UNDER THE SURFACE | Transcending Rioja’s identity crisis

In a world obsessed by the new and the niche, with winemakers encouraged to pursue the expression of their terroir above all else, a wine defined by oak and extended cellar ageing should be an anachronism. Yet a school of Rioja Gran Reservas is bucking the trend. Guy Woodward reports

This year sees Rioja celebrate the centenary of its status as a Spanish DOC. It was the first region to be recognised as such, in 1925 (and also the first to be awarded DOCa – Designation of Origin Calificada – in 1991), and remains by far the country’s most famous wine. 

The celebrations, however, come at a rather inopportune time. In recent years, Rioja has been in a state of, if not crisis, fairly frenzied flux. ‘In nearly 40 years of writing about Rioja, I’ve never come across so many long faces,’ wrote critic Tim Atkin MW after seemingly visiting most of the region’s 568 bodegas for his comprehensive 2025 Rioja Report. The region is, essentially, producing more wine than it can sell, and Atkin, who arguably knows it better than any external commentator, reports grape prices dropping to ever lower levels in a region reliant on growers. 

At the same time, there is much debate as to the style of wine that should define Rioja today. Many producers are moving away from the traditional categories of Crianza, Reserva and Gran Reserva, which classify wines according to the amount of time spent in 225-litre barrels. Instead, they favour the broader and less restrictive ‘Genérico’ classification which allows them to age wines in pretty much anything they choose, be that large foudres, bigger barrels, older wood, concrete eggs, amphorae or just plain stainless steel.  

It is all the more striking, then, to hear Guillermo de Aranzabal, co-owner and CEO of the venerable La Rioja Alta, arguing that the cellar is equally as important as the vineyard when it comes to the producer’s acclaimed 890 and 904 Gran Reservas. Even if they believe it, few producers would admit to such a thing in an era where terroir – and micro-terroir – is everything. ‘I think it’s significant that many of the best younger winemakers in Rioja spend more time in their vineyards than they do in their cellars,’ says Atkin. The same is true in pretty much every wine region in the world. As a result, it could be said that by being wedded to oak, producers like La Rioja Alta are the ones going against the grain, staying true to what is now a niche approach. As Andrew Halliwell, the British managing winemaker at Bodegas Obalo, says: ‘Given that every region has young winemakers showcasing terroir, you could argue that [styles like] Reserva and Gran Reserva are almost unique’. 

Tasting wines such as the supremely fragrant, mellow and downright drinkable 1985 vintage of La Rioja Alta’s 890, it is hard to see why they would change tack. The wine was the star turn in an extremely well-received line-up of both old and current vintages of this and the 904 bottling, in a masterclass at the London Club last month. 

The very next day, Victor Urrutia, de Aranzabal’s counterpart at the equally venerable CVNE (founded two years earlier than La Rioja Alta, in 1879) hosted a trade tasting of its Imperial Gran Reserva, going back to 1947. And while the oldest vintage was losing a little brightness, it still showed wonderfully sweet fruit – with the 1994 the classic rendering of what Urrutia proudly describes as the signature ‘churchy nose’. 

Again, in an era that prizes freshness and energy, it is not a descriptor that many producers would shout about. But as Urrutia says: ‘We abhor fashion. Our future is in our past.’ De Aranzabal agrees: ‘When you age wines before release for as many years as we do [the 2011 vintage of the 890 has just been launched, after six years in barrel and eight years in bottle], you can’t follow fashion. We keep an eye on trends – we have tried to coax a little more colour into our wines, for instance, which people seem to like – but we can’t be reactive.’ 

Urrutia is of the same mind. ‘We try to replicate what we did in the past,’ he says, recalling his shock when he first joined the family company on seeing how ‘unconcerned’ his team were by sales data and critics’ scores. De Aranzabal revealed at his St James’s Room tasting that it is the La Rioja Alta chief winemaker, Julio Saénz – not a family member – who makes the final decision as to whether a Reserva or Gran Reserva will be made in each vintage. Export Director Fernando Goy admits he was ‘not happy’ when Saenz opted to delay the release of the 2015 edition of the 904 Gran Reserva by a year, in order for the tannins to mellow, leaving him without a wine to sell. Similarly, in 2002, the ever-popular Ardanza Riserva bottling was withdrawn from the production line at the very last minute, with Saénz unhappy with its development – half a million bottles were uncorked and instead sold in bulk.  

One could argue – certainly from Goy’s perspective – that such rigour makes little commercial sense. From a similar perspective, Patrick McGrath MW, founder and managing director of importer Hatch Mansfield, says the price of top Gran Reservas is ‘a joke’ – and not because they are too expensive. Urrutia told of how the region’s ‘peasant mentality’ is still prevalent in the thinking of many producers, via a fear of being perceived as too expensive. ‘We never want to be seen as a luxury product, with all the connotations that brings,’ he says, before comparing the approach to that of another classic wine region. ‘Bordeaux have been ripping off their customers,’ he contends. ‘Some wines have been sold at far too high a price.’ He was too diplomatic to say it, but you sensed he saw some chickens coming home to roost in the French region’s current travails…

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