GRAPE: 100% Mazuelo

APPELLATION: Rioja DOCa

VINIFICATION:  Sustainable farming. Hand harvested in 11kg baskets. Destemming and 2-4 day cold maceration in 500 liter stainless steel vats. Alcoholic fermentation with wild yeasts, at 25ºC. Daily punchings and pumping-overs Malolactic in contact with lees for 4 months in 500 liter french and american oak casks, battonage. Further maturation period in the same casks but without the lees, totalling 10 months of stay in oak.

TASTING NOTES: Purple red with medium intensity. Predominance of red and black fruit aromas, with some floral notes and light spicy nuances. Medium body, firm and elegant tannins and fresh and long final.

FOOD PAIRING: Red meats, game, stews, spoon dishes. Ideal for some lamb chops to the vine.

PRODUCER:

After studying viticulture and oenology at the University of La Rioja and making several trips to national and international wine areas, in 2009, Javier Arizcuren  began to make a small amount of wine in the basement of the family house.

In 2016 Javier designed his “garage” cellar, an urban space converted into a place for winemaking and aging. The whole process is carried out by hand in a series of multi-purpose rooms.

With 19 hectares of vineyard, he only sells about 12,500 bottles. He seeks to reach 25,000, but «without subtracting time from work in the field», which, he says, represents 95 percent. «Because if you work well the land and the vineyard, little hand you have to put in cellar“.

Lacking innovative technologies («only mud jars can be considered innovation»), Arizcuren works in ecological, both, land and in cellar, with a minimal intervention «to get the purest expression of what comes from the field».