The 2010 Lindes de Remelluri Vinedos de Labastida is produced with grapes purchased from suppliers in the village of Labastida. Telmo Rodriguez returned to Remelluri in February 2010, and the 2009 wines from external suppliers were already blended together. In 2010, he kept the different lots produced with purchased grapes separated by village. In these wines he wants to give protagonism to the grape growers and to the villages. The wines are fresh and fluid, but this is gentler and finer, softer than the one sourced from fruit grown in San Vicente, subtler and more elegant. In 2010, the grapes were harvested late, and the ripening process was slow, which resulted in very pure fruit, and a Burgundian wine with lots of freshness, great acidity and clean and pure flavors. A new delicious way for Rioja. For the quality this wine delivers I think it has a very good price. 60,000 bottles produced. Drink 2014-2020. The Remelluri name should be well-known to our readers. The big news here was the return of Telmo Rodriguez, who left the family winery to start his own projects throughout Spain, but returned in February 2010. Many changes have been made, and more will come. For example, he’s starting a solera with Viura, blending different vintages, in a kind of homage to old white Riojas. To start, he’s clearly separating the wines produced with the estate grapes and those produced with grapes purchased from external suppliers, for which he has created the line Lindes de Remelluri (Remelluri borders). He’s also implementing biodynamic practices in the vineyards. Imported by De Maison Selections, Chapel Hill, NC; tel. (919) 933-4245; www.demaisonselections.com

The 2009 Lindes de Remelluri is a blend of Tempranillo, Garnacha, Graciano and Viura from 40-year-old vines that is aged in American and French oak. It has a fresh bouquet of mulberry, sloe, wild hedgerow and just a smudge of licorice. It is well-defined, natural, perhaps rustic?but full of character. The palate is medium-bodied with firm, slightly furry tannins. There is a good weight of dark, quite broody fruit with a well-balanced, blackberry and licorice-tinged finish that has satisfying sense of conservatism. Drink 2013-2019. A visit to Rioja could not pass without a stop at Bodegas Remelluri, now managed by the pocket dynamo that is Telmo Rodriguez. I jumped in his muddy 4x4 to inspect his high altitude vines up on the Sierre de Tolono mountains and isolated, uncultivated plots of potentially great terroir that Telmo is keen to exploit in the future (see video). Remelluri is suffused with a sense of place and history, epitomized by the family’s home that is veiled in a monastic aura, every nook and cranny coveting untold stories from the 14th century when the monks from the Tolono monastery founded a sanctuary on this site. Do not be fooled, because now this estate is looking towards the future, through Telmo’s eyes. Though I was impressed by their current releases, the phrase “You ain’t seen nothin’ yet” kept running through my mind, because it will take time for Telmo to implement his winemaking tenets that have been honed through extensive experience both in Spain and abroad. This includes converting Remelluri’s vineyard to biodynamism and re-training the vines away from the trellis (something that Telmo abhors in Rioja). But one thing that he enacted immediately was the bold decision to convene growers from whom Remelluri had sourced fruit for many years, and inform them that this arrangement would cease forthwith. Telmo was effectively putting them out of a job in order to focus upon his own terroir, and to use his own words, “concentrate the personality of Remelluri.” This culling of out-sourced fruit is effective from the 2009 vintage. To compensate these growers, Telmo offered his experience and contacts to assist them in creating their own label. He was encouraged by the positive response and galvanized growers to take responsibility for their own wine; he was essentially sowing the seeds of his own philosophy. So let us begin with this label, because it is well worth seeking out. Importer: De Maison Selections, Chapel Hill, NC; tel. (919) 933-4245; www.demaisonselections.com