Remelluri Rioja Reserva 2015

Why is this Wine so Yummy?

Villages: Labastida (Álava) and San Vicente de la Sonsierra (Rioja)
Site: Villaescusa, Valderemelluri, El Fustal, El Rincón, Vadegarú, Cisqueros, Ruancho, and Valpardillo at 590 to 805m
Grapes: Tempranillo 80% / Garnacha 9% / Graciano 11% Yield: 29 HL/HA
Vine Age: Vines planted from 1918 to present—average age of 40 years
Soil: Clay calcareous, limestone, bedrock, and stone
Vinification: Spontaneous fermentation with indigenous yeasts in stainless steel and old foudres
Aging: 21 months in foudres and barrels of various sizes, followed by five years in bottle
Farming: Certified Organic S02: 35 mg/L total Vegan: Yes

About Remelluri

Remelluri Owned by the family of Telmo Rodriguez, and since the retirement of Jaime Rodriguez in 2010, run on behalf of the family by Telmo and his sister Amaia. This property released the first genuine estate wines of la Rioja: owned, grown, made and bottled on a single property. Organic and never subjected to herbicide, Remelluri is in conversion to biodynamics, and increasingly planted to field blends of its own genetic cultivars. If la Rioja is one of wine’s most beautiful places, equally Remelluri is Rioja at its most beautiful.

The first estate of la Rioja

A Granja is Spanish for ‘farm’ – usually one given to animal production. In this case, La Granja Nuestra Señora de Remelluri (or simply Remelluri for short) is a very special estate nestled under the Sierra de Toloña range in the Cantabrian mountains.

Remelluri is 15 minutes’ drive east of Haro on the back road to Logroño, under Sierra de Toloño, between Labastida and San Vicente. In the centre of the property stands a giant green oak, which marks the political convergence of Basque Rioja Alavesa and Spanish Rioja Alta (neither of these terms have anything productive to say about Rioja wine quality, they are strictly historical, cultural-political referents).

Remelluri is in the records since the 10th century as a discrete village, complete with necropolis, church and so on. High up on the margin of Rioja under the mountains, here one could see potential attackers approaching from the valley and have time to react and hide in the mountains. The First Republic sold the property off from church control in the 19th century. Run down, the property was purchased by Jaime Rodriguez Salis, father of Telmo Rodriguez, in 1966. You can still observe 10th century stone lagares in the vineyards where wine was made traditionally for a thousand years.

Remelluri became the first Riojan bodega to grow, make and bottle from and on a single estate. The first vintage under Jaime’s ownership was 1971. Since then, renovation of the vineyards and a degree of modernisation of approach (compared to traditional Rioja) has seen Remelluri become a very famous reference in Rioja. Remelluri really came to prominence in the late 1980s when Telmo took over winemaking. Under the guidance of the young Telmo, Remelluri moved to the forefront of quality Rioja properties in the late 1980s/early 90s. Telmo first started working with his now long-term business partner, Pablo Eguzkiza at Remelluri. Telmo and Pablo left Remelluri in the mid-1990s to concentrate on their emerging ‘Compania’. 15 years later, they are back! Telmo and his sister Amaia (with Pablo also involved) have taken over the property, running it on behalf of the family since Jaime’s retirement in 2010.

Key changes

There were some innovations and corrections that Telmo was not allowed to implement when running Remelluri on his father’s watch. Now, an exacting viticultural quality regime is in place, stipulating that the dry-grown fruit be entirely organic and biodynamic. There have been revisions of planting locations and subtle handling adjustments. As part of Telmo and Amaia’s viticultural commitments, a significant change will be a reversion to field blend planting. In front of the chapel (next to the chateau-bodega complex in the heart of the property) is a 30 year old vineyard grafted to all 25 local varieties, and Telmo is using this genetic mix for future planting and re-grafting in the estate’s vineyards, seeking deeper variety (including in degrees of ripeness) and ‘movement’ in the wines.

As well as deep work on the estate’s viticultural quality, Telmo has also culled purchased fruit from nearby growers, which had crept into production during Telmo’s absence, watering down the purity of the estate concept. True to Telmo’s cultural-historicist custodial bent, he did not simply cut contracts to the external growers. Instead, he created a new label under which Remelluri continues to guarantee growers’ incomes. “Lindes (the boundaries or limits) de Remelluri” is a new brand with two wines representing the growers in the small villages either side of Remelluri Estate: ‘Viñedos de Labastida’ is a village wine representing grower-families on the western boundary of Remelluri, and ‘Viñedos de San Vicente’ is from families in the village on the estate’s eastern margin.

