Rioja Yjar, Compania de Vinos Telmo Rodriguez 2022

The 2022 Yjar comes from a warm and dry year and was made with grapes from old vines planted with a massal selection of Tempranillo, Garnacha, Graciano and others. It fermented in small open-top oak vats with indigenous yeasts and matured in foudres and barrels of different sizes for 30 months. It's surprisingly fine and elegant, not showing any heat or ripeness, coming through as very harmonious and fresh. It's fine-boned and balanced, with 14% alcohol, a pH of 3.72 and 5.08 grams of acidity, and it has very fine, elegant tannins. It keeps its quality in a super difficult vintage like 2022. 7,880 bottles produced. It was bottled in June 2024.

Dark berries, blueberries, dried flowers and aromatic herbs. This has the precise tannins characteristic of the place, focused and chalky with a saline touch, enticing. Chalky, with fruit. Saline on the finish. Drink now.

This wine is now firmly on the global radar, and continues to be one of the highlights of my tasting calendar. Restrained, understated, mouthwatering, precise, vivid raspberry and redcurrant fruits, anis, black tea, lavender, poised, drawn out and just an utterly brilliant wine that is worth talking about. Telmo Rodriguez is winemaker of this 3.8ha plot set within his family Remelluri estate in the foothills of the Sierra de Toloño, Rioja Alavesa. Drink 2026-2040.