Rioja Wine

Expert Reviews - Vintage 2014

The Wine Advocate 94 Points | I loved the nose of the 2014 Viña Bosconia Reserva, a red that sells at an incredible price for the quality, the problem is (like all their wines) finding it... They had to accelerate the harvest to avoid botrytis caused by the abundant rain during the harvest. This is a blend of 80% Tempranillo, 15% Garnacho and the remaining 5% Graciano and Mazuelo, fermented in old oak vats with their yeasts and matured in neutral American oak barrels for no less than five years. It's elegant and nuanced, developed but young for its age, with a seamless palate and very fine tannins, with energy and light. It has 13.5% alcohol, a pH of 3.3 and 6.7 grams of acidity, notable parameters of freshness. 80,000 bottles produced. It was bottled in March 2022.

Vinous 94 Points | The 2014 Viña Bosconia is 80% Tempranillo with 10% Garnacha, 5% Graciano and 5% Mazuelo from the El Bosque vineyard in Haro, Rioja. Garnet in hue, it opens with cassis, cola and oak-driven aromas. The palate is youthful and smooth, with well-integrated tannins, black fruit and anisette at the finish. Still growing, it’ll develop greater complexity with more time in bottle.

Warehouse stored item - please allow two to five business days to fulfill.

Bright and clean, with lemon-yellow color and greenish glints. On the nose, it has medium high intensity, flowery aromas and notes of pineapple, green apple, white flowers and fresh cut hay. This is a voluminous wine that develops a silky fresh mouthfeel and a lingering finish.

Warehouse stored item - please allow one to three business days to fulfill.

Winemaker Description 

The grapes were harvested by hand in 15 kg boxes, selecting the best bunches in the vineyard. After the harvest, the grapes underwent a pre-fermentative cold cryomaceration process and were then pressed and racked after 24 hours. This must fermented in French oak barrels and remained there together with its lees for 6 months. After that, the wine was aged in French oak barrels for 15 months and bottled in August 2022.

Golden colour and medium intensity. Clean and bright. Medium-high aromatic intensity and very complex Notes of citrus rind (mandarin), stone fruits such as ripe peach. Hints of almonds and aniseed, brioche, vanilla and a fine toffee. Volume on the palate, very sweet, silky and medium acidity. Saline notes on the palate, where citrus and toasted notes are present again. Sweet and long finish. 

Winemaker Description 

Deep garnet-red colour and deep intensity. Clean and bright. Red and black fruit, cherry, blueberries. Notes of vanilla, dairy and spices (liquorice, clove, pepper). Sweet on the palate, with soft tannins supported by a bright acidity.

Ideal for vegetables, meats, roasts, game and all kinds of cheeses.

Winemaker Description 

A natural, young, and fresh wine. Made with minimum intervention. No added Sulfites. A blend of Tempranillo and Garnacha. 

Experience the purity of Alona Rioja Sin Sulfitos Añadidos, a unique wine with no sulfites added and organically farmed. 

Winemaker Description 

Brick red deep covered. Clean on the nose with spicy aromas, toasts and dried fruits. Well structured, savory, ample and well balanced. Pleasent finish and harmonized flavors. Complex retronasal, in which we find balsamics and good oak. Finishes elegantly.

Winemaker Description 

Limited Production - only 1,900 bottles produced.

Today we present the Vintage 2022 of Campeador Viura, the first white wine to be produced under the Campeador brand which, as you know, was created in 1916 to produce the first Rioja cavas. This is a limited edition in the style of the great historic white wines of Rioja. A wine that can be considered a wine for cellaring, so you can keep it in your private cellars for a few years or you can drink it immediately thanks to its harmony, intensity and subtlety.

It is a slightly disruptive Viura, but at heart it is a classic wine, like a vintage. It is always very floral and a little citric. The use of the skins was intended to provide a little bit of support, a little bit of nerve. You can see a halo of freshness that may indicate good ageing, but we will see if the wine itself achieves homogeneity”.

Campeador Viura 2022 comes from an old Viura vineyard. Harvested by hand, the grapes were destemmed, destemmed and fermented in stainless steel tanks. At this point, the winemaking process is bifurcated. One part is vatted and treated as clean must, while the other part is kept with its skins in the style of a traditional Rioja red wine.

