If you ask Rioja wine lovers to name their favorite producers, invariably La Rioja Alta will be right up there with the best of the bunch. Unsurprisingly, the winery was recently included in Drinks International’s Annual list of the World’s Most Admired Wine Brands.

Chosen by an international academy of leading wine experts, the award goes to wineries who demonstrate consistent quality, a strong reflection of their heritage, and popularity amongst wine consumers, in addition to many other merits.

And indeed, La Rioja Alta has long been a favorite of mine for its elegant, complex expression of Rioja: lively, food-friendly and down-right tasty wines.

*Photo Courtesy of @lariojaaltasa on Instagram*

At a recent online Zoom tasting, La Rioja Alta’s head winemaker Julio Sáenz guided a small group of journalists through a memorable tasting of three wines. Sáenz weaved the story of the wines with the history and philosophies of the winery to create a lasting impression of a proud and passionate group of people who created and continue to grow the winery’s legacy.

**In the cellar with Julio Sáenz (in light blue shirt).**

Sunrise in Rioja. Photos courtesy of @lariojaaltasa on Instagram. — **Sunrise in Rioja.** *Photos courtesy of @lariojaaltasa on Instagram.*

130+ Years of Excellence

La Rioja Alta is one of the oldest wineries in Spain. It was founded by five families in 1890 as Sociedad Vinícola de la Rioja Alta. They strategically built the winery next to the Haro railway station which allowed easy shipment of their wines to other parts of Europe, particularly France, whose vineyards had been decimated by the phylloxera louse.

With this new market of French wine consumers in mind, they hired a French winemaker and imported several French wine barrels to age the wine in. Today, one of the original families remains owner of La Rioja Alta, and the company’s chairman, Guillermo de Aranzabal, is the fifth generation of his family to work in the business.

In 1941, the winery was incorporated and La Rioja Alta group now owns four wineries: the original, now simply called La Rioja Alta, as well as Torre de Oña, a single vineyard property in Rioja, and two other wineries: Lagar de Cervera in Rias Baixas on the Atlantic coast of Galicia and Bodegas Aster in Ribera del Duero, a wine region to the southwest of Rioja.

Concern for Quality

“Our philosophy at La Rioja Alta is maintained throughout all of our brands,” says Sáenz, chief winemaker since 1996. “In all of our wineries, we control the production and we only produce wines using our own grapes. This is very important because if we control the quality of the grapes, we control the quality of the wines.”

Harvest time at La Rioja Alta. Photo: @lariojaaltasa on instagram. — **Harvest time at La Rioja Alta.** *Photo: @lariojaaltasa on instagram.*

Furthermore, the winery only releases wine in the best vintages, when the quality of the grapes is excellent. Consumers know that when they purchase a bottle of La Rioja Alta, they are getting a top-notch wine no matter what the vintage is.

Sáenz admits that their policy of releasing wines only from top vintages can be tough on the bottom line, but that “for us, the quality of our wines is the most important thing.”

From Barrel to Bottle, A Time-Honored System

According to Sáenz, another important aspect of their business is control of the barrels—the winery is known for extended barrel aging of its wines.

“All of our red wines are aged in barrels,” says Sáenz. “In the case of La Rioja Alta, we use American oak imported from the USA (Tennessee, Missouri, Kentucky and Ohio). We dry them in our facilities for about three years and then after that we cooper [make] them in our facilities.”

Sáenz notes that the longer aging means that the wines are ready to drink when they become available to the consumer, although they can be kept for many more years in the bottle.

“This is the special thing about La Rioja wines,” he says, “When we release the wine to the market, this wine is ready to drink. You can enjoy it with a meal, but if you keep it in good condition in your cellar, you can enjoy it for years and it will gain complexity and elegance.”

A Classic Winery Always Seeking to Evolve

Although La Rioja Alta is considered by many to be one of Rioja’s most traditional wineries with their carefully long-aged wines, Sáenz doesn’t like to use the word traditional to describe the winery.

“We are not a traditional winery,” he says. “I prefer the word classic because we are constantly improving and adapting our wines to our customers, to the market.” As an example he says that they use manual racking and gravity to move the wine off of its skins for all of their bottles. “But it’s not only for tradition,” he says. “It’s also a quality control system and helps to maintain the soul of our wines.”

