km tunnels dug into the hill where bottle and barrel ageing takes place (these drives took 6 years to dig!). The grapes are grown on sunny south-facing slopes above the Ebro River in Elciego and nearby villages. As with Cune, Viña Real wines are produced from about 50% estate owned vines, and the rest is purchased. VIÑA REAL barrel fermented Viura, screwcap Grapes are cold macerated for 6-8 hours, fermented with neutral yeast in new US oak barrels for days, then aged 4 months on lees in barrel, without malolactic or batonnage. VIÑA REAL Blanco 2014, barrel fermented Viura The nose is grainy (toasted and ripe field barley) with subtle, constrained lees richness. Starting out full and lush, the palate quickly gains line and natural texture and has good overall harmony. The fruit is a complex of cut white nectarine, green apple and old yellow flowers, built on subtle oak, with a ping of subtle acid to finish. VIÑA REAL Crianza Tempranillo Destemmed grapes are fermented in stainless steel for days at degrees. Malo takes place in oak and the wine is matured in new oak (70% French, 30% American) for months, racked every 5-6 months. Vina Real has a house style I liken to decompressed Barolo. VIÑA REAL Tempranillo Crianza 2012 Delicate floral red fruits, gently of the countryside, soft mature oak aromas and a hint of fruit tea. Soft, slightly creamy palate which lands on mature oak. Surprisingly deft. Not oxidised, and not overly extracted. Gentle and easy. VIÑA REAL Reserva Tempranillo 15 days maceration, fermentation in stainless with IFO-dropovers by gravity. Held in concrete for malo, then racked by gravity to new barrels (60% french). After cask ageing for 2 years, the wine is clarified with egg white to achieve silkiness and shiny final colour. Ageing in bottle 36 months. Vina Real Reserva 2010 Vanilla, spice and mint overlay red fruit with a waxy clay soil aromatic thread, soft deep florals later. The palate is a nice soft, round mid-weight number ending with gentle spice. Vanilla, soft oak, a touch of acidity and gently mature (light and spicy) tannin mingle at the end. Page 25

26 La Granja Nuestra Senora de Remelluri Remelluri: the first estate of la Rioja. Owned by the family of Telmo Rodriguez, and since 2009 run on behalf of the family by Telmo and his sister Amaia, this property released the first genuine estate wines of la Rioja: owned, grown, made and bottled on a single property. Purely organic and never subjected to herbicide, Remelluri is in conversion to full biodynamics, and planted to field blends of its own local genetic cultivars. If la Rioja is one of wine s most beautiful places, equally Remelluri is Rioja at its most beautiful. Remelluri 15 minutes drive east of Haro on the back road to Logroño, under the Cantabrian mountains between Labastida and San Vicente. Remlluri is 150 hectares of property with 90 hectares of vines in 200 plots grown above 600m altitude, looking down over la Sonsierra to Rio Ebro and flatter country away to the south. It s a panoptical holdfast with spectacular views, and the estate has a pure, rugged wild-country beauty. Remelluri really came to prominence in the late 1980s when Telmo took over winemaking. Under the guidance of the young Telmo (adopting Burgundian rather than Bordelaise techniques and aspirations), Remelluri moved to the forefront of quality Rioja properties in the late 1980s/early 90s. Telmo actually started working with his long-term business partner, Pablo Eguzkiza at Remelluri. Telmo and Pablo left Remelluri in the mid-1990s to concentrate on the emerging Compania de Vinos Telmo Rodriguez. 15 years later, they are back! Telmo and his sister Amaia have recently taken over the property entirely, running it on behalf of the family from 2009 onwards. Several key changes are in the pipeline. There were some innovations and corrections that Telmo was not allowed to implement first time around. Now, an exacting viticultural quality regime is in place, including stipulating that the un-irrigated fruit be entirely organic and biodynamic, with revisions on planting locations and subtle handling adjustments. The fruit is taken three distinct valley formations within the estate, above which are terraces housing bush vines grown in very cold and poor soils of limestone, sandstone and loam. As part of Telmo and Amaia s viticultural commitments, the most likely and subtle change will be somewhat of a reversion to field blend planting. In front of the chapel (next to the chateau-bodega complex in the heart of the property) is a 30 year old vineyard grafted to all 25 local varieties and Telmo is using this genetic mix for future plantings and re-grafting in the estate s vineyards, seeking deeper variety (including in degrees of ripeness) and movement in the wines. Page 26

