Bodegas 1808 Abar Crianza Tempranillo 2018
Winemaker Notes
1808 started over 140 years ago in the cellar of Jenaro Fernández’s great-great grandfather, below the Medieval town of Laguardia. Located in the southern tip of Spanish Basque country in the Rioja Alavesa sub-region of DOC Rioja, Viticulture goes back to the 800’s in Rioja. After the DO legislative body was formed in Spain, Rioja was granted the first DOC in 1991. 1808 benefits from the unique microclimates that come from being under the shadows of the Cantabrian mountains to the north. 1808 keeps their production to 3,000 total cases, which allows them to focus on making sustainably produced Tempranillos using biodynamic and natural techniques (with a wonderful, oak-aged Viura as a bonus!). As Jenaro likes to say, “ These are wines with personality, with temper and, why not, with a little bit of craziness.”
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.