Alegre-Valgañón, the “Pinot Noir of Rioja”.
The new vintage has arrived!
Óscar & Eva: their names sound as though they come straight from the Garden of Eden, but in this case, they come from the far north-west of Rioja.
Their vineyards are located right on the edge of where winegrowing is still possible in northern Spain.
The vineyards that remain are almost always planted with old vines that produce very low yields.
During the year, they often lose more than half of their crop due to hailstorms or frost.
These are the Montes Obarenes, the western foothills of the Sierra Cantabria.
At La Buena Vida, we have known Óscar for a very long time. For almost ten years, he was export manager for Álvaro Palacios and introduced us to the fantastic wines of Descendientes de J. Palacios from Bierzo.
He left his top job to start this
small family estate together with his Eva.
Completely from scratch, as their fathers and grandfathers were ordinary people who had no wine estate to pass on to their children.
And they chose this particular region, where everyone in Rioja knows that you lose more than half of your crop almost every year.
Un poco loco!As R. Parker so aptly puts it: “These are wines from yesteryear”.
Óscar and Eva make their wines as their grandfather would have done. Their vineyards are farmed according to regenerative principles. They use no purchased fertilisers, pesticides or other chemical products.
They do everything themselves to maintain a natural balance in their beautiful vineyards.
They also work vineyard by vineyard, which means that their top wines are always field blends.
This gives the wines subtlety and freshness.
Despite the extremely limited quantities, their wines are attracting increasing attention. They are described as the “Pinot Noir of Rioja”.
They are often a blend of red and white grapes, just as wines were made in the past.
This is what R. Parker’s Rioja report says about this family estate:
"I loved the wines from Alegre-Valgañón, a small family project that deserves more recognition"