LA RIOJA ALTA
When we talk about terroir, we can mean many things. But the one factor that all definitions of the concept consistently agree on is the primacy of where the vines are grown: the soil, the climate, the topography... When we speak of a ‘wine of place’, it’s the vineyard that we are meant to picture. Sometimes, however, isn’t the winery just as important? And just as capable of being indentified in the glass?
Whenever I taste the wines of La Rioja Alta, for example, it’s not the landscape of Rioja that springs to mind – or at least not immediately. The bodega has mastered the art of the oak barrel, its wines a reminder, in an age when ‘oaky’ has sometimes become a pejorative term, that the marriage of wood and wine, when handled with skill and sensitivity, is among the biggest pleasures available to the wine drinker.
And so, as I swirl my glass of Viña Ardanza and my kitchen fills with its evocative aromas, it’s the company’s headquarters in the traditional heart of Rioja, in