Fermentation takes place in wooden vats and ageing in French oak vats. As you can see, we wanted to recover from the annals of Rioja winemaking a very old-fashioned way of making wine, starting the process with the skins and finishing it off with a moderate ageing in barrels.

On the nose it has more oxidative Viura sensations, as if it were from an older vintage.

It is the palate that reminds us that we are talking about a young wine because of its hints of citrus and stone fruit.

Producer Description 

Las Beatas is a spectacular 1.9 hectare property which Telmo and Pablo have invested tremendous time and energy: 15 years of renovative viticultural work took place before a single bottle was made.

There are at least ten grape varieties grown on eight terraces, predominantly Tempranillo with 30% Garnacha, some Viura and traces of many other rare, perhaps unidentified cultivars, all planted on cold sandy soils. Las Beatas was made and aged in a single 1200 liter old French foudre. This is a refined, elegant and fluid wine with great complexity and nuance that will age beautifully. 

Producer Description 

Very modern white wine, made with the oldest vineyards of chardonnay and viura rioja. A well balanced wine, very fresh and fruity to enjoy ar any time of the year.

Winemaker Description

Dark ruby in the glass, this wine has a nose of black cherry, cranberry and aniseed. It is very soft on impact, with flavors of raspberry, cassis, milk chocolate and licorice. Satiny tannins hold off on the palate at first, make their presence known and then slip away in time for a bright finish. 

Expert Reviews - Vintage 2018 

96 Points James Suckling | Mineral, macadamia, pine nuts, white sesame and white fruit with a touch of spice. A bright and linear Capellania that shows excellent tension, freshness and complexity. Long and appetizing finish. More taut and gastronomic now. 100% viura. Drink now or hold. 

95 Points Tim Atkin | The cooler 2018 vintage was ideally suited to the production of high-quality whites like this pure Viura from a six-hectare plateau at 485 metres within the extensive Castillo Ygay estate. Modern, perfumed and poised, it has finely integrated French oak, fennel, thatch and beeswax aromas, herbal complexity and a nutty, fragrant, citrus zest palate. 2025-40 

94 Points Wine Advocate | To catch up with the current vintages that I shall review every 12 months from now on, I tasted two vintages of some of the wines, including the whites. The 2018 Capellanía is 100% Viura from the plot that names the wine. The vineyard is six hectares planted in 1945 at 485 meters altitude, the highest in the estate. It fermented in concrete, the first vintage to do so, as it was fermented in stainless steel until then, and matured in second-use French oak barrels for 22 months. It spent a further seven months in concrete, a long élevage, with the idea to produce a structured white with aging potential, while keeping the varietal character. The wine is subtle and elegant, following the path of all the wines in the portfolio here, still marked by the élevage in oak, spicy and smoky. The palate is balanced, with a nice combination of fruit and oak, with a soft texture, clean, focused and tasty. It has 14% alcohol, a pH of 3.1 and 6.10 grams of acidity. 21,836 bottled and 688 magnums produced. It was bottled in July 2022. This is now released with the Gran Reserva back label.

Expert Reviews

Vinous Josh Raynolds 92+ Points | Dark purple. Complex, highly perfumed bouquet of red berries, cherry pit, incense and dried flowers. Spicy raspberry and cherry flavors show a refreshingly bitter quality and are given depth by a note of licorice. Packs a serious punch but there's a surprisingly lithe quality to this wine too. The finish clings with impressive tenacity and repeats the cherry and floral notes. I'd let this wine rest for at least another three years or so. By the way, the 2007 Calvario has put on weight in the last year but also possesses superb energy; I rated it 94 in August. - Vinous 92+

Wine Advocate Neal Martin writes 90 Points | The 2008 Calvario is a blend of 90% Tempranillo, 9% Garnacha and 2% Graciano aged for 18 months in new French Allier oak. The nose offers broody blackberry and briary at first, leisurely unwinding to reveal black olive and violet aromas, with the oak well-knitted into the fruit profile. The palate is medium-bodied with fine, sturdy tannins complemented by the fleshy black fruit laced with just a pinch of white pepper towards the much more elegant finish. It deserves a couple of years in bottle. (2008).

