Winemaker Notes
Intense ruby-red color with garnet edges, clean and very bright. On the nose, it stands out for its intensity, featuring fine notes of redcurrant, cranberries, and red blackberries, enveloping elegant and delicate aromas of clove, licorice, tobacco, and caramel, derived from its meticulous aging in French oak barrels. On the palate, it is very pleasant, with a refined texture, balanced, and silky, sweet tannins. The finish is remarkably intense, with noble aromas of red forest fruits and spices, also acquired during its aging.
Blend: 97% Tempranillo, 3% Other Varieties
Professional Ratings
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Jeb Dunnuck
The 2021 El Camino is produced from old bush vines in Rioja Alavesa grown at high altitude that are, on average, 80 years old and low-yielding but high in quality. This is what the winery considers its first artisanal wine, with this being the first vintage, from the outstanding 2021, with only 4,000 bottles produced. It may not be made every year. The field blend is 97% Tempranillo with the remaining a mix of Mazuelo, Garnacha, and Viura. A very complex sultry wine, it offers light spice, rich red fruit, dried herb, and silky tannins within a full-bodied, concentrated style, aged 14 months in larger French oak barrels. Age 15-25 years.
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Decanter
El Camino comes from very small parcels of old vines (average 80 years) in Elvillar de Alava. Aromas of forest floor, red cherry and rhubarb reflect its cool, Rioja Alavesa origin. Already offering perfectly integrated oak, the wine has subtle graphite notes and a certain chalky texture. It is beautifully poised and elegant; a wonderful new release from Torre de Oña.
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Robert Parker's Wine Advocate
The unnamed wine I tasted last year under the generic name Viñedos Artesanales has finally been released as the 2021 El Camino, which comes from three plots of old head-pruned vines planted 81 years ago with Tempranillo and 3% other varieties, including Mazuelo, Garnacha and Viura. The vines are in El Pisón, La Revilla and Las Naves lieux-dits of the village of Elvillar. The destemmed grapes fermented in the new winery that was built for this range, Viñedos Artesanales, in small troncoconic stainless steel vats, and the wine matured in 500-liter French oak barrels for 14 months, including malolactic. Using larger barrels means the wine has to be sold as generic, or "joven"; it cannot be sold as Reserva or Gran Reserva, or even Crianza! But user larger barrels also means the oak is a lot more integrated and has less impact on the wine, which is young and juicy, with great freshness, elegance and balance, with a different profile, with a lot lees oak. It shows a little backward, shy, insinuating and subtle, a little austere and opening slowly in the glass. It's silky and elegant, but it has grip, with very chalky tannins. It has contained ripeness, 14.5% alcohol, a pH of 3.78, 4.8 grams of acidity and just under two grams of unfermented sugar. It's evolving in a very slow and positive way. It's a good debut. 3,680 bottles were filled in July 2023. The label is unique; it has a small piece of a vine shoot attached to it!
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Vinous
The 2021 El Camino, from Rioja Alavesa, is a blend of three old-vine parcels near Elvillar. Aromatically complex, it contains blackberry, plum, raspberry and balsamic herb aromas, with oak in a supporting role. Delicate yet energetic, the palate is layered with a chalky texture and enveloping flow before a long, balanced finish of fruit and oak. Concentrated but never heavy, this is a refined Rioja that hints at the region’s evolving identity. The 2021 is built to age.
Torre de Ona was forged in 1995, when La Rioja Alta, S.A. led this exciting project with the aim of making an excellent quality wine incorporating all the personality of the best vine plots in the prestigious Rioja Alavesa area. A unique location that they were convinced provided clear potential for making a great modern wine, capable of transmitting – as with the great "chateaux" – the exclusive characteristics of a privileged estate.
Since then, and always focused on the continual improvement in the wine, Torre de Ona has made important changes to the vineyards and winery. But it has been in recent years, more specifically since 2005, that they started to pay very special attention to the different plots that make up the estate, and the separate production and maturing of each sub-plot, evaluating the soil and determining where the best quality grapes grow, only then collecting harvests that meet the quality standards for an important international wine. This is how they made the Torre de Ona, Finca San Martín and Club de Cosecheros (Harvester's Club) wines.
They have taken a big step forward. But they will not rest there. They constantly strive for excellence and are convinced that for the Torre de Ona winery, the best has yet to come.
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.