Blanco Reserva 2023

A Rioja Blanco of the quiet kind: cool, razor-straight and remarkably pure. The nose shows chalky stone, delicate smoke, subtle yeast, almond blossom and freshly baked almond pastry, alongside salt dough and a finely interwoven spice of lemon balm, chervil, thyme and a touch of oregano. The fruit remains deliberately in the background, with ripe nashi pear and cantaloupe melon only emerging behind it.

The estate is based in Samaniego in Rioja Alavesa and farms 76 hectares across 246 individual plots spread over nine municipalities. 70% of the vines are over 70 years old, some over a hundred. The limestone soils of Rioja Alavesa lend the wines their minerality.

Macabeu and Malvasia, dry, 13.0% vol. The estate's white wines undergo ten months of barrel ageing before continuing to develop in bottle — a patience that pays off in saline depth and ageing potential.

A fine, creamy texture lends substance without releasing the tension: a bone-dry framework, with a rich, energetic mid-palate from which the salinity keeps building. Ripeness and alcohol are fully integrated, with no resulting weight. The fine acidity doesn't have to do the main work, since mineral tension and a saline backbone already provide drive and freshness. On the retronasal finish, chalk, subtle toasty notes and herbal spice return and linger long.

Fernando Remírez de Ganuza, a vineyard broker in Rioja for twenty years, built Spain's first mechanical sorting table in 1989 and founded his estate the same year. Since 2019, José Ramón Urtasun has led the house; in the cellar, Jesús Mendoza, with the estate since 1994 and chief oenologist since 2001, was named Rioja's best winemaker in both 2024 and 2025.