Decanter Sarah Jane Evans MW writes 93 Points |  A wine that smells of luxury and plenty of attention, showing the right balance between oak and fruit and a balancing acidity; expressive and charming, solidly built. Impressive, with tightly crafted tannins, and it should improve over time. Drinking 2019 -2023.

Winemaker Description

Rioja is without question the most famous wine region in Spain, but the region is anything but homogeneous. The three sub-regions – Rioja Alavesa, Rioja Oriental and Rioja Alta – differ enormously. This wine comes from the small hamlet of Labastida in the northwest of Rioja Alavesa, the smallest and northernmost sub-region located in the Spanish Basque Country and characterized by calcareous clay and sandy soils. 

The mastermind behind the Dominio del Challao winery is Manu Michelini, whose family makes incredibly fine, terroir-driven wines under the name Michelini i Mufatto at both their winery in Bierzo, in northeastern Spain, and the Argentine winery in Mendoza. The Challao is the winery's top wine. Medium ruby ​​red with violet. There is significantly more intensity in the glass than with the Garnacha, but this wine still reminds me more of Burgundy than Bordeaux on the nose. The winery is clearly on the trail of elegance. Juicy, fresh wild berries, black cherries, rose petals and black Assam tea, that's delicately smoky. 

Then come violets and freshly fired clay. In the mouth, cassis, fresh blackberries and lots of black cherry again. The intense, chalky minerality is phenomenal, building up gradually on the tongue. Delicately bitter, fresh herbs and a touch of After Eight. The tannins are fine and chalky, and as soon as you feel the structure, the next wave of black cherry washes over your tongue. 

This is not at all what you imagine Rioja to be in the classic sense. But this wine is a lot of fun because of its freshness and mineral intensity without being boring. On the contrary, I am convinced that it will develop gracefully in the cellar for years because it is made for a long life. Super chic fabric and without question a Rioja in a class of its own! 

Winemaker Description

Very aromatic, fruity notes stand out over the wood ones. We perceive black fruits such as blackberries and plums alongside with spiced notes, obtained during its time in oak barrels, that bestow elegance. Roasted notes appear gradually as well.  The wine has a great structure and body. It is well-balance and velvety on the mouth. It has a pleasant and long lasting finish.

18 months in French oak barrels. The wine is then finely-tuned in the bottle for a period of six months. For the purpose of preserving every characteristic of the wine, before being bottled, the wine goes through a clarification and stabilization process, followed by a filtration process. Nevertheless, over time, due to the use of very gentle techniques, some natural sediments might appear. 

Winemaker Description

This wine comes from plots of bush-trained vines on poor, sandytextured soils in the Rioja Alta area. The vines are an average of morethan 35 years old and smaller yields. They are harvested with great care and transported to the winery in small containers. Alcoholic fermentation takes place in stainlesssteel tanks at a controlled temperature of 28ºC, with prior bleeding-off and a long maceration of three weeks in contact with theskins. Ageing in French and American oak barrels (90%-10%) over 28 months, followed by subsequent bottle conditioning for at least 4 years until it is leaves the winery.

AWARDS
93 Silver Medal · International Wine Challenge (v. 2011).

90 Puntos · James Suckling (a. 2010).

90 puntos · Guía Repsol (a. 2010).

90 puntos · Wine Spectator (a. 2009).

91 puntos · Wine Enthusiast (a. 2009).

91 puntos · Wine Wine Advocate (a. 2008).

SENSORY EVALUATION

Look: Ruby red with a noticeable rim. Excellent brightness and clarity.

Aroma & palate: On its first contact with oxygen, it appears clean but reticent. Then, sweet notes of oak appear, cinnamon, clove and candied fruits. Infinite nuances that change with the passage of time.

On the palate, it is subtle and pleasant, with great finesse uponentry and through the mid-palate.

The tannins are extremely well polished and it has a serene acidity that maintains a long finish.

SERVING & FOOD PAIRING

White meat, oven-baked fish. Cured meat and dark chocolate desserts. 

93 Silver Medal · International Wine Challenge (v. 2011).