Miguel Merino Rioja de Pueblo Briones 2023

Currently, this is a genuine single vineyard release from ‘el Rincon’. However, this wine is going to get other new parcel plantings in it from time to time, so we are happy to ‘de-classify’ it ongoing as a village wine, while it fosters younger vines of Tempranillo and Garnacha through to an age where they can contribute to or become wines higher up the scale. ‘El Rincon’ lies on the hillside ‘la Dehesa’, with a very cool easterly orientation. To get our Spanish appellation language skills up to the point, this makes it’s correction location ID Parcela ‘el Rincon’ del Paraje ‘la Dehesa’. It’s 1.34 ha of Tempranillo with about 6% Graciano-Garnacha in clay-calcareous soils.

A classic Riojan mix of berry, floral spice and balsamic maturity, earthen, true-hearted, pure. There are gorgeous tiny mulberries, perfectly set like little gems in a bed of heather, with touches of cola, cocoa and graphite. In fact, there’s more than one fruit-in-miniature gem inset here: small sour plums continue the atlantic blue feels, while teensy mini-boysenberries dance in a little red spectrum, perhaps thanks to the Graciano. Flavour words aside, the fruit quality is evinced by perfectly ripened sweet seeds without any glyceric heft at all. It’s mid-weight and maintains a lovely line, beautifully formed without evident muscularity, the tannins glide-not-thrust and with fine, textural natural acid, it’s all elegant and easy.