27 Remelluri Blanco A 9-varietal Atlantic Mountain White wine, reflecting the thrillingly cold and herbladen soils of Remelluri s highest parts.this wine is the result of Telmo planting a mixed-variety vineyard in the late 1980 s: Viognier, Moscatel, Roussanne, Sauvignon, Chardonnay, Marsanne, Garnacha blanca and others are planted in a linear vineyard, as small plots strung along a little path which winds from 650 up to 800 metres at the peak above Remelluri, beyond the limits at which red wine varieties can be successfully ripened in these ultra-cold soils. Telmo s aspiration here was to show the countryside the multi-varietal composition, accompanied by multiple fermentations in different technologies simply allows grapes and winemaking to be cancelled out in favour of the telling of the land. Various sizes and ages of oak, as well as some stainless steel and concrete reflect a theory of disappearing winemaking which Telmo has deployed to astonishing results in Rueda and Valdeorras whites (and increasingly in his reds), but the idea began with the planting of Remelluri Blanco. The whites are very gently pressed, fermented with natural yeast and aged about 12 months, firstly in wood then rested in concrete. With good weight and affecting texture, it s a wine of tremendous nerve and run. Remelluri Reserva Today s Remelluri Reservas are consistent in style with those of the past, fine and elegant, and not much marked by racking, and all oak influence is clean and meaningful. I would say thought that the refined Reserva since Telmo s return is noticeably brighter, marginally richer, fabulously brambly red berry wine with wonderful florals. The Reserva is comprised of Tempranillo predominantly, with a little each of Graciano and Garnacha, plus some white Viura and Malvasia. After about 17 months oak ageing, it s bottled unfiltered. Fermentation takes place in large conical oak vats and pigeage is carried out. Malo is mainly in large vats, although a small portion undergoes malo in barrique. New barrique ageing is reserved for only the most structured fruit, with most gaining secondary character from oxidative ageing in older French barriques. Remelluri Reserva 2010 Fine, fresh and clear, with mountain herb, indeed mountain air clear in the mix on the nose. There is also cedar, clay dirt, tobacco, brush and vanilla in the floral red berry fruit, marked with briary herbs. The presence of the smell of the mountain countryside is remarkable. Even-tempered in the mouth, savoury and fine, it s just mid-weight, pure, delicate and open with nice oak-spice harmony. Remelluri Gran Reserva Tempranillo 85% or so with Garnacha, Graciano and traces of Moscatel, Viura and Malvasia. Spontaneous wild yeast fermentation in large oak vats precedes 27 months in oak, with 7 years of total bodega maturation before release into the market. As with the Reserva, nowadays the Remelluri reds are made in a mix of materials larger foudre as well as barrique, but also cement and even in glass demijohns. Remelluri Gran Reserva 2009 Smells like a hall cupboard full of old coats, one of which has some licorice and tobacco in its pockets. Leading with ripe fruit dark cherry, blackberry, ripe plum, it gains complexity through pepper and clove spices, cedar, orange peel, forest mulch. It s very well balanced, finishing with complex spicy acidity. The typical leatherchestnut texture is long and elegant with a swish of 09 s easy and balanced richness. Page 27

28 LINDES de REMELLURI: 'Viñedos de Labastida' (Atlantic), 'Viñedos de San Vicente' (Mediterranean) When Telmo took over Remelluri in 2009 he found that his father had increasingly been buying wines from the villages either side of Remelluri Estate (Labastida on the western linde or limit of Remelluri, on the track to Haro, and San Vicente on the eastern boundary towards Logroño). Telmo immediately culled the grower fruit. However, instead of simply cancelling their contracts, leaving the villagers without income, he decided to make a grower s wine from the villages either side of the estate. Not only did he honour the contracts in 2009, but being such a committed historian and cultural conservator, Telmo decided the little village project was a really worthwhile interpretation and expression of Rioja, and he has continued to make the Lindes de Remelluri grower-village wines since. 