Following on some more requests, this week we’re going to dive into Spain’s most famous wine region: La Rioja. It’s a region that is sometimes over-simplified as Tempranillo in lots of oak, but it has a rich history that also parallels the story of Spain’s wine production as a whole. For this reason this week I’ve chosen two wines that I think really exemplify Rioja reds: one that’s an excellent example of classic Rioja Reserva, and one that represents the future of Spanish winemaking by going back to its roots and honoring it’s past.

In 2017 I drove across Portugal and Spain, hitting most major wine regions along the way, and I spent some time at both of these wineries. They are perfect examples of the two different winemaking ideologies in Rioja. So I’ll be using both of theses wines to characterize what Rioja had become famous for in the last century, as well as what it’s historical wines looked like that are now making a comeback. If you’re free on Saturday evening, you can join the Zoom tasting with either wine, but having both would give a better understanding to the overall evolution of the region in the last 100 years. Here’s how to participate:

1. Pick up any or all the bottles from the Byward Wine Market in Ottawa, at Pan Chancho in Kingston, or order by the case directly from Lifford.
2. Send me an email letting me know which wine you have and that you’d like to join the Zoom, and on Saturday afternoon I’ll send you the link to join.
3. Here’s the link to both wines if you want to purchase the bottles individually from the Byward Wine Market.

Sound good? See you Saturday at 7:00pm!
Now onto the wines….

First, a bit of history about Spain and Rioja…

A couple key things to remember about Spain: as a country, it is historically the largest producer of wine by volume in the world. Nearly every home, in every village, made wine over 100 years ago. If you didn’t have a press at home, there was one in the town square. Most people had some vines or purchased grapes, crushed and made their own wine. Making your own wine was as culturally common as growing your own vegetable garden. This wasn’t always high quality wine consideration, but there were of course larger families who had big wineries that made fine wines and sold bottles and kegs for shipping around the country and some export. But by and large the grapes were mostly grown in uniquely Spanish ways on standalone bush vines, not attached to vertically trellised rows. This allowed them to be grown on all kinds of interesting mountain and hillside terroirs. The Spanish definitely had their own notion of terroir and had planted bush vines in the most interesting places, producing wines of character unique to their areas.

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This all continued until around when phylloxera hit in the late 1800’s and began to ravage Europe’s vineyards, killing off the majority of them. There’s 2 things that phylloxera doesn’t like: sandy soils and altitude…and Spain has plenty of both. So when France’s vineyards were decimated, many French Chateau owners and winemakers looked to invest in Spain. Similtaniously, the big families in Spain wanted the opportunity to begin producing internationally sought after wine in the same way that the French had become famous for exporting around the world. So this perfect storm of opportunity came together to begin changing the historical face of Spanish winemaking, and Rioja was at the heart of it. A major part of fine French wine had been the aging on small oak barrels, which was not common across Spain. So when Rioja began developing it’s regional rules that included lots of oak aging followed by bottle aging before you could legally sell a Rioja labelled wine, this began to put all of the small farmers and wineries out of business, favouring the rich families who could afford to make wine in the way they were now legislating for. So a lot of the small independent grape growers began selling their grapes to the bigger companies, or just getting out of the business entirely with rural populations increasingly moving into cities in the early half of the 1900’s. And this is where classic or traditional Rioja as we know it today was born. Crianza, Reserva, Gran Reserva and their increasing amount of time aging in barrel and bottle all began here.

MARQUES DE VARGAS, RIOJA RESERVA 2015
$45 per bottle from Byward Wine Market and Pan Chancho, or $42.99 x6 from Lifford Wines
Marques de Vargas was started in 1840 and is situated on the outskirts of Logroño in the Ebro Valley, part of a famous stretch of land called ‘Los Tres Marqueses’ (The Three Marques). As the name suggests, these wineries were each founded by a famous Marques who built beautiful wineries surrounded by their estate vineyards, in rows of separated varietals, built in the Chateau style of France. It is a traditional blend of 80% Tempranillo, 15% Mazuelo, and 5% Garnacha that are grown organically, and are bottled unfiltered and unfined. This is an excellent example of what has become known as traditional Rioja Reserva today. 18 months in oak, followed by and extended 4.5 years in bottle for even more development and aging. 2015 was a extra hot growing season in Rioja and as a result produced bigger than usual wines. Expect ripeness and structure with dark berry and prune notes coupled with dark chocolate, tobacco, dried herbs and spices. Big, rich, tannic, and some oak notes. A great example of a warm vintage Reserva from a top notch historic house. If you’re looking for something fun to make with this dish try this Slow-cooked Beef Stew, and maybe substitute with Wild Boar, or top with some shaved truffle if you want to get real crazy.

