Rioja Growers & Vignerons
Tendencies and Trends
Classic Rioja wineries have long prized consistency achieved through blending of grapes across vineyards. A new generation of Rioja winemakers is bringing vineyard, varietal and terroir focus to the region. What these innovators in Rioja have in common is a focus on single vineyards, some planted with old vines. Young winemakers are searching for an expression of terroir–the essence of the vineyard, soil and climate. Vignerons, grower-producers, artisan winemakers or terroiristas are commonly used terms for these new producers.
Experimental wines are common. You might see cement tanks and eggs, clay amphoras and large wooden tanks alongside Rioja’s classic barrels–all used to produce wines that in many cases are lighter, more fruit-forward and lower in alcohol than classic Rioja wines. In some cases a scant few hundred bottles are produced per year. Many of these wines challenge the wine-drinking public’s perceptions of Rioja wines.
New Methods & New Markets
Rioja has always had small growers, but in past decades many sold their grapes to larger wineries. Rioja wineries with brand recognition could pay for quality grapes, while bottling wine was expensive and risky. A few things have happened to change the status quo. First, winemaking training and technology are more accessible and it’s easier and cheaper for a grower to make their own quality wine. Second, many older growers have retired, leaving their vineyards to the next generations. The inheritors have often decided to make their own wine or have sold the vineyards to someone who will. Finally, the market for unique styles of wines has grown, benefitting small producers who bottle new things, whether single vineyard, low intervention or terroir-focused.
Single Plots & Terroir Focus
Small grower-producers make wine from vineyards all over Rioja. They own plots in the heart of Rioja Alta and Rioja Alavesa, the same areas where iconic wineries get their grapes. They also use vineyards from outside the main areas of Rioja, like high-elevation plots in the Najerilla area of southern Rioja Alta and Garnacha vineyards in Rioja Oriental. These vineyards are often small and covered in old vines, two factors that make them less appealing to large wineries, but gold for terroirista winemakers.
Most of Rioja’s small wineries bottle single-vineyard wines, frequently naming the wine after the vineyard as is common in France. They try to highlight vineyard differences: working each vineyard in its own way, using less new oak and avoiding chemical winemaking interventions. For the wine drinker, this means that varietal Tempranillo wines like Abel Mendoza’s Tempranillo Grano a Grano, Sierra de Toloño’s Camino de Santa Cruz and Pujanza’s Norte can taste as different from one another as would three wines from three different countries.
Single-varietal Wines
Wineries large and small are now using grape varieties previously considered as second-tier. Most prominent among these is Garnacha, once the main grape of Rioja but largely forgotten in favor of Tempranillo. Garnachas from Rioja Oriental can become expressive, elegant wines, and old-vine plots render fine wines in skilled winemaking hands. Graciano and Mazuelo (Carignan), Rioja’s classic red blending grapes, now become single-varietal wines of global acclaim. Even rare red Maturana is becoming popular. Many artisan producers make fine white Riojas, from the standard grapes such as Viura, Garnacha Blanca and Malvasia and from the rare grapes Tempranillo Blanco, Turruntés.
Traditional & Modern Winemaking in the Rioja
There’s a tendency for artisan winemakers to reclaim ancestral winemaking methods. Carbonic maceration (Beaujolais nouveau style) is common for young Rioja wine consumed locally. Makers of fine wines are also using it to make appealingly fruity wines. Abel Mendoza, Lecea and Remírez de Ganuza make examples, while Teodoro Ruiz Monge uses carbonic maceration for all of its reds. Another trending forgotten technique is the foot-treading of grapes: Artuke’s popular red Pies Negros (black feet) is the most famous example.
Grower-producer Rioja Wineries
Abel Mendoza
Cult terroir-focused producer seeking pure vineyard expression in reds and a large range of small-production whites
Husband-and-wife team Abel and Maite make the wines and do most of the winery work here. Abel comes from a family of vine growers, while Maite trained as an enologist. Together they are as close as Rioja gets to Burgundy. They care for many small plots of old vines near San Vicente de la Sonsierra. The wines are pure expressions of the different soils and characteristics of these plots. Any Abel Mendoza wine is a joy, rare as they are, but the Grano a Grano reds, one Tempranillo and one Graciano, certainly help this winery’s cult status. Mendoza also makes half a dozen white wines in tiny quantities, including varietals of uncommon white grapes such as Torrontés, Tempranillo Blanco and Malvasía.