9 Labastida families and another 8 in San Vicente are all the better for it! Not to mention we, who get these extremely high quality viticultural proceeds (a mix of Tempranillo with Garnacha, Graciano and Viura) at great prices. Both wines are made similarly and simply, with fermentation in 5,000 litre old French oak vats, then 12 months maturation in old French barriques. Labastida and San Vicente offer quite different terroir expressions, with no winemaking to influence the differences. It s a very cool project. The two villages are just 5km apart on a small country road, the A-124 from Haro to Logroño which winds just under the mountains above the north shore of the Ebro. Labastida is nestled beneath the Sierra Cantabria, with cold soils in tight valleys marked by the Atlantic. The Labastida wine is concentrated, sweet and slick with nice lines - a cool-soils wine of inky-blue fruits, glossily sweet-seeded and creamy. The village of San Vicente de Sonsierra has a warmer aspect and richer ferrous red soils, with its vineyards out in the valley and open to the Mediterranean. Lindes de San Vicente is a notably more open and earthy wine, with foursquare tannins, nicely blocky compared to the slink of Labastida. LINDES de REMELLURI 'Viñedos de Labastida' Tempranillo, DOCa Rioja Juicy cherries, liquorous and delicate; spiced, round and lacey-tannined. Really lovely acidity teases out the finish very well indeed, instantly leavening any tendency towards chocolate and leather, which linger as hints. Viñedos de Labastida 2012 The steep, enclosed valley at Labastida nestled under the Cantabrias yields a structured, elegant but soft, fluid wine. Labastida is vibrant and satin-spiced, sweetpipped red with florals afore and after (red florals not unlike a Ted Leamon wine). Red cherry, earth, field herbs, sweet pips, crunchy, concentrated elegance. LINDES de REMELLURI 'Viñedos de San Vicente Tempranillo, DOCa Rioja Lindes San Vicente is drier but also more savoury, with blockier tannin - foursquare and much more earthy with some lovely herbal aromatics (wispy wild fennel and tobacco). Cherry fruit has a stony reserve here; there is still a sense of sky and space but it's lower and quieter in register, without any sense of being hugged down or gripped. Viñedos de San Vicente 2012 Open and spicy, more volatile, earthy and really delicious. You can feel how open the valley is here, with warmer and redder soils open to the Mediterranean below San Vicente on its hilltop. Open, spicy, warm and earthy, really delicious countryside wine. The palate has a touch of chocolate in its distinct earthiness, expressed through a distinctly granular tannin profile. Page 28

29 The Riojas of Telmo Rodriguez and Pablo Eguzkiza (la Compania Vinos de Telmo Rodriguez) Organic and biodynamic, indigenous genetics no nursery clones, no chemicals, no trellises. Viñedos de Lantziego: LZ, Lanzaga, Altos Lanzaga Viñedos de Lantziego: Corriente, a Cosecheros wine Viñedos de Labastida: Las Beatas, el Tabuérniga Long-term mates and now business partners, Telmo Rodriguez and Pablo Eguzkiza have been kicking wine goals together for nearly 30 years. They started working together in the late 1980s at Telmo s family Rioja estate, Remelluri, and went on to become leaders in changing conceptions of Spanish wine during the post-franco era (one of significant recovery and re-imagining). As well as Remelluri, they have three separate Rioja projects. By way of a handle, they use Telmo s name for their wines, but are equals in every respect beginning with intellect and passion. Trained as winemakers at University of Bordeaux, with formative experience working for some of France s finest (Clape, Chave and co ), Telmo and Pablo are among the most thoughtful of Spain s post-industrial organic producers, deeply committed to authenticity (whatever that may in fact be). Since the early 90s, they have attempted to move beyond the limits of 20 th century practice; increasingly this involves deeply historical revisions. It would be a poor mistake to tag such cultural historians with any label such as modern. La Compania started in 1992 with a modest Navarra Garnacha. That same year they bought their first parcel of land (the Falcoeira cru in Valdeorras) and set about exploring Spain with the intention to to re-discover, re-interpret and re-invent. Over time, they found parcels to work all over Spain: in Cebreros (a non-do village west of Madrid in the Sierra de Gredos), DOs Valdeorras, Rueda, Malaga, Cigales, Alicante, Ribera del Duero, Toro and of course Rioja. Initially, they worked in old vineyards housing the (often endangered) genetic identity of these different regions. Nowadays, they are also doing much new planting, re-asserting the historical match of locally evolved cultivars (often as field blends) to best sites and practices. Of their many beautiful babies, there is no question that la Rioja is first among equals here is Telmo and Pablo s spiritual home and greatest commitment. Telmo and Pablo s Riojas Telmo and Pablo are involved in four sub-regionally distinct Rioja projects. Firstly, Remelluri - the Rodriguez familyestate between Labastida and San Vicente. Nestled high in the foothills of the Sierra de Cantabria and looking down on all of Rioja, Remelluri is where Telmo and Pablo started out as young winemakers. After his father s retirement in 2009, Telmo and his sister Amaia took over Remelluri