Sáenz believes that keeping up to date with technology in the winemaking processes is a good and necessary thing.

“We need new machines. For example, all of our harvest is by hand, but we use an optical machine to sort the best grapes for our wines. This new machine is improving the quality of our wines and is very important to us because our wines stay in barrels for a very long time and it’s important that they have freshness and good acidity to improve the aging capacity.”

Climate Change and the Effect on Acidity

As wine ages, acidity fades and since these wines mature in barrels for several years, a good amount of acidity in the grapes at harvest time is crucial. During the Zoom meeting, Sáenz noted several times that the freshness of the wines is the most important thing. While he acknowledges the effects of climate change and the resulting earlier harvesting of the grapes compared to just 20 years ago, Sáenz says that in Rioja, climate change is not a big problem yet.

“So far we have been able to maintain the acidity in our wines,” he says. But he also admits that he is worried about what will happen in another 20 years and that they are beginning to look at new ways of dealing with the changes, such as purchasing vineyards at higher altitudes with cooler temperatures.

Tasting Notes

Lagar de Cervera 2020. (SRP $22) The winery is located in Galicia in the northwestern coastal area of Spain. Most of its vineyards are located in the O Rosal subzone, the warmest and southernmost part of the Rías Baixas wine region. The unique parcel of land extends from the sea inland, close to the Portuguese border.

This is a beautiful example a well-made Albariño: fresh and invigorating with a wonderful combination of salinity and fruitiness. When you smell it, you’ll first think of the sea and then flowers (jasmine), apricots and lemon peel. A perfect wine for seafood: raw clams and oysters, mussels in a white wine garlic sauce, shrimp atop a lemony pasta, mahi mahi tacos, grilled swordfish and more.

Viña Ardanza Reserva 2012. (SRP $37) The flagship wine of La Rioja Alta since 1943, this blend consists of two of the most important varieties of Rioja: Tempranillo (78%) and Garnacha (22%), and is a selection of the best quality grapes from several plots. The selected wines were aged separately: the Tempranillo for 36 months in American oak barrels and the Garnacha for 30 months. The blend is done right before bottling and the bottles remain in the cellar for 3 years before release to the market.

A powerfully aromatic, spicy, complex wine with notes of balsamic, vanilla, licorice, a hint of pepper. Very well balanced with pleasant acidity, polished tannins and a little bit of fruitiness which comes from the Garnacha.

Sáenz says that he loves this wine now because of the softness of the tannins and its good balance, and believes that it will be fantastic five to seven years from now as well.

Viña Arana Gran Reserva 2014. (SRP $42) A completely different style than Ardanza, this Gran Reserva (a type of Rioja wine that is required to age for at least five years) has more notes of vanilla and coffee; more of the toasted wood notes from long barrel aging.

Sáenz told us that this is a new blend for Vina Arana. In the previous vintage, 2011, it was a blend of 95% Tempranillo and 5% Mazuelo.

“We decided to make a different kind of VIña Arana with better aging capacity and more complexity and elegance,” he said. “So we removed the Mazuelo and made the new blend with 5% Graciano, a special variety in Rioja for making Gran Reservas.”

And indeed, the Viña Arana has a wonderful tension between delicateness and robustness. Fresh, vibrant and well-balanced, with amiable sweet tannins and a very long finish, its long stay in the bottle rewards us with great complexity and elegance that is typical of this style of Rioja wine.

“This is probably my favorite wine of La Rioja Alta,” says Sáenz. “You can drink this wine with the entire meal. It’s fantastic to drink now, but I think it needs a little bit more time, three or four more years in the bottle, because of the strong tannins.”

He says that he prefers to open the bottle just a few minutes before drinking it. “Just pour the wine into your glass,” he suggests, “and you will find different aromas and other things in this glass over time.”

A Success Story

Tasting through this small sampling of captivating wines, it is obvious why La Rioja Alta has been successful for over 130 years—a favorite of wine lovers everywhere, and well-deserving of its awards.

By embracing technology while respecting past traditions the winery makes stunning wines that are beautiful representations of Rioja, as well as Rias Baixas and Ribera del Duero. La Rioja Alta wines are well balanced, aromatic, fresh and flavorful. In a word, classic.