Alegre & Valgañón
Husband and wife team Oscar Alegre and Eva Valgañón returned to Eva’s ancestral home in the far northwest of Rioja to make wines that expressed their shared love for the great classic wines of Rioja. Unlike some young winemakers in the region, their goal was not to revolutionize but to rediscover the soul of Rioja wines. The high-elevation vineyards around Eva’s family’s village of Fonzaleche and nearby Sajazarra yield wines with structure balanced by freshness with the fundamentals for long bottle aging. In an homage to the classic Riojan blend, Oscar and Eva blend Garnacha from eastern Rioja with their own Tempranillo in their main red, a somewhat radical move for a generation of vignerons where single plots often dominate thinking. The most enchanting story of this winery is the La Calleja vineyard and its matching single-plot red. Eva helped her father plant this vineyard in Fonzaleche when she was a young girl, and today makes an extraordinary expressive red from those vines. With a little over a decade since their first vintage, Eva and Oscar have a bright future ahead of them, and their wines offer a great way to taste innovative Riojas made with a classic perspective.
Artuke
Winemaking brothers using old vines and traditional agriculture to make extraordinary single-plot reds
Brothers Arturo and Kike handle winemaking and viticulture at Artuke. Their father turned from a history as a grape-grower for other wineries to starting his own. Over the last twenty years, the project has risen into one of Rioja’s most important new producers. Artuke has accumulated very old vines planted on diverse soils along the south side of the Ebro River. Some of these combine to make delicious, fruity young wines inspired by the reds popular among Rioja locals. The most distinctive plots make single-plot wines with tiny productions and enormous depth of flavor that make clear that the new generation of Riojan innovators are to be taken very seriously.
Bodegas Bhilar
Sincere wines from biodynamically-farmed high-altitude vines in southern Rioja
Bodegas Bhilar lies in Elvillar, hometown of winemaker David Sampedro Gil. The vineyards surrounding Elvillar are some of the highest in Rioja. The wines reflect Sierra Cantabria mountain freshness, and David makes them with the goal of expressing the quality of the vineyards. He uses biodynamics to farm and takes a low-intervention approach to winemaking. David’s wines are split between village wines, estate wines, and single vineyards, a Burgundian approach in a region where blending of vineyards has dominated for many years. The wines are light on oak, allowing well-chosen old vines and unique field blends to shine through.
Castillo de Cuzcurrita
Beautiful winery located in a 14th-centry castle making reds from the old vines surrounding the castle.
Castillo de Cuzcurrita is a small picturesque winery housed in a 14th-century castle. The castle has been impeccably restored and a vineyard lies within the walls of the fortress. The winemaking takes place in a new winery built near the castle, where every detail is accounted for and French oak barrels are used. Castillo de Cuzcurrita makes varietal Tempranillo reds, including one, Cerrado del Castillo, made from the walled vineyard of the castle. The wines have a unique freshness due to Cuzcurrita’s cooler location. The old-vine single-vineyard Viura Blanca del Castillo is a stunning new white Rioja worth seeking out.
El Mozo Wines
When husband and wife Gorka and Itxaso inherited old vineyards from their family, these young people decided to abandon their careers and move to the tiny Riojan village of Lanciego to make their own wine. They named the project after Itxaso’s grandfather, known in the village as El Mozo, who planted many of the vineyards that today form El Mozo Wines. The vineyards are split into tiny plots on hilltops and slopes around Lanciego, a village with dramatic valleys and rocky soils. Gorka and Itxaso work as naturally as possible, and all of the wines are certified organic. They started with their young carbonic maceration red, a fresh, delicious example of a classic Rioja wine. Malaspiedras comes from a selection of stunning old plots where boulders stick out of the ground and vines are interplanted with olive and fruit trees. El Mozo also produce an ethereal white dominated by Malvasia Riojana and an unusual clarete, made from old vines of red and white grapes in nearly equal proportions that resurrects a style once common in Rioja and across Spain.