TELMO RODRIGUEZ, 'LZ’ 2019
$25 per bottle from Byward Wine Market and Pan Chancho, or $22.99 x12 from Lifford Wines
If Marques de Vargas represents the style of what Rioja has become internationally renowned for, then Telmo Rodriguez represents the underdog version of what Rioja was historically, and also what he thinks the future of Rioja (and Spain) is. He’s built his whole career on reviving true, authentic, Spanish winemaking that was unduly influenced (at best) or colonized (at worst) by the French. He’s been a terroir hunter looking for abandoned old bush vines, planted in off-beat, traditional areas that the big companies and the new wine economy forgot about. He’s also mostly eschewed new oak barrels in favour of traditional cement fermentation tanks and old wood foudres. This wine is a tribute to the wine growers of the 1920’s before the industrialization of Spanish wine really took off and changed Rioja. Telmo is based in the small Rioja village of Lanciago. Here he produces several traditional wines. “Lanzaga” is the estate’s top wine (or 1er Cru if you like), and “LZ” is the village version. The Lanzaga is aged in oak, but mostly old, large 1500-2500L foudres, whereas LZ is produced entirely in cement vats, as it was done back in the day. This is a field blend of Tempranillo, Graciano, and Garnacha; grown on bush vines all mixed together throughout the vineyard, then harvested and fermented together. A brazen attempt at real, traditional, Spanish viticulture, as per his mission statement: "We dream of making the best Rioja wine of the 18th century".

LZ with the village of Lanciego redacted in protest.

Telmo dreams of an authentically Spanish wine industry that values it’s terroir the way that countries like France do. At the moment, the majority of regulation in Rioja is about HOW you make the wine, not WHERE the wine comes from. In a sense, the oak and bottle aging regulations are more important than highlighting where specifically the wine was grown. Telmo has long since been pushing for a better appellation system in Rioja (and Spain overall), looking more towards the Burgundy model in the AOC system with very specific vineyard and village designations rather than just stopping at regional sub-appelations like “Rioja Alta”, or “Rioja Alvesa”, as they had been doing. So Telmo just began doing it himself, adding his village name to the labels until the provincial bureaucracy began giving him a hard time about it because it is not recognized an official village sub-appellation. So instead of removing it, he’s just redacted it as an act of protest. See picture of 2019 label vs 2018 label. Telmo know Spain was historically, and is again, the largest wine producing country…he wants it to be recognized for it’s quality not just its volume. I could go on and on about why I think Telmo is so great, but instead, if you’re interested, Click here for a small essay on why Telmo Rodriguez is one of my all-time favourite winemakers and for more on his winemaking philosophy. And click here for a sweet video riding shotgun with Telmo in his old 1950’s Land Rover convertible through his mountain-side vineyards in Rioja. And definitely make sure to peruse his website. There’s lots of great information and stunning photography of all his wine projects. You can certainly pair this with the same beef stew dish mention above, or maybe open it first and start with some some nice aged Manchego and chorizo sausage.

Walking with Telmo along a ridge between his mountain side vineyards in 2017.

FOR THOSE IN KINGSTON

Some good news for those in Kingston who have been jumping through hoops to try get the wines for the weekly Zoom tastings: we’ve now partnered with Pan Chancho to help get you these wines more conveniently! I’m not sure how long we will keep doing these tastings, but for the time being, Pan Chancho will be bringing some of the feature wines for these tastings so that you can pick up directly at the store. Let me know if you’d like to put some bottles on hold there and you can go pick them up before Saturday. Tell your Kingston wine friends! Saturday evening wine party…pandemic style!

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The Byward Wine Market is fully open for in person shopping, as well as online orders offering curbside pickup or local delivery within Ottawa. And just a reminder that the order deadline for Friday case deliveries is Wednesday at 9:00am. Reach out if you have any questions, and check out the archive of past FEATURES if you’re interested in other recommendations. Lastly, please feel free to forward this to anyone in Ontario who may be interested in home wine delivery and follow us on Instagram for daily wine content at @bywardwinemarket and @capitalwine.ottawa!