2019 Artuke Finca de los Locos

Artuke is a small family business in Baños de Ebro in the Rioja Alavesa. The brothers Arturo and Kike de Miquel (Artuke is a combination of their first names) have been working for their parents' company since 2003 and 2010, respectively, who now advise the boys in the background. The focus is entirely on making terroir driven wines with vineyard expression, a Burgundian complexity and elegance.

This wine is made and named after their grandfather. In 1950, he bought a plot of "Peñaescalera" in Baños de Ebro. It was a very unproductive plot in an elevated part of the village where nobody was growing grapes at the time. In addition, the ground was much too stony, so everyone called him a madman to buy this plot. Now, the 'crazy' or Los Locos persevered and today a top wine is made from this 2.8 ha plot with the name Finca de los Locos, literally translated: the plot of the madmen.

During an initial selection, the pickers themselves determine which trusses are picked on the plot. These bunches are placed in small baskets and then transported in large baskets with a maximum height of 10 cm, so that the grapes cannot crush each other and the fruit remains undamaged. Then all bunches are triaged on the selection table in the bodega. The bunches are de-stemmed and transported by gravity to the stainless steel tanks for fermentation. Only native yeasts are used. Malolactic fermentation in wooden foeders of 500 and 3500 liters. In the same casks, the wine is further aged for 15 months.

The Artuke Los Locos is the strongest version of all the Arturke crus. The wine consists of 80% Tempranillo and 20% Graciano. Beautiful red in color. The nose clearly shows the spicy Graciano, which makes up 20% of the assembly. In the mouth mainly black fruit with Mediterranean notes, but elegant in style and with again freely present acidity. Great length. A very nice wine that cries out for nice meat such as game, a nice tomahawk or a thick rib eye. The wine also always gets very high reviews from international wine critics.