Finca La Emperatriz
Finca La Emperatriz is a singular estate in the cool, western corner of Rioja, a sort of Riojan chateau. The property once belonged to the wife of Napoleon III, the last empress of France, from which it gets its name. Today it’s known for producing a pair of exceptional whites and a matching pair of reds exclusively from the plots surrounding the winery. Old vines, chalky soils, and the cooling influence of the nearby mountains make Finca La Emperatriz’s wines exceptionally elegant. The second wine red and white are superb value Riojas, while the first wines are deep and complex, built for long aging.
Gómez Cruzado
Small producer in Haro’s Station Quarter making unique reds and whites
Gómez Cruzado is the most experimental producer in Haro’s Station Quarter, home to Rioja’s traditional stalwarts. It’s an old winery with new ideas, making all of its wines in a tiny building in the Barrio de la Estación. It makes classic Riojas blending Tempranillo, Garnacha, and other grapes from the best vineyards in Rioja, but Gómez Cruzado’s cult status comes from its premium terroir-focused wines. The white Montes Obarenes blends usual and unusual white grapes into one of the most acclaimed white Riojas on the market. Cerro Las Cuevas is sourced from old vines planted with a classic Riojan blend, but ages in large foudres for a fresher profile that showcases the vineyard. Finally, Pancrudo is one of the wines that put Rioja Garnacha on the map. This expressive, fragrant single vineyard red enchants enthusiasts and critics alike, and has become one of Rioja’s cult wines. Predelicto and Viña Dorana, old brands resurrected by Gómez Cruzado, offer a taste of Rioja of yesteryear with large proportions of Garnacha.
Lanzaga
Telmo Rodríguez, together with his longtime winemaking partner Pablo Eguzkiza, has been Spain’s most visible “flying winemaker.” The draw for Telmo to make wine in different regions of Spain has been special old vineyards planted with native grapes. He’s brought attention to regions as varied as Valdeorras, Gredos and Málaga, but Telmo’s family origins are in Rioja and it seems inevitable that he would have his own singular winery in the region. Lanzaga, in the high-elevation winemaking village of Lanciego, is Telmo’s main Rioja winery, though he is now in charge of family winery Remelluri as well. Lanzaga produces village wines from its own vineyards and those of trusted growers as well as single vineyard bottlings analogous to Grand Crus. LZ and Corriente are young wines with little to no oak that pay homage to the wines widely produced and consumed in Rioja a century or two ago. They are consistently among the best value Riojas. Lanzaga, the highest level village wine, is a classic Rioja as Telmo sees it, a fine wine that’s accessible and fresh and drinkable. It is, however, Telmo’s single vineyard wines that have helped make him such a legend. He produces four of these in Rioja, two from Lanciego and two from Labastida, the town where Remelluri is located. La Estrada, El Velado, Tabuérniga and Las Beatas are each singular wines, and among Spain’s most sought-after.
Lecea
The historic winemaking village of San Asensio is filled with underground cellars once used for wine aging by local winemakers. Today, Lecea is one of the only wineries to continue using these historic cellars. This family-run winery has restored four cellars, where their wines age at a perfectly stable temperature. This is how wine in Rioja was made starting in the 16th century, and it’s incredible to see today. Lecea’s artisan Rioja wines are made from their high-elevation Rioja Alta vineyards, and offer incredible freshness.
Miguel Merino
Miguel Merino was no stranger to Rioja wine when he started this tiny winery, having worked for years helping Rioja wineries export their wines. Miguel wanted to have his own winery where he could produce “a few bottles of wine of the best possible quality.” Today his dream is a reality in a restored village house in Briones. Miguel Jr. and his wife are in charge, and the wines are lovely and diverse. One highlight is Mazuelo de la Quinta Cruz, one of Rioja’s only 100% Mazuelo reds.
Pujanza
Elite modern Rioja producer making fresh reds and whites from some of Rioja’s highest and most northern vineyards
Bodegas Pujanza has a different vision of modern Rioja wines, focused on freshness and looking to express the caliber of the vineyards found at the base of the vertical slopes of the Sierra Cantabria Mountains. Founder and winemaker Carlos San Pedro comes from a multigenerational winemaking family, and at the turn of the millennium set out on his own. Since then, his wines have acquired a legendary status.
