Roll Out the Barrels

Traditional producers in Spain’s Rioja region have aged their whites in wooden casks for centuries, producing distinctive wines with a creamy, vanilla and slightly oxidised character. But one producer, Olivier Rivière, is taking this practice to another level—by ageing his whites in used sherry barrels that were once full of manzanilla. It gives the white a unique salty, woody flavour as well as notes of dried fruit.

97 points