Rioja ’Pozo Alto’ - Graciano, Tempranillo & Garnacha (19)

The red 2019 Pozo Alto was produced with the grapes from an old plot in the village of Leza. The blend is 75% Graciano, 20% Tempranillo and 5% Garnacha with 14.3% alcohol and 5.6 grams of acidity. The destemmed grapes fermented with a three-week maceration, and the wine matured in 500-liter oak barrels for 12 months, followed by a further 26 months in 1,000-liter oak foudre. This is ripe, powerful and round, aromatic and expressive, in a much more powerful year (because of the character of the year), because the vinification and élevage were the same. The very high percentage of Graciano is very noticeable, making the wine very spicy, with lots of notes of freshly cracked black peppercorn. There's more natural concentration of the fruit, low yields, and Rivière was careful with the extraction. It has abundant but fine-grained tannins, plenty of energy and good balance. This should develop nicely in bottle. It's the most powerful vintage and the most powerful wine in the portfolio in 2019. Wait a bit. 1,300 bottles were filled in February 2022. He got rid of this vineyard (and sold Losares and Eusebio to Pago Carraovejas from Ribera del Duero), so 2020 will be the last vintage of this wine. 96/100 Luis Gutiérrez 

Olivier Rivière produced 170,000 bottles, and in the 2022 harvest, he will pick a new plot of Garnacha in the village of Cárdenas for the first time since he planted in 2019. When I asked him about the latest vintages, he told me that he thought 2019 was an easy year in the vineyards with no diseases, uneventful weather, harvested à la carte when each plot was at its optimum moment. He likes the wines, which he finds balanced and with moderate alcohol that he compares with 2015 but with more complexity and with more acidity. 2020 was the most complicated year in the vegetative cycle with a very high pressure of mildew in spring; the summer was somewhat dry but the rains at the beginning of September helped to finish the maturation cycle. The reds are still completing the élevage, but it's a lighter vintage than 2019, very good also with lower yields. 2021 was a complicated year at first, with special care for powdery mildew, but then without problems in May, and there was a cold summer with little sun. There are two different harvests: the Rioja Baja harvest, where they had to harvest early due to rain, and the Rayos harvest, which was very easy, long and fruit driven. For the wines of Rioja Alta and Alavesa, he considers it a great vintage, from the people who waited for the perfect ripeness that took a long time to arrive. . . . He's reshaping the project in Rioja, refocusing to Cárdenas and selling the vineyards he had in Álava; 2020 will be the last vintages for Las Viñas de Eusebio, Losares and Pozo Alto. He is also starting a new winery in Bordeaux, in the Côtes de Bourg, an obscure zone with potential where he has purchased nine hectares of vineyards.