The first wine San Pedro released, known today as Finca Valdepoleo, comes from a beautiful vineyard surrounding the winery itself and exposed to extreme temperature changes and cold winds from the mountains. Pujanza Norte lies higher, facing north, fully exposed to the mountains. It’s a wine with a vibrancy and freshness atypical in Rioja reds. A single plot of old vines yields the much-acclaimed Cisma, but perhaps the most revered among lovers of Spanish wines is Pujanza Añadas Frías, a white made only in cold vintages that brings a minerality and purity to the Viura grape few would imagine it capable of. Luckily, when the vintage is not as cool, a white is still made from the same single vineyard under the name S.J. Anteportalina. Pujanza is one of the great new wineries of the Rioja offering a different take on what the region’s finest wines can express.
Remelluri
The family winery of Spain’s flying winemaker Telmo Rodriguez, where he makes expertly crafted estate reds
Telmo Rodríguez left his family’s winery at Remelluri to become the most notable flying winemaker in Spain, creating acclaimed wines in every corner of the country. In 2010, he returned to the fold, taking over winemaking at Remelluri. Today, Telmo has converted the main reds, the Reserva and Gran Reserva, to be made only with grapes from Remelluri’s own vineyards. He pays homage to his family’s history with nearby growers by making wines from grapes neighboring the property under the Lindes de Remelluri brand. The reds are subtle, some of the most beautiful Riojas available today, aromatic and ageworthy yet gentle. All of Remelluri’s releases show Telmo’s talent and how much he has learned in Rioja and elsewhere. The small-production Remelluri white is a wine worth seeking out, widely considered one of the best whites in the Rioja.
Sierra de Toloño
A talented young winemaker showing the world the freshness of Rioja Alavesa’s mountain vineyards
At Sierra de Toloño, winemaker Sandra Bravo works with small plots of old vines in the foothills of the Sierra de Toloño mountain range in northern Rioja Alavesa. Sandra is a young Rioja native who returned home attracted by the chance to make a different kind of Rioja. To get her winery going in Villabuena de Álava, she needed access to the old vines planted in the area. She purchased some and rented others, going so far as to harvest grapes for grapegrowers too old to do it themselves. She uses unusual vessels, including tinajas (amphoras) and large-format French oak barrels, to make exceptionally fresh reds and whites. Along with a handful of other new small-scale producers working near the mountains on the edges of Rioja, Sandra is showing the world a new side of Rioja.
Teodoro Ruiz Monge
Bodegas Teodoro Ruiz Monge represents both the old and the new of Rioja in one family. The family has been growing grapes since 1870 around the village of San Vicente de la Sonsierra. They were cosecheros (harvesters), making wine in large cement vats to sell to the large bodegas, a tradition that remains alive in the area, albeit often with cooperatives as intermediaries. Teodoro took a leap of faith and began bottling carbonic maceration red wine in the 1970s, a drastic step at a time when the power of large wineries was immense. Today, his son has expanded the winery with a whole range of single-plot wines which combine his faith in carbonic maceration and his family’s old vines with restrained barrel aging and careful winemaking. The traditional fermentation in cement with whole bunches yields wines with sincere fruit expression, while careful vineyard management and winemaking guarantee complex, age-worthy wines. Teodoro and his family have also restored their family aging cave underneath the San Vicente Castle, an enchanting historic space which opens up to a view over the surrounding countryside.
Bodegas Tierra
Fresh, exciting wines from winemaking brothers that express the village of Labastida and offer a vision of the future of Rioja
It might seem that the idea of a village wine was invented for Fidel and Carlos of Bodegas Tierra. Their family has been making wine in Labastida for generations, and these brothers, enologist and vine-grower respectively, have built a line of wines that expresses the terroirs and plots of this slice of Rioja Alavesa. Their grandfather began buying vineyards in the area decades ago, but could only afford the lowest yielding plots, which today sustain very old vines responsible for Tierra’s finest wines. With an overall production smaller than single wines from many large bodegas, Tierra makes a dizzying array of wines that are all pure Labastida. The winery in the former Jewish Quarter of the village is a marvel, one of the few remaining producers in the cramped hilltop neighborhood. From a young carbonic maceration red to the extraordinary single-plot wines, the wines of Tierra are sincere, unique, and among the best undiscovered wines in all of Rioja. From unusual grapes to unusual vessels, this is the laboratory from which new wines of the region are emerging.