The 2018 Cisma is ripe Tempranillo from the La Paul vineyard at 610 meters in altitude in Laguardia. From this vintage, he used 100% full clusters in this wine. It fermented in stainless steel and matured in 500-liter French oak barrels for 30 months. There's always a percentage of white grapes co-fermented with the red. It seems like this is less excessive, ripe and concentrated than in previous vintages, and the style is getting closer to the Norte. It's full-bodied, with good ripeness and 14.48% alcohol with a pH of 3.58 and 6.02 grams of acidity. This is getting fine-tuned; it was harvested earlier and they added the stems, and the wine shows more balance. It was a short crop, but Carlos San Pedro used all the white grapes, which in some years he cannot if the grapes ripen too much. 1,150 bottles produced. There will be no Cisma in 2019 because the grapes were too ripe and he didn't even try to vinify them separately and instead added them to a vat of Hado.

I tend to prefer the style of the Norte over that of the Cisma, which is from a vineyard planted in 1920 at 600 meters in altitude that tends to deliver a ripe Tempranillo that is generously oaked, like the 2016 Cisma. The vineyard is really impressive, and it will be 100 years old next year; it was planted by Carlos San Pedro's great grandfather, and it's Tempranillo with maybe 20% white Viura that he bought from a cousin in 2004. The destemmed grapes fermented in an oak vat with indigenous yeasts. They started using 500-liter oak barrels in 2014 because they feel it's quite tannic and think it needs a long élevage of almost two years. It's a heady, ripe, juicy and earthy red, where the Tempranillo was co-fermented with the white grapes, which were quite ripe at the time but healthy. In cooler years, like this 2016, the wine tends to have a higher percentage of white grapes (in 2009, a warmer year, it had almost no white, as Viura tends to develop botrytis rather that raisin). 1,100 bottles were produced from two 500-liter barrels from 0.8 hectares of vines.

Bottled one month before I tasted it, the 2015 Cisma is a heady, ripe and well-oaked Tempranillo from a vineyard planted in 1920 at 600 meters altitude. It fermented in a 1,700-kilo oak vat and matured in 500-liter French oak barrels for 22 months. The fruit feels very ripe, with dark plums, blackberries and hints of dark cherries in liqueur and an earthy touch. The oak is also quite obvious at this point in time and feels very young, with lots of fine-grained, powdery tannins. It needs some more time in bottle. It will be released in April-May 2018. 1,500 bottles were filled in November 2017.

The last time I sampled the range here, I tasted the unfinished 2014 Cisma before it was bottled because it's a wine that is not produced every vintage and they didn't produce it in 2013. Thus, I was looking forward to seeing the finished wine and, even better, seeing it next to the 2015. It's sourced from the Finca La Valcabada, a 0.8-hectare vineyard that was planted with Tempranillo vines in 1920. The soils are deeper and rich in clay, and it's located at 600 meters altitude. In this case, the destemmed grapes fermented in a 1,700-kilo oak vat with indigenous yeasts and then matured in French oak barrels for some 16 months. When the wine was waiting to be bottled, it was showing some influence from the élevage. Now it feels quite powerful and ripe (it's 15% alcohol). This feels like a great vintage for Cisma, with the stuffing to develop nicely in bottle. 1,110 bottles were filled in September 2016.

The oak is a little more obvious in the 2012 Pujanza Cisma than in the Norte. This is also 100% Tempranillo from a single vineyard, a 0.8 hectare plot they call Finca Valcabada which was planted in 1925 and is located at 600 meters altitude. The wine fermented in French oak vats with indigenous yeasts and matured in French oak barriques for 22 months. The nose seems less nuanced than the Norte, with the oak taking the lead role and perhaps it will develop in bottle but today it does not have those flowery tones of the Norte. The palate is compact and medium to full-bodied with abundant fine-grained tannins that are right now a little stiff. It ends quite dry and would need a little more time in bottle to harmonize. This is a great, modern Rioja. Mind the price tag, though. 1,200 bottles.