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Wine Description
The Story
La Rioja Alta is one of the grand old Rioja houses of Haro. Founded (and still owned) by four wine growing families in 1890, this is both a bastion of traditional Rioja and a benchmark against which other wineries in the region are measured.
Long aged in bottle and American oak, and treated to regular, careful hand racking between barrels, La Rioja Alta wines are classically styled: medium bodied, slightly oxidative and full of secondary characteristics.
The new wave of talented young winemakers in Rioja may be pushing site-specific, modern wines and labelling the more traditionally styled as industrially made. At La Rioja Alta however, nothing could be further from the truth. Every step in the process is handled in-house, with the utmost care and dedication. All the wines are made from estate-owned vineyards, which have been converted to organic viticulture. All the barrels used for ageing are made by in-house coopers. And all the winemaking, blending, sorting and ageing are done with the sole aim of producing the finest possible wine.
The result is a striking reminder – despite changing times – of just how good traditional Rioja can be.
Wine Information
Tempranillo (89%) from vines over 60 years old planted in Briñas, Rodezno and Villalba, and Graciano (11%) from our Montecillo vineyard in the municipality of Fuenmayor.
The grapes were collected in boxes and transported to the winery in refrigerated vehicles to preserve all their integrity. After destemming and light crushing, the grapes were put in tanks where they underwent alcoholic fermentation for 17 days. Batches were selected and allowed to complete malolactic fermentation naturally over 75 days. In June 2012, the wine was transferred to four-and-a-half-year-old American oak barrels (made in-house), where it stayed until March 2015. During aging, the wine was racked eight times using traditional barrel-to- barrel methods. The final blend was bottled in November 2016.
Vintage 2011
Despite water shortages during the first few months, our vines in the upper areas of Rioja managed to attain a balanced canopy thanks to accumulated reserves. The end of the growing cycle was marked by sunny days and cool nights, a temperature
gap that benefited grape ripening up to harvest. Magnificent colour component, significant polyphenol load and an outstanding condition resulted in wines that were particularly suitable for long aging. This vintage was officially rated “Excellent”.