Rioja Revolution

Pristine cherries, plums and a touch of grapefruit with grilled herbs and tile. Lovely texture and transparency here with a mineral twist. Tannins are fresh and vertical. Pure and lively. Drink now. ZEKUN SHUAI, JamesSuckling.com

The 2020 Cemento is 100% Tempranillo sourced from Rioja Alta. As the name suggests, it aged in concrete vats. Exhibiting a purple hue, the reductive nose offers notes of wild herbs and cherries. With a dry, firm and juicy palate, it lingers on delightful fruit notes—a straightforward and tasty Rioja. JOAQUIN HIDALGO, Vinous

This has a really enticing nose of vivid blackberries and herbs. The palate is bright and linear, medium- to full-bodied and juicy, with firm, well-articulated tannins. Elegant, delicious and nervy. This comes exclusively from the Gallo Mate and Villa Sol lieu dits. A blend of 80% tempranillo, 15% garnacha and 5% viura. Drink now. JACOBO GARCIA-ANDRADE LLAMAS, JamesSuckling.com

There was some rusticity and wilderness in the 2021 Sedal, a meaty blend of Tempranillo with 15% Garnacha and 5% Viura from San Vicente de la Sonsierra, co-fermented with some 30% full clusters in open-top stainless steel with 21 days of maceration and matured in oak vats and 500-liter French and Austrian oak barrels for 10 months. It has a nose that combines wild berries and herbs, exotic spices and a touch of meat and fresh blood, high-pitched and lifted. The palate is medium-bodied, with medium ripeness and 13.5% alcohol coupled with good freshness that make it balanced. Very tasty. 8,100 bottles produced. It was bottled in July 2022. LUIS GUTIERREZ, The Wine Advocate

A bright, racy nose loaded with fruit, flowers, minerals and red cherries. Fine tannins unwind nicely with the fruit on the palate, with a medium body and a pretty long, precise finish. A co-fermentation from a co-planted vineyard over 60 years old in Abalos. 80% tempranillo, 10% garnacha tinto and 10% viura and other grapes, Half of the wine was aged in old concrete and the other half in used 500-liter oak barrels. Such a joy to drink now. ZEKUN SHUAI, JamesSuckling.com

The 2022 Colección de Viñedos is a village red with 80% Tempranillo, 10% Garnacha and 10% Viura from four vineyards in Ábalos. It fermented in stainless steel with neutral yeasts. It feels a little like a carbonic-maceration red, but it fermented destemmed; it feels very young and primary, with a fruit-driven nose and a vinous palate, juicy and with very fine tannins and moderate acidity. 25,000 bottles produced. It was bottled in July 2023. LUIS GUTIERREZ, The Wine Advocate

Balanced and supple, with notes of fresh plum, blackberry, tobacco leaf and liquorice. This is a juicy, fresh wine with bright acidity and a dry, chalky finish. DECANTER

Coleccion' is an assemblage of old bush vines (more than 60yo) from three parcelas, Peña Caída, Centenales y los Trepados, planted to Tempranillo with 10% each of Garnacha and Viura. These are field blends grown at just below 600m, yielding 4 tonnes/ha. Open tank fermentation of destemmed fruit, after a brief cold soak, 14 days fermentation and maceration, then malo transformation and 'aged' in raw concrete and 500L French oak casks for six months. Unfined. An incredible bargain!

The 2022 Blanco is 85% Viura and 15% Garnacha Blanco/Tempranillo Blanco, sourced from six vineyards planted in the Montes Obarenes, Rioja Alta. A portion of the wine (25%) is skin-macerated then aged for 10 months in barrels, foudres and concrete on lees. It offers an oaky core with a stewed green apple note and hints of candied peach. Dry, rich and fairly tannic due to the skins, the chalky palate lingers long with a ripe fruit character. JOAQUIN HIDALGO, Vinous

Just like the Alegre Clarete, the aromas are attractively minerally, but more like wet stones. There is skin contact, with some spices, apricots and pomelo. Supple, composed and quite calm, with a creamy mouthfeel on the medium-bodied palate. Fresh and fleshy, with a lengthy finish. Lots of minerals at the end. So irresistible now. ZEKUN SHUAI, JamesSuckling.com

