Compania Vinos de Telmo Rodriguez Vinedos de Lanciego, D.O.Ca Rioja Owner-growers: Telmo Rodriguez y Pablo Eguzkiza Wines: LZ, Lanzaga and Altos Lanzaga. Las Beatas (forthcoming). Organic and biodynamic, indigenous plantings no nursery clones, no chemicals. 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 father s Rioja property, Remelluri, and went on to become revolutionaries leading the complex post-industrial, organic changes currently playing out in Spain as elsewhere. By way of a handle, they use Telmo s name for their project, but are equals in every respect beginning with intellect and passion. University trained as winemakers, with formative experience working for some of France s finest (Clape, Chave and co ), Telmo and Pablo are among the most thoughtful (not to mention first) of Spain s new wave of 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 20th century practice. The Compania started in 1992 with a modest Navarra Garnacha. That same year they bought their first parcel of land (in Valdeorras) and set about exploring the various regions which they would attempt to rediscover, re-interpret, re-invent: Cebreros (a non-d.o.), Valdeorras, Rueda, Malaga, Cigales, Alicante, Ribera del Duero, Toro and of course la Rioja. Initially, they worked on found old vineyards housing the indigenous, ancient genetic identity of Toro, Ribera del Deuro, and others. Nowadays, they are also doing much new planting, re-asserting the historical match of locally evolved genetic material (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. Their attention to viticultural care is first class (or beyond). In the winery, the entire philosophy is to let the fruit speak there are no less recipe-oriented winemakers. Low-cropped fruit (typically from old, high altitude bush vines) are made into three quality bands: an un-wooded price-friendly daily drinker of great character and quality, a premium French-oaked wine with significant cellar potential, and a top wine selected from the most elegant and refined material.
Telmo and Pablo s Riojas Telmo and Pablo are involved in three sub-regionally distinct Rioja projects. Of these, Remelluri - mentioned above and formerly his father s property - is now in Telmo s hands. Along with his sister, Amaya, Telmo is refining this property nestled high up under the Sierra Cantabrias between Labastida and San Vicente. But let s consider that a separate story to the projects of he and Pablo (despite Pablo s long association with Remelluri) - you can consult our detailed note on the beautiful wines of Remelluri elsewhere. Together, Telmo and Pablo have two extremely site-specific projects in Rioja. Las Beatas, from an ancient site just out of Haro, is yet to release its first wines - stay tuned for news on Las Beatas, and read below for the full story. The Rioja output currently under Telmo s name is the LZ, Lanzaga, Altos Lanzaga trilogy, which come from the north-eastern village of Lanciego, 20 minutes north of Logrono. Telmo is very fond of saying he doesn t believe in Rioja, rather that there are many Riojas a panoply of sub-regional and site-specific Riojas to choose from and interpret. This is a million miles from the view taken by the CRDO, however. The Consejo Regulador of the Denominacion de Origen is better conceived of as the Conejo Regulador the official bunny of the big companies. The regulatory body of Rioja, obedient to its commercial masters (the giant commercial houses), steadfastly promotes Brand Rioja and the lake of poorly grown, over-made Rioja that comes from everywhere and nowhere. So generic is the official conception of Rioja, that it is in fact illegal to associate your wines with a specific village or place. In the rest of the wine world, it is much different: the village of Wehlen in the Mosel gives us vineyards such as Wehlener Sonnenuhr; that of Chambertin in Burgundy gives us Charmes-Chambertin and many others, and we distinguish Barolos from La Morra versus Serralunga d'alba. In Rioja, however, we just have Rioja! Telmo and like-minded producers such as Artadi across the valley from Telmo in Laguardia are serious challengers to generic notions that place doesn t matter in La Rioja. So, while it is illegal to name your Rioja wine by its village of origin, Telmo and Pablo are all about location. Their Riojas are Lanciegos! Lanciego Lanciego (Lantziego in Basque) is a tiny village in Rioja Alavesa, in the rolling foothills leading up to the limits of wine growing in the Cantabrias. Telmo and Pablo s holdings are a select patch-work of vineyards purchased on various soils on the hill adjacent to Lanciego. The wines produced here, LZ, Lanzaga and Altos Lanzaga are a three-way telling of the wine story of this specific place. Lanzaga, the brand name, is an invention of Telmo s it points to Lanciego 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 Lanciego where Telmo and Pablo have chosen their Rioja, is very cold and remote, just at the limits of grape-ripening viability. The soils here are varied, featuring elements such as silty-sand, pebbles, ferrous clays, 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 silty-chalky clay over a second bedrock of limestone. The vineyards, too, are mixed. Most are ancient field blends, planted to variant tempranillos, garnacha in significant proportion and support acts graciano, mazuelo, viura, and moscatel. Taken together they have a 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 Lanciego For the first decade, the Rioja wines were made and aged in rented winery facilities, as Telmo and Pablo still do in other regions. However, long-term, their commitment to la Rioja demanded they build their own joint. After great effort, time and expense, a modest yet really outstanding 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. (Altos is made in a tiny separate winery in Oullari, described below). The Lanciego winery is stunning in its practicality - inherent and, appropriate. Set atop the Lanciego hill on the Atalaya - the high place of the region - amongst los cerezos del pinto (literally, the crazy cherry trees ), the bodega nestles discretely among Telmo and Pablo s restorative, curatorial, preservationist achievements. Everywhere at the hilltop you see old dry stone walls being re-built, native herbs and wildflowers flourishing in ground recovered from chemical farming. This ancient soil, freed from the 20th 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 at all! 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 the more commercial Rioja plantings below. 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 barrel rooms and out down into the valley. The wines are ageing, literally in Rioja. The walls and floors of the cellar are made from rammed Rioja dirt and vented by the fresh Rioja mountain air. Very simple and very beautiful - it s an unassuming, perfect cellar. Adjacent to the cellar is the smokily-glassed production winery. Grapes are driven in at ground level, sorted and then scooted by gravity into the fermentation deposits a series of 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. There ll be no following of fashion and swapping to roto-fermenters in a couple of years! These Riojas are fermented in raw concrete, deeply breathing in their native air.
