Winemaker Notes
La Estrada is mostly Tempranillo and Graciano with some different minority varieties like Garnacha, Granegro, Moristel and others. The Estrada Alta is located to the west of the town with a northeast orientation, in the highest part of a slope of pure calcareous clay. Bodega Lanzaga has always been fascinated by this vineyard so small for its purity, depth and balance. It was always part of Altos Lanzaga.
Professional Ratings
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James Suckling
Such a nuanced yet tangy red with an engaging nose, effusing finely ground black peppercorn with lavender and blueberries. Pure, scented, and really focused. Full-bodied, but dry and intellectual, piled up with immaculate tannins that soak up the juicy, elegant berry fruit. From organically grown grapes. Mainly tempranillo with some graciano. Drinkable now, but better after 2025.
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Robert Parker's Wine Advocate
The single-vineyard 2019 La Estrada was produced with the field blend of grapes from a northeast-facing 0.64-hectare plot planted in the 1940s, one of the highest vineyards in the village of Lanciego at 610 meters above sea level. In this low-yielding year, the grapes were picked the 12th of October, then fermented in an open-top 3,000-liter oak vat with indigenous yeasts and matured in a combination of foudres and barriques for 14 to 16 months. This wine feels very harmonious and austere for a warm and generous vintage. It has more tannin. This is almost 100% Tempranillo, so this has earthier tannins that will evolve into a long wine with years in the bottle. Elegant rusticity.
Hailed as the star red variety in Spain’s most celebrated wine region, Tempranillo from Rioja, or simply labeled, “Rioja,” produces elegant wines with complex notes of red and black fruit, crushed rock, leather, toast and tobacco, whose best examples are fully capable of decades of improvement in the cellar.
Rioja wines are typically a blend of fruit from its three sub-regions: Rioja Alta, Rioja Alavesa and Rioja Oriental, although specific sub-region (zonas), village (municipios) and vineyard (viñedo singular) wines can now be labeled. Rioja Alta and Alavesa, at the highest elevations, are considered to be the source of the brightest, most elegant fruit, while grapes from the warmer and drier, Rioja Oriental, produce wines with deep color, great body and richness.