For more than a century Rioja has been considered Spain's preeminent wine region.
Its vineyards run for 75 miles (120 kilometres) along both banks of the Ebro River and cover more than 157,000 acres (63,500 hectares) in the remote interior of northern Spain, with craggy mountains standing in desolation behind them.
Several small mountain ranges and the outlying ridges of the Cantabrian Mountains isolate the region from the moderating Atlantic and shield it from the harshest northern winds, so although Rioja lies only 60 miles from the Bay of Biscay it does NOT have a maritime climate.
White and rosé are made here, but the region's fabled reputation rests almost exclusively on reds based primarily on tempranillo — an early-ripening variety whose name comes from temprano ('early'), traditionally blended with garnacha (French grenache), mazuelo (carignan) and graciano, though a growing number of Riojas are now entirely tempranillo.
Rioja is often called Spain's Bordeaux, and the French ties are multiple: the region's signature long aging in oak barrels was inspired by Bordelais practice, adopted by Manuel Quintano in 1780 and taken up by the Marqués de Murrieta and Marqués de Riscal by the 1850s — who then imported American oak trees and coopered the barrels themselves.
When oidium and phylloxera devastated French vineyards in the 1850s-60s, French négociants came to Rioja to buy, some stayed to found bodegas, and the vineyard area grew by 40,000 acres within a generation.
Rioja wines are classified by an aging hierarchy — crianza, reserva and gran reserva — and depending on style tempranillo here is either powerfully structured, dark and earthy with leather and a certain peatiness (modern), or elegant and very earthy, closer to pinot noir than to cabernet (traditional).
Rioja is among the world's most beautifully earthy wines, and its gran reservas must age at least five years, two of them in oak, before release.
