Bodegas La Rioja Alta
Book the tour that ends with 904 paired with aged Manchego. The cellar tour alone is worth it. A Haro must alongside Muga and López de Heredia.
The temple of traditional Rioja — Gran Reserva 904 and 890, racking by hand every six months, in cellars older than the winery. The wines most Rioja lovers mean when they say 'old-style Rioja.'
At a Glance
- — You don't like long-aged classics
For those who believe Rioja is at its best when it has spent years softening in quiet, dark cellars, this house is the true destination. They hold fast to the vanishing practice of hand-racking, where winemakers move the liquid from barrel to barrel to clarify it naturally. Their flagship Gran Reserva 904 is a liquid study in elegance, tasting of leather, dried cherries, and cedar. The cellars here are venerable, cool, and silent, providing a perfect environment to appreciate the patient, decades-long evolution that defines the classic, time-honored style of the region.
How it got here
Five families founded this estate in 1890 during a period when the phylloxera blight decimated French vineyards. These wine merchants sought to capitalize on the proximity of Haro to the railway line that connected the Ebro valley to the port of Bilbao. They established a cellar near the train station to streamline distribution for export. Today the house maintains manual racking techniques that date back to those nineteenth-century origins. This commitment to traditional methods separates their aging process from industrial practices. The barrels undergo constant manual movement to clarify the wine, a labor-intensive duty that persists in the deep, silent cellars as a link to their original production standards.
Where it sits
The winery occupies a cluster of historic structures near the rail tracks in Haro. This town sits in the Rioja Alta where the Ebro river winds through limestone ridges and rolling vineyard plots. In autumn the leaves turn shades of copper and gold while cold winds descend from the Sierra de Cantabria. The landscape consists of terraced slopes and rows of vines that stretch toward the horizon. Dry summers heat the stony earth during the day, though the nights bring cooling breezes from the mountains. Access to this northern corner of the province requires traversing the valley floor beneath the foothills.
What to eat and drink
The cuisine centers on the roasted products of the Ebro valley. Chuletillas de cordero al sarmiento, small lamb chops cooked over a fire of dried grapevine cuttings, capture the scent of the local landscape. Bacalao a la riojana, salt cod stewed with tomatoes, peppers, and garlic, provides a savory staple. Accompany these plates with the long-aged red wines of the house. These bottles carry the distinct, woody notes of extended time in oak. When the season permits, accompany the meal with perretxikos, wild mushrooms gathered from the nearby mountain scrub, which balance the acidity and tannins of the aged reservas.
La Rioja: the whole region
One product, done better here than anywhere else in Spain: a wine region that fits inside a valley, vineyards running from the Ebro plain up into the Sierra de Cantabria, and every town on the road between Haro and Logroño involved in it.…
Minimum 3 days · better 4-5 days · deep 7 days
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In La Rioja
In La Rioja
In La Rioja
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