2016 Remelluri La Granja Gran Reserva Rioja

With Remelluri, Telmo Rodriguez is putting the Rioja on the map as a producer of original terroir wines. Long before the Rodriguez family settled on Remelluri, wine was already being made on the estate. As early as the 14th century, the monks here made wine from grapes from the surrounding vineyards. In 1967, the house came into the hands of Jaime Rodriguez, the father of pioneer and idiosyncratic winemaker Telmo Rodriguez. Jaime immediately makes radical changes. For example, he decided to only make wine from grapes from his own vineyards, which was exceptional in the Rioja at the time. We also strive to cultivate the vineyards as naturally as possible, in order to preserve the special character of the vineyards as much as possible. In 2010, the vineyards were officially certified organic under the leadership of Telmo.

In the early 1990s, Telmo joined the company. The story goes that his father wants to keep the production of the red wines for himself, so Telmo comes up with the beautiful white Remelluri Blanco. After several years of making wine in other parts of Spain, Telmo returned to Remelluri in 2010, where he took up winemaking together with his sister Amaya. As a great advocate of terroir wines, he has a clear opinion about the wines of the Rioja. Because winemakers often buy most of the grapes from grape growers, they have lost the connection with the vineyards and the terroir, he believes. In addition, the low prices of the grapes have caused winegrowers to neglect or even grub up the more challenging vineyards, often the older, high-altitude plots. With the wines of Remelluri, Telmo wants to show that the Rioja has many different terroirs that can be beautifully expressed in the wines.