Alegre y Valgañón - Blanco, Rioja, Spain (2021)

TASTING NOTES

Old school Rioja winemaking. It's fresh with an Asian fruit element - almost soursop and durian with a touch of salt on the finish. Fennel and licorice aromas, some waxy apples and a white pepper twist. The palate is serious and austere.

Fermented with natural yeasts and some skin maceration and 50% malolactic. Matured in concrete, foudre and 500-liter barrels, working the lees daily at first and then every week after December. 

While Oscar and Eva have only been producing wine since the 2014 vintage, their ideas developed over a period of years. They met while studying enology in Italy, and they eventually married.

Oscar and Eva minimize the use of wood. To this end, they started their project with a mix of used French barriques and demi-muids. Because French wood loses its flavoring ability much faster than does American oak, they’ve been able to minimize the flavour impact of the wood. And as the project develops, they hope to adopt longer aging and even bigger neutral barrels