and began refining the viticulture of the property. Along with Remelluri, Telmo and Pablo have established three site-specific projects in Rioja: Since 1998, they have worked on el Monte a single hilltop adjacent to the Basque village Lantziego (or Lanciego in Castellano), 20 minutes north of Logroño. Here, where Mediterranean and Atlantic Rioja meet, they make the village trilogy of LZ, Lanzaga, and Altos Lanzaga. (a Cru wine will replace Altos from the 2014 vintage). Also in Lantziego, Telmo and Pablo organise a Cosecheros wine, representing the growers of Lantziego. As well as strengthening the village economy, Corriente re-constructs a deeply historical Rioja, a view of the past over-written by big company agribusiness and faceless, placeless industrial Page 29

30 Reserva wines. (A similar project Lindes de Remelluri is undertaken at Remelluri, distinguishing the growers and terroirs of the Labastida and San Vicente villages either side of Remelluri.) West across the valley, above Labastida in very cold Atlantic soils looking down on Haro, they are also making two special Cru wines, Las Beatas, which had its first release from the 2011 harvest, and which will be joined by el Tabuérniga when the 2014 is ready for market. These are pure terroir wines, representing historical vineyards in the most natural manner possible. el Monte de Lantziego Lantziego is a tiny village north of Logroño, in the rolling foothills leading up to the limits of wine-growing under the Cantabrias. Telmo and Pablo s holdings are a select patch-work of vineyards purchased on various soils on the hill (el Monte) adjacent to the village. The wines produced here, LZ, Lanzaga and Altos Lanzaga are a three-way telling of the wine story in this place. Lanzaga, the brand name, is an invention of Telmo s it points to Lantziego without actually naming it on the label, which is as close as the law allows Telmo and Pablo to say, this wine is from here Here at Lantziego is very cold and remote, at the limits of grape-ripening viability. The soils are varied: silty-sand, pebbles, ferrous clay, sandstone and limestone. A typical profile is a shallow ferrous clay textured with pebbles and sand over a first bedrock of sandstone, then a deeper siltychalky clay over a second bedrock of limestone. The vineyards, too, are mixed. Most are ancient field blends, planted to various Tempranillos, Garnacha in significant proportion and support acts Graciano, Mazuelo, Viura, and Moscatel. Taken together they have natural light and shade - inherent complexity - and are a million miles from industrial monoculture and the stultifying contemporary closure around high and even ripening regimes. There is no dull regularity here. The winery at Lantziego Nowadays, Telmo and Pablo s Lantziego Riojas are fermented in raw concrete and mature in a cool cellar of Rioja dirt vented by pristine Rioja mountain air. For the first decade working here, the wines were made and aged in rented winery facilities (as Telmo and Pablo still do in other regions). However, long-term, their commitment to Rioja demanded they build their own joint. After great effort, time and expense, a new winery crushed, made and aged its first vintage Riojas from the 2008 harvest. Telmo and Pablo wanted a working bodega, not a showy place, not a winemaker s ego place, and the Lantziego winery is stunning in its practicality - inherent and, appropriate. Set atop the hill on the Atalaya - the high place of the region - amongst los cerezos del pinto (literally, the crazy cherry trees ), the bodega nestles discretely in the landscape. Everywhere at the hilltop you see old dry stone walls being re-built among native herbs and wildflowers flourishing in ground recovered from chemical farming. This ancient soil, freed from the 20 th century, nourishes ancient olives, cherry groves and low-density mixed vineyards of dry-grown bush vines. What you don t see, at first, is a winery As you drive or walk, through the highest vineyards - Atalaya itself, el Papa and el Vasco - you just see the natural curve of the landscape as it arcs away from the hilltop and reaches out and down to reveal the valley and the fabulous twists and curves, shears and graces as the vineyards run down to the valley floor to meet the more commercial Rioja plantings below. Page 30

