Made by Rioja family royalty, this is a delicious red that is as easy to pair as your favourite black top.
It's also a HALF Bottle, so it's even easier to pair with living, as you get a few glasses of joy without having to worry about the left overs.
This wine, the "Songs" of Valpiedra, is subtle, refined and elegant. It is from the stonier soils of the estate which give brighter and slightly lighter wines than the clayey areas, but this is not to excuse it in any way - the wine is 100% Tempranillo and is greatly complex, nuanced and has wonderful clarity of flavours.
Aged in 70% French and 30 % American barriques, the wine is never too oaky, allowing the gorgeous sweet red fruit flavours to shine against the backdrop of warming, integrated spices. The 2016 vintage got a whopping 93 points from Tim Atkin.
From a single 80-hectare site on three terraces, the vineyard is surrounded by the Ebro river, sitting in one of the four major meandering bowl-shaped hooks that it has in Rioja. This proximity to water, the large Galet-like stones and the varying altitude from 406 to 427m asl, gives the winery impeccably balanced fruit. Ripening with ease and possessing a beautiful balance, of of the Valpiedra wines are elegant and silky smooth.
The Martinez Bujanda family bought this estate at the end of the 1990s with the intention of building the winery there. What they didn't know when they planned it was just how good a plot they had bought! A few quick but definite business decisions made the see the rich quality that they could harness from its varied soils and climatic identity: it changed their whole approach to business. They now sell all the other wines as separate entities (they have another four wineries in various regions around Spain which formerly all went out as the same company offering) and focus the quality production from Valpiedra. It's the right thing to do, in their eyes, and in many ways preempted the modern Rioja movement.
Region: Rioja
Country: Spain
Grape(s): Tempranillo
Style: Soft, Smooth, Silky, Round, Pure, Perfumed, Organic, Medium Full, Juicy, Fleshy, Elegant, Complex, Broad, Balanced
Best food matches: Tapas, Steak, Roasts, Red Meats, Pork, Pizza, Lamb, Grills, Cheeses, Charcuterie, Beef
Alcohol: 13%
