Refreshing Rioja

With the red harvest well under-way in even the most extreme of Riojan vineyards, the omens for a good quality, lower yielding harvest look promising thanks to a long period of drought and warm, clear harvesting conditions. With all of the recent stats on Spanish wine exports looking very healthy, it would appear to be a good time to be a producer in the region. However, this simplistic judgement ignores an emerging polarisation between those willing to exploit the traditional quality system and those committed to making genuinely special wine on a sustainable level. Rioja's quality grading system - Joven, Crianza, Reserva and Gran Reserva - is, once you have aged the wine for the required time period, entirely self governing. That is to say that the quality of the wine put into this system, and the age and the quality of the oak used, plays no part in the eventual quality grading. Many traditional regions of the world have seen an exodus of quality orientated players from the established quality grading system when faced by regulations that encourage mediocrity but thus far, Rioja is not one of them. However, a growing number of producers are voicing concerns that the system is broken.

Perhaps one of the most high profile critics of a system that, during the 2010 vintage, encouraged large brands to push grape prices as little as 40 euro cents per kilo, is Telmo Rodriguez. Telmo's low key return to the family's Remelluri estate last year has been followed by a period of reflection on where to take the property and its wines and further news will be forthcoming soon. However, it is already clear that the compromises that the system allows are not for Telmo and the sense of frustration that the Rioja system could in anyway be seen as equivalent of the Bordeaux classification is palpable. Eschewing the current vogue for Tempranillo dominated plantings, trellised vines and filling out of wines with bought in fruit, Telmo's focus on bush vine Garnacha, entirely estate grown fruit and sensitive use of oak are sure to redefine the quality and style of this most atmospheric of estates. What will be interesting to see is quite how far Telmo will be prepared to go in terms of relying on the quality of the estate rather than traditional terms such as Reserva and Gran Reserva.

 15 minutes down the road but a world away in terms of style and approach, Luis Canas are also redefining and enlivening the wines of Rioja. Well known for producing the tour de force that is Hiru 3 Racimos, as well as the perennially crowd pleasing Reserva de la Familia, the wine that stands out from the crowd at the moment, paradoxically, is the 2004 Gran Reserva. Both in the UK and in Spain, the Gran Reserva category has virtually died. Clearly illustrating the region's commitment to a system that promotes mediocrity, once proud Gran Reserva's became dried out, shadows of the fruit that once was there. Many winery's Gran Reservas were just more evolved versions of their reserva. Juan Luis Canas' commitment to viticulture and grape selection means that every wine they produce has its own individual personality and no one wine is just an older version of its sibling. The result is one of the best ranges in the region and, in the 2004 Gran Reserva, the most convincing argument for the category one could find.

The Canas range, though modern, is rooted in tradition and, to a certain degree, follows the accepted norms for Rioja labelling. However, when it came to creating a winery dedicated to his mother, Canas has stepped a little further from tradition. Amaren wines do include an exceptional Reserva (one that won 4 trophies at the IWC this year) but the rule breaking Angeles de Amaren, a Tempranillo Graciano, has no age classification on it despite spending more time in oak than the minimum for Reserva. Interesting to note that Canas' new venture in Ribera del Duero, Dominio de Cair, will also not use the traditional system and will not have an age classification on the label.

Though these are but two wineries in an enormously diverse region, their reaction to a system that relies on the quality of the past, not the present, is one that is sure to find more followers as the commoditisation of aged Riojas forces growers to accept unsustainable prices. The popularity of Rioja in the UK especially, ensures that the current regime is not likely to change anytime soon but for those in the know, the traditional ageing classifications are not the sole quality cue anymore.