IRAILA Garnacha 2020

The IRAILA Garnacha 2020 places freshness before ripeness and finesse before opulence. It is crisp and fresh, powerful yet lean at the same time, carried by tremendous tension and a distinctive personality. Vinified dry, 14.5% Vol.

The grapes come from two vineyards in San Vicente de la Sonsierra. The municipality lies north of the Ebro, the soils are chalky, and the zone is Rioja Alta. Garnacha is now only rarely grown there; as part of the so-called new Garnacha wave, the variety is experiencing a renaissance in Spain and in Rioja. The winery itself is located in Samaniego in Rioja Alavesa and farms 76 hectares across 246 individual parcels, 70 percent of the vines being over 70 years old.

Single-varietal Garnacha. Ageing takes place in small oak barrels and in 400-litre amphorae. Fernando Remírez de Ganuza founded the bodega in 1989 and installed Spain's first mechanical sorting table there; since 2019 José Ramón Urtasun has led the house, while cellar master Jesús Mendoza has worked at the estate since 1994 and has been chief winemaker since 2001.

Transparent cherry red in the glass. The nose shows red fruit and floral aromas, unusually intense, deep and crisp. On the palate, complexity, intensity and length, fine tannins and peppery spice in brilliant balance. The finish lingers for minutes.

2020 is the first vintage of Iraila, Basque for September. A terroir-driven wine from a grape variety that had almost disappeared from its own zone, half of it aged in amphorae.