Founded in 1890 by winemakers from the Basque country, La Rioja Alta put the town of Haro in the wine map. The majority of the French vineyards were devasted by phylloxera at the time, and consumers that were looking for other sources of wine supply founded in Rioja the answer for that gap.
Nowadays the estate owns 450 hectares of vines mainly planted with Tempranillo, followed by Graciano and Garnacha. The winery since 2002 retook it's own barrel production, made of American oak dried at their premisses for 2 years.
The yields produced by La Rioja Alta are usually 25% lower than the authorize in the region, producing wines of great concentration.
Vina Ardanza Reserva
Tempranillo (78%) comes from 30 years old vines in our Cuesta and Montecillo
vineyards. The Garnacha (22%) comes from La Pedriza vineyard in Tudelilla.
The grapes were harvested manually and transported to the winery in refrigerated trucks. Alcoholic fermentation took place spontaneously, and Malolactic fermentation concluded at the end of the year 2012
The wines were transferred to barrels to start ageing separately: Tempranillo for 36 months with six manual rackings, in American oak barrels averaging 4 years in age,
The Garnacha matured for 30 months in barrels with five manual rackings.
The final blend was bottled in March 2016.
La Rioja Alta Vina Ardanza Reserva, 2012, 750ML
- Rioja / Tempranillo / Wine Advocate 94
is backordered and will ship as soon as it is back in stock.