The fruit is from old bush-vines from the Obarenes villages, Galbárruli (la Calera vineyard) and Fonzaleche (Bahiarra and Cara Santa Domingo), at around 600m altitude. Viura with 10% Garnacha Blanca. Very gently pressed, only 55% of the must is retained (4500 kg yielded just 2200 litres). A cool fermentation starts in vat and after a week continues in large French oak, where the wine stays nine months with weekly batonnage. 3.1pH. A long-lived, complex and great value white. It’s quiet, and gorgeous! Decant to assist the textural depth of the wine to express fully.

The approachable and juicy red 2022 Tinto was produced with 75% Tempranillo, 20% Garnacha and 5% white grapes, as the Garnacha and the white are vital. This year, the wine achieved higher ripeness, at 14.7% alcohol, but it doesn't feel alcoholic or warm and comes through as rounder and juicier but still fresh and in balance, very pleasant and easy to drink. It matured in 225- and 500-liter barrels—they now have more 500-liter barrels than 225-liter—and in 1,000- and 3,000-liter oak foudres. 20,000 bottles produced. It was bottled in May 2024. LUIS GUTIERREZ, The Wine Advocate

This 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; blending the cold limestone of the northern hills with warmer iron-stone soils from foothills in the south. This is a hand-made, high care Rioja Generico. It specifically references the significance of Garnacha in historical Riojas: varietal Tempranillo wines being a fad since the 1980s. It’s inspired by the legendary Gran Reservas of Viña Real: back in the 1950s, the key fruit for such came from the parcels Oscar and Eva now work.

An unfiltered, organic, 'generic' Rioja, blending the south and north shores of the Rio Ebro: Garnacha from Monte Yerga and Tempranillo from Haro. Álvaro'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.

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 at most, round and complete, gently spiced and perfumed, it's classy and delicious.

Miguel Merino is a small family winery in the pueblo of Briones (formerly Brunes in Roman, itself a re-naming of from being that of the Berones, a pre-Roman Celtic people). Like most other Riojan villages, the vineyard land of Briones is a crazy patchwork of small grower holdings. Historically, during the tough years from 1940, these were organised by the village co-ops. More lately, since the 1980s conspiracy to eradicate the village from Appellation Rioja, fruit from these antique plots is mostly sold as cheap, anonymous kilos to ‘The Bigs’ for their reserva-etcetera industrial Riojas. As well as little good coming out of the co-ops and the reservas, a more disturbing sub-plot looms.

Many owners of these little parcels are now very old villagers, whose children are away in Madrid or somewhere, and interested in inheritance, not heritage. As the generational hollowing out of land ownership proceeds apace, many of these vineyards are being scooped up by The Bigs. BUT! In between these and the co-ops are a handful of owner-grower-makers intent on fashioning beautiful village Rioja.

The 2022 LZ is primary, fruit driven, young and fresh, bottled unoaked with moderate ripeness and alcohol. It's juicy and tender, with fine tannins, very nice balance and chalky minerality, transcending the concept of a young unoaked wine. 64,000 bottles produced. It was bottled in June 2023. LUIS GUTIERREZ

LZ is a free-range expression via gravity and concrete. Un-oaked, juicy, deft, utterly typical of its place. Always wonderfully expressive of Lantziego’s cold clay dirt, LZ features crimson-spiced cranberry with rose petal florals and red lavender among plentiful herbs – pure smells of place. The palate is is built on a trademark fruit tannin natural acid twin-track. Simple and beautiful, with plenty of depth, spiced, earthily perfumed, ovoid, lissome and satisfying.

