Spanish stalwart Rioja now offers fresher, fruitier styles, extending its popularity among younger drinkers Tasty Riojas to try Bodega Patrocinio Sancho Garcés Rioja Crianza 2020 De Alto Amo La Planta Magica Bodegas Lan Rioja Crianza 2020 Monte Real Rioja Gran Reserva 2016 Bideona Tempranillo de Laderas 2021 “Rioja is not a wine, it is a whole wine country,” says one of Spain’s top wine critics, Pedro Ballesteros Torres MW, one “that is now in a period of effervescent creativity”. Writing in Decanter magazine, Torres describes how, when he was growing up, Rioja was an easy wine style to define: “With a 90pc probability, it was a red wine aged in American oak barrels. It was distinctive because of its sweet vanilla scents, medium body and smooth finish.
” Sound familiar? That distinctive character helped make Rioja the most popular old-world wine region among Irish wine drinkers, ahead even of Bordeaux, according to recent IWSR data. We Irish love Rioja; we grew up with it and it retains appeal across generations, even if younger drinkers lean to the fresher, fruitier styles that the region now also offers alongside traditional oaked styles. Today, 90pc of Riojan wines remain red (the other 10pc being white, rosé and sparkling wines), but their character is more varied.
Much are still oak-aged, but with a shift away from sweet vanilla, toffee and coffee notes of new American oak, and towards more subtle oaking to support rather than dominate the fruit. There i.