Description
95% Tempranillo, 3% Garnacha, 2% Graciano. Rioja’s traditional school of winemaking reigned from the 1850s until the 1980s, producing some of the world’s most consistently complex, soul-satisfying wines. But few of the historic bodegas have remained purely traditional. And today, apart from López de Heredia and La Rioja Alta, who is left to carry the torch of the past’s silky, Burgundian reds? There is one very important example that didn’t even exist 25 years ago: Hermanos Peciña. Peciña was founded in 1992 by La Rioja Alta’s long-time vineyard manager, Pedro Peciña. Pedro comes from a long line of grape growers, and grapes are in his blood. His family held 20 ha of great old vineyards around San Vincente, and they would form the basis of his new estate. In 2002, after 18 years at La Rioja Alta,?Pedro left to devote himself entirely to his bodega. By now, he knew where all the best vineyards were, acquiring additional prime parcels exclusively on the left bank of the river, with its high elevations and chalky soil. From the beginning, Pedro’s winemaking has been utterly classic, and he uses his American oak barrels subtly. With an average age of 5-6 years, the wood is largely neutral, providing textural richness, but only background flavor notes. In the vineyard he uses no chemical fertilizers, nor does he induce fermentation. And he respects the traditional idea of blending to produce more complex, complete wines. Drawing on nearly a dozen different sites, he can create a diverse range of wines with remarkable consistency from vintage to vintage, which is one of the hallmarks of Rioja’s glorious past. The Finca Iscorta De Peciña is from 50-year-old vines from the single vineyard of Finca Iscorta and it is utterly breathtaking. Many of the great bodegas of the past have abandoned the classic approaches that once made Rioja so singular. Pedro has not and because of that, he has created a new Rioja classic.
