Rioja 100 Bodegas Aldonia 2021
Rioja 100 from Bodegas Aldonia is made from 100% 100 year old Garnacha grown at 850 meters above sea level, aged for 14 months in oak barrels. It is an elegant and expressive wine with an abundance of wild red fruit, strawberry and dark cherry all intermingled with a herby perfumed note of thyme, lavender and violets.
Brothers Ivan & Mario Santos are 4th generation wine makers who took over in 2006. They are determined to produce a modern style of Rioja with minimal intervention and organic practises that expressed the grape and terroir. They do not use the age categories which are so famous in Rioja. They believe that the grape is more important than ageing a wine for a set period of time when it might not need it! For this reason their wines contain high proportions of Garnacha and do not have Crianza or Reserva on the labels. They farm 16 hectares of vineyards of which 8 are Garnacha. Most of the vineyards sit between 400 & 850 meters above sea level and some were planted over 100 years ago giving them magical old vines to work with.