TELMO RODRIGUEZ, BODEGA LANZAGA, LAS BEATAS 2018
RIOJA’S TERROIR TURN
For much of its history, Rioja production has been closer to the classic Champagne model, where houses – or bodegas – make and market wines produced from grapes bought from growers.
Arguably the most important single development in Rioja over the past couple of decades, however, has been Rioja’s embrace of a more Burgundian approach, in which grower-producers make wines from their own vineyards.
After years of wrangling, this development got its official stamp of approval back in 2017, with the Rioja consejo introducing a second threetiered quality pyramid for ‘terroir’ wines to go alongside the one based on ageing times: Viñedo Singular (unique vineyard; see ‘Panel tasting’, p66), Vino de Municipio (the equivalent of a Burgundy village wine) and Vino de Zona (from one of Rioja’s three sub-zones: Rioja Alta, Rioja Alavesa and Rioja Oriental).
Some of the biggest names in Rioja (Contino and López de Heredia among them) have long worked with singlevineyard wines. But the emergence of the official categories acknowledges the existence of an energetic, largely counter-cultural current in Rioja wine that has added enormously to its diversity of expression.
Among the leaders of this new terroiriste Rioja is Telmo Rodríguez. One of Spain’s most celebrated winemakers, Rodríguez made his name with a peripatetic career that took him to vineyards all over Spain.
More recently, he’s taken the reins at his family estate, Remelluri, alongside his sister, Amaia. His own project, Lanzaga, focuses on making wines in which a sense of place is a priority.
Las Beatas is one of two singlevineyard wines from a restored terraced vineyard of just 1.9ha at around 600m in Labastida. A field blend of red (and some white) varieties including Tempranillo, Graciano, Garnacha Blanca and Garnacha, it’s aged for 15 months in 1,200-litre vats to produce a wine that, to paraphrase Rodríguez, is more about where it’s from than how it was made.