31 This last reach of the Atalaya is actually the winery itself. Standing at the edge on a lawn of wild herbs and flowers, you are in fact standing atop the roof of the barrel cellar. It s vented at the hilltop end to allow cold, wild mountain air into the bodega, which then drafts through the barrel room, out and down into the valley. The walls and floors of the cellar are made from rammed Rioja dirt and the wines are ageing literally in Rioja. Very simple and very beautiful - it s an unassuming, perfect cellar, on the human scale as Telmo insists. Adjacent to the cellar is the smoke-glassed production winery. Grapes from 35 small plots are driven in at ground level, sorted and then scooted by gravity into the fermentation deposits a series of 27 purpose-built concrete foudre (for want of a better term). The fermenters were built to order, transported and installed and then the winery floor was built in situ around the fermenters tops. The Lantziego Wines 'LZ' Tempranillo LZ is a summary of the Lantziego village vineyards, a free-range expression via gravity and concrete. Un-oaked, juicy, deft, utterly typical of its place. Telmo Rodriguez LZ 2014 Wonderfully expressive of the cold clay dirt of Lantziego with a burst of Crimson spices, flower petals and all of the herbs! Wonderfully focused without any creamy vanilla but with plenty of depth and deeply satisfying. The wine is spiced, earthily perfumed, ovoid, lissom. Lanzaga Tempranillo Lanzaga is the gently-oaked big sister to LZ. It s a village wine, combining 35 plots, handled separately, blended after selection, then aged a year or so in an oak regime where half the wine is aged in relatively neutral 1500 litre wood and the rest in a mix of 225 and 600 litre barrels (at most 10% new oak). A natural wine of the earth, there s no winemaking in sight when drinking Lanzaga. Telmo Rodriguez Lanzaga 2010 Red cherry and red heather with the freshness of a herb-laden mountain breeze and a touch of undergrowthy savouriness. The palate is easy and flowing, the fruit s juiciness wonderfully cut by natural structure. The brilliant fleshy tannins give a great sense of movement down the palate line. Indelibly marked by the great energy and vibration typical of the best 2010s. Altos Lanzaga Tempranillo Altos Lanzaga is a hand-made, biodynamic blend of Telmo and Pablo s best old patches in the upper parts of the Lantziego hillside (Crus named Fidelas and Verikete). Aged mainly in foudre (about 30% is in barrique and only 25% new). TELMO RODRIGUEZ 'Altos Lanzaga' Tempranillo 2011 Cherry cola and cherry tree wood with field herb and birch-brushy undergrowth on the nose, all of which repeat on the palate. It s long and very, very fine. Perfectly grained, tooled without tightness, sweet ripe seeds and skins have yielded a mature tannin-acid frame of great class. Beautifully integrated, it s a dark, glorious Rioja with lovely sour elements dominating anything rich, or big. A perfect amalgam of berry, briar, tart fruit acid, touches of chocolate and blueberry, creamy oak and an alcohol touch, all melded in a glorious and gliding complex unit, with counterpoint at every sticking place. Page 31

32 Corriente the Cosecheros wine, Lantziego At the beginning of last century, cosecheros or growers from Rioja Alavesa usually produced a village wine called Rioja Corriente : common wine, young but honest, for everyday drinking, leaving Riojas Selectos for special occasions. The idea of such a wine held great appeal to Telmo and Pablo, who now reproduce the style with bush-vine fruit from six such cosecheros in the Lantziego municipality. Many of these are old vineyards with a natural mix of Garnacha, Graciano and even some white vines among the Tempranillo. Corriente is made in raw concrete and aged in a mixed regime of barrel and foudre for a year. As an exercise in resurrecting history, Corriente speculates at how lovely regular Rioja may have been in the late 19 th century, and thus demonstrates how far things had slid by Perhaps also it signals a future Rioja whose everyday wines are a little more real than factory Crianzas TELMO RODRIGUEZ 'Corriente' Tempranillo-Graciano-Garnacha This Rioja Regular is entirely typical of this part of Rioja - plenty of clay in the chalk, floral red berry Tempranillo and Garnacha with excellent volume... lovely roundness without heft, a touch of briar, open-weave, with a full fruit-tannin embrace. Relatively light, utterly delicious. Telmo Rodriguez Rioja Corriente 2013 The cold clay soil of Lantziego speaks very clearly on the nose, partnered by equally typical red heather smells of the locale (thyme, lavender and more). No fruit bomb, it s a countryside wine, with meat, cherry, mint and licorice all in a swirl. There are hints of sweet spice and it has great freshness. The palate opens with succulence, juicy and laden with red berries, then glides out and down into the mineral-flecked beauty of gravelly natural fruit tannin, and closes with perfectly judged astringency. The vineyards at Labastida: Las Beatas and el Tabuérniga 5 km north of Haro, on the flank of the Sierra de Cantabria, between the hamlet of Briñas and Labastida village, Telmo and Pablo have been busy nurturing two very old vineyards back to health las Beatas and el Tabuérniga. They are nestled between the Montes Obarenes and Sierra de Toloño sections of the Cantabrias. Beatas is over a ridge from Tabuérniga with pretty much opposite aspects (Tabuérniga faces south-east). If you were to travel a little further east along the Sierra de Toloño, passing behind Labastida, you would arrive at Remelluri. Las Beatas and el Tabuérniga were on Telmo and Pablo s radar for 20-plus years, until Beatas was acquired in 1998 and Tabuérniga in Both vineyards were neglected before purchase; now recuperated, Beatas produced its first wine from the 2011 harvest and Tabuérniga from Telmo Rodriguez Las Beatas Rioja Las Beatas is a spectacular 1.9 hectare property into which Telmo and Pablo have invested tremendous time and energy. 