La Rioja Alta is one of Spain’s oldest wineries, a favorite of wine lovers who enjoy classic, Tempranillo-based Rioja. The company was founded as Sociedad Vinicola de La Rioja Alta by five families in 1890 and has remained a family-run enterprise. Today the fifth generation, Guillermo de Aranzabal, is leading the business.

The winery’s quality-driven philosophy begins in the vineyards, where they cultivate 100% of their estate-grown vines. La Rioja Alta’s chief winemaker, Julio Sáenz, says owning their own vineyards is very important. “If we control the quality of the grapes on the vines,” he says, “we ultimately control the quality of the wines.”

Viña Ardanza Reserva

La Rioja Alta’s flagship Reserva bottling, Viña Ardanza, was introduced to the market 81 years ago and has become the winery’s iconic brand, emblematic of a consistent search for quality.

Known as an elegant and complex expression of Rioja Reserva, Viña Ardanza wines are lively, food-friendly, and worthy of aging—if you are able to refrain from drinking them, that is.

“If you keep a Viña Ardanza in good condition in your cellar, you can enjoy it for years to come,” says Sáenz, “and it will gain complexity and elegance.”

However, there’s no need to worry if you don’t want to wait. The winery employs extended aging of the wine in barrels and then in the bottle before releasing it to the market, meaning it’s ready to be opened and enjoyed when purchased.

**Over the years the labels have changed, but the quality of Viña Ardanza wine has remained steady.**

A Rare Vertical Tasting

During a recent media dinner in New York City, Aranzabal and Sáenz presented a vertical tasting of six Viña Ardanza vintages, from the newly released 2016 and going back to 1989. It was interesting to see how each vintage handled the passage of time while retaining freshness and without showing any negative effects of oxygen.

La Rioja Alta releases the Ardanza bottling only in the best vintages, usually five to six times per decade, providing customers with the best wine possible. “We are afraid of oxidation with the older wines,” said Aranzabal, “but the wines, made in the best years, have shown they can handle the time.”

The 2001, a favorite of the table, hails from one of the best of recent vintages and showed tart fruit notes and a great liveliness with well-integrated tannins.

The older vintages of 1989 and 1994, 34 and 29 years old, respectively, are stunning wines, showing beautifully fragrant aromas, silky tannins, tart acidity, and fresh fruit notes.

“One thing we try to achieve with our wines,” says Sáenz, “is the ability to ‘age without getting older,’ gaining freshness and elegancy during the maturation process (in oak barrels and bottles). This is our fingerprint and our DNA.” (If only it were so easy for people to do that!)

The 2004, an excellent vintage, offered the fullest body with big, dark fruit notes, while the 2008, still young, showed excellent balance, thanks to exceptional weather throughout the growing season.

Viña Ardanza 2016

Indeed, the recently-released 2016, made from 80% Tempranillo and 20% Garnacha, stands out for its depth of flavor and astonishingly long finish. Despite drought and high summer temperatures, the wine’s acidity is balanced with its 14.5% alcohol by volume. 2016 offers plenty of opulent fruit balanced by savory, spicy notes, silky tannins, and palate-cleansing acidity.

Sáenz says that the Vina Ardanza 2016 represents a step up in quality for the brand. “We got more intense color and freshness,” says Sáenz. “The 2016 vintage is a very refined version of Ardanza with some fruit-forward notes giving ‘modern nuances.’”

Having tasted several terrific older vintages of the wine, I would say that’s quite a positive statement for the 2016.

It’s All in the Details

Over the years, the production of Viña Ardanza has evolved to include modern winemaking techniques while remaining true to its roots. The carefully-tended grapes hail from outstanding conditions for winemaking, with the Tempranillo grown on 30+-year-old vines in clay-limestone soils and the Garnacha in deep rocky soils at 1640 feet in elevation.

The attention to detail in the vineyards continues in the cellar. The winery hand-harvests the grapes and then sorts them by an optical laser machine, ensuring that only perfectly ripe grapes make it into the final blend. Furthermore, only native yeasts found on the fruit are used to start the fermentation, helping to express the regional character of the wine.

To keep the style and quality consistent year after year, La Rioja Alta makes their own American oak barrels using in-house coopers. Viña Ardanza Tempranillo and Garnacha wines are matured separately in these barrels for a long period of time: 36 months for the Tempranillo and 30 months for the Garnacha. The extended maturation in wood provides distinctive nuances that are fundamental to La Rioja Alta’s house style.

Additionally, Viña Ardanza wines are racked manually under candlelight every six months, meaning they are moved from one barrel to another to remove them from the dead yeast cells and other solids.

**Manual racking by candlelight is a natural way to remove sediment and to monitor each barrel.** *Photo: @lariojaaltasa*

The final blend was made in June 2020, right before bottling, and the bottles remained in the cellar for three years before release to the market.

La Rioja Alta’s Viña Ardanza Reserva 2016 is aromatic, fresh, and flavorful and will only improve with time. Bottles of this special wine are readily available at wine shops and restaurants or by visiting wine-searcher.com.