La Rioja Alta Vina Alberdi Rioja Reserva

About

Few dispute that La Rioja Alta S.A. is the leading quality orientated producer in the Rioja. With more than 50,000 casks and 6.4 million bottles stored at any one time, the equivalent of about 8 years sales, La Rioja Alta S.A. is unique in its ability to supply large quantities of fully mature wines of world class quality.

The company owns 300 hectares of vineyards in different parts of the best zones of the Rioja Alta region. La Rioja Alta S.A. is specialized in red wines. The leading grape variety is the Tempranillo with small doses of Mazuelo and Graciano. The Vina Ardanza differs from the other wines with some 25% Garnacha in the blend. After vinification in the new ultra modern vinification plant near Haro, aging is in traditional Bordeaux casks, all made from American oak. Racking is by hand every 6 months with 8 teams working full time racking the 51,000 casks. There is no filtration prior to bottling and further long aging in bottle before release.

In short the wines are made in the traditional Rioja manner. The company is adamant about not using French oak, keeping the unique Rioja style which has been developed since the end of the 19th century. In spite of the varying amount of time in cask and bottle the wines all display a wonderful rich ruby colour, gorgeous aromas of oak, spices and fruit followed by a sensational feel on the palate, with a wonderful smooth texture, clean rich oaky/fruity flavours and a long lingering finish. All the wines are ready for consumption on release but will keep for many more years in bottle. This situation is almost unique in the world of wine and is the reason why so many restaurants list La Rioja Alta’s outstanding range of truly classic Rioja wines. Practicing Organic.

La Rioja Alta Vina Alberdi Rioja Reserva is 100% Tempranillo from part of our Las Monjas, El Palo and Las Cuevas vineyards in Rodezno and Alto del Rey in Labastida.

The grapes were picked manually and the selected clusters were placed in boxes and immediately transported to the winery in refrigerated vehicles at a temperature of 14 °C. The Bordeaux model was applied, destemming, crushing and vatting the grapes in tanks where they underwent alcoholic and malolactic fermentation under controlled conditions. The wine was aged for two years in American oak barrels manufactured in-house; the first year in new oak and the second in barrels averaging three years in age. The wine was manually racked four times by the light of a candle.

Intense, medium-high depth, ruby-red; clean and bright. The nose particularly stands for its red fruit (raspberries, wild strawberries and red plums), which give way to notes of vanilla, nutmeg, caramel and cedar from barrel aging. Flavour-packed, balanced.