15 years of renovative viticultural work took place before a single bottle was realised. Las Beatas is extremely cold sandy soil facing north-west. There are ten or eleven grape varieties grown on eight terrace levels, predominantly Tempranillo with 30% Garnacha, some Viura and traces of many other rare, perhaps unidentified cultivars. The vines are densely planted and hand-worked. Purchased in 1998, Las Beatas has 0.8 hectares of very old field blend material and the rest are young vines massale-selected from the original genetics of the place. In 2011 a small harvest of the old gear and about 10% of the young plantings yielded 500 bottles; in 2012, 1500 bottles were produced from the old vines plus about 20% of the young vines. Page 32

33 Telmo and Pablo see Las Beatas as a memory of Rioja from long ago, before the industrial Riojas of the 20 th century, for which the process is more important than the origin. Here they will reinstate an antidote to the easy virtues of modern industrial plantings lower down by the river. In las Beatas, they will attempt a vineyard Grand Cru a significant, emotional wine of place. According to the Consejo Regulador this is an illegal, experimental vineyard. It s also the history of Rioja. Telmo Rodriguez las Beatas Rioja hectares, 1500 bottles and an amazing history in one vineyard. This is a field blend of genuinely ancient cultivars, but call it Tempranillo if you must. One day, this will be known as the Glory of Rioja. After thousands of years and just two vintage releases, I think it one of the great wines. Beatas is made and aged in a single 1200 litre old French foudre. It blends the 0.8 hectares of old field blend Las Beatas (Tempranillo, Garnacha, other reds and some white), and 20% of the young vineyards which have been replanted to Las Beatas genetic mix and in 2012 gave their first or second yield. Violet, fennel, cherry blossom and fresh clay soil. It is very floral, very much of the soil, lovely and very delicate. Open, purple and electric. There s cranberry in the violet, angelica, mountain air, and lots of space in a palate which is fine and clear, featuring very lovely delicate tannins. Telmo Rodriguez el Tabuérniga Rioja Telmo and Pablo purchased Tabuérniga vineyard in 2010, and its first vintage was made in the Oullari cellar from the 2014 harvest. However, they have been watching and hoping to purchase this special site since working nearby at Remelluri in the late 1980s. South-east facing, looking over a blind towards las Beatas, Tabuérniga is a 4.1 hectare place with several lugares occupying different terraces and varying aspects (the lugar (or lieus-dits) names are: San Cristobal, Chifla, Canal and Tabuérniga). Tabuérniga is planted to Tempranillo, some Graciano, Mazuelo and Garnacha, and lots of Garnacha Blanca (there is one sizeable plot of Garnacha Blanca planted solo, but most of the place is field blend). There are nine or more cultivars in total (the genetics have not been entirely identified Telmo and Pablo like the mystery!), with traces of Viura, Moscatel, Maturana, Blanca Roja and Gran Negro too. Telmo Rodriguez el Tabuérniga Rioja 2014 Clayey red berry in a meaty register with lots of thyme, finished off with a lovely dob of dark spice. Compared to the lacey openness of las Beatas, Tabuérninga is set rather more vertically, with lovely structure. The winery at Oullari In 1999, Telmo and Pablo bought a cool, dark 17 th century bodega in Oullari, a tiny village 7km south of Haro. It s a tiny twin-chamber affair which holds maybe 30 barrels. Backed into a little mountain, it is fresh and clean-smelling (albeit carpeted with black mould) and ages wines underground at a constant 12 degrees. Here, Telmo and Pablo have attempted to re-understand how Rioja was made pre-phylloxera, pre-chemicals, pre-machines. The original Rioja yeast strains live on here and are employed to make wines by hand gravity-fed, using 3 large old foudres and taking 12 months to go through malo. Oullari was home to Altos Lanzaga until the 2014 harvest, but is now dedicated to the special vineyard projects el Tabuérniga and Las Beatas, which grow nearby. Altos Lanzaga is now made and matured where it is grown, on the hill at Lantziego. Page 33