The Future of Rioja

With Remelluri, Telmo is evolving the dialog of the future of the Rioja region from one of aging methods, grape varieties, and blends (wines made in the cellar), to a conversation of site, terruño, and respect for the land (wines made in the vineyard). As the estate reclaims vineyard sites, Telmo is handpicking the varieties best suited to the specific microclimate of each plot. He is also refocusing on old trellis styles, such as bush vine training. All parcels are hand-harvested and vinified separately with the least intervention possible and the utmost respect for each site.

This place-based focus is exemplified in Remelluri’s latest project: Lindes de Remelluri. Meaning “the borders of Remelluri,” Lindes is made from grapes grown by a handful of farmers in the neighboring towns of San Vicente and Labastida. The idea is to explore the unique characteristics of each village and give these critical Rioja villages identity by introducing them to a broader audience, while also honoring the long relationship Telmo’s family has maintained with each grower over the decades by encouraging excellent farming through continued economic stewardship. Lindes de Remelluri are the first wines of Rioja to carry the name of the village in which they were produced directly on the label. This labeling practice would be standard for quality wine from Burgundy, Mosel, or Barolo. Yet it remains a very radically progressive idea in Rioja, where big money has been invested in the story of house style at the expense of terroir and village labeling.

In the Vineyard

Remelluri is 150 hectares of property planted to 90 hectares of vines across 200 plots, grown above 600m altitude. High above all of Rioja, the estate has a pure, rugged wildcountry beauty. Remelluri offers a spectacular panoptical view down to the vast Ebro basin and all the way south to Sierra de la Demanda.

In the Winery

Reserva (Estate)

Bunches were hand-selected daily vine-by-vine between September 22 until October 25, placed in small boxes and taken directly to the winery. Whole clusters are destemmed and crushed, and the must is spontaneously fermented with indigenous yeasts in stainless steel tanks and old, open-top foudres. It is then aged 21 months in foudres and barrels of various sizes, followed by more than five years of bottle aging in the Remelluri cellar. Made with low intervention and bottled unfiltered May 2018.

La Granja (Gran Reserva)

The 2015 Vintage at Remelluri

2015 was marked by excellent and even weather conditions that resulted in exceptional vintage quality. The large water reserve due to a cold, wet winter with abundant snow in February and March favored optimal vegetative development. After a mild spring, veraison arrived early due to a hot, dry summer with the rains in September, which led to early technical ripening. This situation forced a long and selective hand-harvest by individual plants and bunches in search of the optimum phenological ripeness. Bunches were hand-harvested from September 22 until October 25.

2015 was an atypical yet gratifying year with particularly good grape health, combining youthful fruit with complex aromatics and developed flavors, power with elegance. The wine comes through as clean and defined, with a medium to full-bodied palate, focused flavors, and a very long, dry, and lively finish. 2015 was an exceptional vintage at Remelluri that is certain to continue to evolve in bottle for decades to come.

Where in the World is Remelluri?

Remelluri is located in the Pueblo of Labastida, Alavesa, Rioja. Rioja and it’s three current subzones Alta, Alavesa and Baja achieve no meaningful distinction between vineyards and wines.

Baja translates to Low and is being replaced with Oriental given the negative quality conation of the word.

There is a growing push to better recognise quality terroir by define the:

1. Quality soils in Rioja at a macro level, equivalent to Appellation Bourgogne in Burgundy;
2. The individual villages or Pueblo of Rioja equivalent to a village in Burgundy like Gevrey-Chambertin or Chassagne-Montrachet; and
3. The special places (like lieu dit in Burgundy) & individual vineyards within the villages.

Only time will tell how this unfolds. In the meantime we’ll be including information on all of the wines we list from Rioja.

The area is vast with over 60,000Ha of vines planted. As Scott Wasley puts it, it’s the equivalent of using South East Australia to classify the wines NSW, Victora, SA and Tasmania. In the flyover below at the 20sec mark you’ll see a high level geological map of general soil types, it’s clear they run perpendicular to the general sub-region orientation along a number of rivers, valleys and sub-plains. The fact that I’ve mentioned both the split in soil types, and, significant geological changes if enough for any vigneron worth their salt to call for a more detailed differentiation between key viticultural areas of Rioja. Politics, corruption and a bias toward bland mass-produced wines the adversaries of progress on mapping the region. Without more appropriate classification of vineyards we have to rely on the reputation of quality producer and their track record in the glass. Perhaps not a bad thing for an individual wine. Not great for the reputation of a region as a whole.

Although not an official classification the map below would be a start to delineating between different areas of Rioja based on the Valleys within it. You can clearly see the rivers running through each of the valleys.

General in nature the soil map below offers some guidance on the geology of Rioja.