Winemaker Notes
Lanzaga is the backbone of the estate's project, the identity, the purest expression of their work in Lanciego. Made only from a selection of the best grapes from their own organic vineyards, Lanzaga brings together all the elements of their way of work; respect of the place, bush pruning, field blend, organic viticulture, concrete fermentation, aging in foudres and barrels of different sizes and origins, keeping always a limited production of human size. The result is a rich and complex expression of the village of Lanciego; a Rioja wine with a true sense of place; a serious and sophisticated wine that ages wonderfully.
Professional Ratings
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Robert Parker's Wine Advocate
The 2017 Lanzaga comes from a harvest marked by the killer frost (-5 degrees Celsius) of April 27th and 28th, but the higher-altitude vines from the village of Lanciego escaped the disaster. This is a blend from their 15 to 20 hectares of organically farmed vines, all head-pruned on slopes rich in clay and limestone, mixing red and white soils, places with more sandstone, others with more marl, looking for complexity. It fermented in 6,000-liter concrete vats with indigenous yeasts and matured in 1,500- and 2,500-liter oak foudres and 225-liter barriques for 14 months. It has great balance and freshness, it's very clean and doesn't show any of the challenges or shortages of the harvest. It's creamy, juicy and medium-bodied, with very fine tannins, a serious wine that changed in 2013-2014 to this complexity and depth. The vines from Lanciego didn't suffer as much as other villages with the frost of 2017.
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.