The clean and aromatic, young white 2023 Blanco de Sierra de Toloño has gained in complexity with one more year in bottle. On top of the herbal notes and the sensation of freshness, it shows more nuance, a savory, chicken broth-like twist. With only 11.5% alcohol, it has very good freshness and acidity, reflected by a pH of 3.23. It's still young and fruit driven. It matured in stainless steel with lees and was bottled unoaked (in January 2024). 12,000 bottles produced. LUIS GUTIERREZ, The Wine Advocate

I've always had a soft spot for her Garnacha, and the 2021 La Dula, with its floral, perfumed and expressive nose could be the finest vintage of this wine. It was produced with grapes from small ancient plots in Rivas de Tereso and matured in amphora and foudre for eight months. It's open, showy and terribly elegant, super young and fruit-driven, reminiscent of fresh grapes, not terribly complex but very pleasant and easy to drink. It has a medium-bodied palate with 13.5% alcohol and a serious and chalky texture. It should develop more complexity with time in bottle. 6,500 bottles produced. It was bottled in August 2024. It's a bargain. LUIS GUTIERREZ, The Wine Advocate

Combining grapes from Autol, Alfaro, Adeanueva and Rincón de Soto, Costumbres is a regional expression of the Rioja Oriental. Garnacha based with 5% Garnacha Roya, Tempranillo and Tinta Velasco, it's a very lightly wooded red with 100% whole bunch spices, subtle grip and layers of bramble, raspberry and red cherry fruit. TIM ATKIN MW.

The single-vineyard red 2020 Erosivo comes from a small plot planted with an unusual mix of grapes, 70% Tinta Velasco (that, confusingly enough, is locally called Graciano de Alfaro) and 30% white Calagraño (or Pasera) in the paraje Yasa de las Cuevas, in the Erosiva de Los Agudos. The nose is more Mediterranean with violets and red berries. The wine is ripe at 14.2% alcohol, and there are abundant, slightly dusty tannins. The alcohol is lower and the acidity higher, and the wine has some rusticity and character but comes through as balanced. It needs a little more time in bottle to polish the tannins. It was produced in a very hand-crafted way, foot treading the full bunches in open-top barrels and maturing the wine in a 600-liter oak barrel. Only 720 bottles were filled in July 2021. LUIS GUTIERREZ, The Wine Advocate

This exceptional, rocky white Rioja goes from strength to strength. Today the blend comprises 85% Viura with 10% Malvasía Riojana and 5% Garnacha Blanca. The grapes are drawn mostly from the cool, high country of Ábalos, including the old-vine vineyards of San Cristobel (650 metres) and Perquita, planted in 1965. From 2022, the wine now benefits from a portion of 75-year-old Viura from Baños de Ebro. Fermented wild in concrete, the wine was then raised in a mixture of eggs, old barrels and 4,000-litre foudre as Puyaubert seeks to harness the mineral salinity and tension gifted by the rocky limestone soils and old vines in his highland vineyards. As always, it’s a shining example of new-wave Rioja Blanco.

This wine has dropped the Bozeto styling and is now simply called Exopto. New name, same vibrant, great-value Rioja. This pan-regional expression of Rioja’s three principal grape varieties is conceived as a lively, easy-drinking introduction to the range. Most entry-level wines from this region are based on Tempranillo (a variety easier and more profitable to grow), yet here Garnacha represents 65% of the blend. This Garnacha hails from very old vines in the sandy, river-stone terroirs of El Agudo and Al Casillón at Alfaro (Rioja Oriental). The Tempranillo is drawn from a selection of mature vines in Ábalos (high-county Rioja Alta), and some Ábalos Graciano adds freshness and finesse.

The wine ferments in a combination of concrete and steel tank, then ages for six months in concrete and 5,000-litre oak vats. These days, Tom includes a measure of semi-carbonic maceration for extra buoyancy. Opening with perfumes of dusky berries and well-judged spice, this is a wonderfully aromatic, restaurant-friendly wine. It’s a wine that impresses with its precision rather than power. Even so, the warmer year gives an open, juicy wine and a great deal of drinking pleasure: spice, vibrancy and velvety flow flecked with notes of espresso, dried flowers and wild woody herbiness to go with its smoky blackberry fruit. If you’re looking for a bright, succulent grower Rioja, few will deliver better value than this.