The Lanciego Wines 'LZ' Tempranillo A jam-packed cranberry+field herb nose (red lavender anyone?) is perfectly struck fresh fruit and earth, lift and depth... The palate is perfumed, ovoid, lissom, and really harmonious - built beautifully on Telmo and Pablo s trademark natural fruit tannin-natural acid twin-track. Un-oaked, juicy and deft, it s not just good and typical Rioja, nor merely delicious this is spectacular wine for the $$. Spain s Greatest Pizza Wine! LZ 2012 Fat cherry, smoky tree boughs and a graphitic buzz are typical on the nose. The palate is inky-smoky and bright fruit over full grainy tannins, which grip and hold to build palate presence then release to a sweetnutty ripe natural acid closure. Lanzaga Tempranillo Lanzaga is the gently oaked big sister to LZ. It s aged a year or so in a mixed wood regime of 225, 600 and 1200 litre wood of mixed ages - new, one and two year old wood large and small is deployed. Lanzaga 2009 Darker and a little fuller than 2008, this is perfectly pure Rioja. Dark cherry fruit has meat and leather savouriness, with a mountain thyme and red lavender lift. It is extremely supple with a nicely fructose entry which rolls out into a textured palate. It s as perfectly reflective of site as wine can get, and barely made. Lanzaga 2010 (final blend - tasted from tank pre-bottling at Lanciego, June 2013) Red cherry and red heather, it has the freshness of a herb-laden mountain breeze and a touch of undergrowthy savouriness. The palate is easy and natural, fruit wonderfully cut by natural structure, and 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 de Lanzaga Tempranillo Altos de Lanzaga is a hand-made, biodynamic blend of Telmo and Pablo s best old patches in the upper parts of the Lanciego hillside. Aged in new French barrique, it is nurtured in a centuries old cave in the village of Oullari, a few kilometres from Haro. This little cellar was restored by hand by Telmo a few years ago. Altos Lanzaga 2007 Tobacco, Indian ink, anise and lots and lots of field herbs, mineral, a subtle unrolling of fruit, inky spice... already a masterpiece of harmony and understatement, and with a long future ahead. The beautiful new label is a homage to ancient, classical Rioja (before the machine age and giant factory approach took hold). Altos Lanzaga 2009 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 and sweet tannin-acid frame of great class. Beautifully integrated.
Las Beatas Just north of the little road from Haro to Labastida, near the village of Briñas, Las Beatas is a spectacular 2.7 hectare property into which Telmo and Pablo are investing tremendous time and energy. It s in the municipality of Villalba, 5km from Haro, nestled under the Montes Obarenes section of the Sierra Cantabria. Telmo and Pablo see Las Beatas as a memory of Rioja from long ago, before the industrial Riojas of the 20 th century, typified by Tondonia, which lies on the flats beneath this hilly vineyard. Here they will attempt a single vineyard grand cru, an emotional place of great significance. According to the conejo regulador this is an illegal, experimental vineyard. It s the history of Rioja. Las Beatas is on sandy soils high up below the mountains, facing west and south towards the Rio Ebro. It is a winding series of 8 terrace levels, planted to 7 grape varieties densely planted and worked entirely by hand. Unusually for Rioja Alta, it s planted to about 30% garnacha. Here, Telmo and Pablo are seeking to reproduce from a memory, a museum of what was the real Rioja before the advent of Rioja Reservas, where the process is more important than the origin. Here they will reinstate the antidote to the ease and fertility, the dilution of character in modern industrial plantings lower down by the river, such as Tondonia. Las Beatas largely features young vines planted since the purchase of the property in 1998, but with 0.8 hectares of remnant old vines, which are used to provide the genetic material for replanting. To date it has not released a wine. In 2011 a small harvest of the old gear and about 10% of the young plantings yielded 500 bottles and in 2012, 1200 litres were produced from the old patch and about 20% of the young vines. 2012 Las Beatas Made, and to be aged in a single 1200 litre old French foudre, it contains 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. (tasted in Oullari, June 2013, still carrying post-malo carbonic).
The winery at Oullari In 2000, 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 sparklingly fresh and clean-smelling 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 has been home to Altos Lanzaga until now. As Las Beatas grows and takes over Oullari (just minutes from las Beatas), it s most likely that Altos will come to be matured where it grows in Lanciego.