NUMBER 11, 2022
www.vintae.com IF WE WERE TO STOP DREAMING, WE WOULD NOT BE VINTAE CHANGE OF VINTAGE
RESTAURANT OPENING
VINTAE MEDAL TABLE
López de Haro Crianza 2019, an excellent vintage with a renewed image. Page 2
New management at the Aroa restaurant and new activities in Rioja. Page 3 and 4
We continue adding excellent scores, this time with Viñedos El Pacto. Page 4
NEW CLASSICA: THE GREAT VINTAGES ARE BACK The Classica Hacienda López de Haro collection is expanding with three new wines that will be released this spring. The great novelty is our first aged rosé, Classica Gran Reserva Rosado 2009, but new vintages are also coming onto the market: Classica Gran Reserva Blanco 2013 and Classica Gran Reserva Tinto 2004. The latter arrives preceded by its 98 points in blind tasting at the Decanter World Wine Awards a few months ago and the top spot on the competition’s list of Spanish wines.
T
he banker who oversaw the Bank of Spain in Haro du during the height of the phylloxera crisis, the Rioja soprano who sang of her love for her land and wine, and the French soldier who was eaten by yeast, coining the expression “French wine”, are the three historic Rioja figures who appear on the labels of these three new wines, which are being released in extremely limited quantities. The collection pays homage to pioneers who contributed to Rioja’s splendor during the belle epoque, and is a recreation of those great Rioja wines that brought the DO to the most prestigious tables in Spain, Europe, and the world over a century ago.
98
Decanter
95
Decanter
92
Tim Atkin
These are wines that since the creation of Hacienda López de Haro have been reserved under the criteria of Raúl Acha and the Arambarri family. Aged for extended periods of time in both new and used oak, giving prominence equally to fruit and wood aromas and commensurate with excellent vintages, it exhibits an exceptional capacity for aging.
Classica Hacienda López de Haro Blanco 2013 (4,250 bottles) is a blend of Viura, Malvasía, and Garnacha Blanca from vines in Sonsierra and the Alto Najerilla that are roughly 65 years old. After 36 months in French and Eastern European oak barrels, it is rounded off for more than three years in the bottle. The end product is a Gran Reserva with personality and elegance.
Classica Hacienda López de Haro Gran Reserva Rosado 2009 (only 1,771 bottles) is made with Garnacha and Viura from old vineyards located in the Alto Najerilla. It is aged over four years in Bordeaux barrels, most of them new, but with the occasional second-hand one. This is a subtle wine with a lot of personality that reveals its grandeur through finesse.
Classica Hacienda López de Haro Gran Reserva Tinto 2004 (9,300 bottles) is a blend of Sonsierra Tempranillo (70-year-old vines) and Alto Najerilla Garnacha (around 90 years old). This red wine was aged in new and used French oak barrels for 42 months. It is a wine that stands out for the complexity and finesse that can only be achieved with the passage of time.
2/2022
NEW VINTAGE
Hacienda López de Haro Crianza, the timeless classic continually reinventing itself, introduces its new 2019 vintage. The change of vintage of our most emblematic wine, Hacienda López de Haro Crianza, is an annual celebration for our winery. The arrival of the 2019 vintage thrills us because it marks the consolidation of a style we have been developing in recent vintages, as well as developing a refined label enabling us to more effectively reflect Hacienda López de Haro’s principles.
The new image Thanks to more intricate and elegant artwork on the new label, the quality of the winery drawing has improved. Color is employed in the illustration in a more natural way, providing a more harmonious fit with the brand. The lower band also becomes more prominent, enhancing the label as a whole. In short, this new image aspires, through the enhancement of graphic components, to align the perception of Hacienda López de Haro Crianza with this shift in wine style, without abandoning a visual identity that is already regarded as a new Rioja classic.
The wine “We can say that 2019 was a fantastic vintage,” states Raúl Acha, technical director of Hacienda López de Haro. A very healthy vintage was produced thanks to a dry and warm climate that favored optimal grape ripening. Hacienda López de Haro Crianza 2019 displays its Sonserrano character with notes of red and black fruits, touches of licorice typical of Tempranillo and more mature tones from the barrel. Pleasant and refined, it has a good structure and a velvety character.
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2019 was a fantastic, dry and warm vintage, with a very healthy grape. VINTAE WINE FEST
The mother of all parties returns LA JEFA NEW VINTAGE Matsu La Jefa debuts its 2019 vintage. Having been sold out for months, the powerful Malvasía is back in stock displaying all of its complexity in an excellent vintage in Toro.
After being forced to postpone our annual festival for two years due to the pandemic, the Vintae Wine Fest has already set new dates to resume celebrations: the weekend of September 30 and October 1 and 2, San Vicente de la Sonsierra will be packed with festival-goers ready to give it their all. Tickets are now available on the festival website. Follow us on Instagram @vintaewinefest to stay up to date on new developments, learn about this year’s theme (surprise!) and prepare for the “greatest weekend of the year,” as some have termed it.
2022/3
AROA BODEGAS
The Aroa Bodegas restaurant reopens under new management After a hiatus due to the pandemic, we can now enjoy the Aroa Bodegas restaurant’s spectacular views of the Yerri Valley while sampling the new menus created by Rosa Galán and Juan Carlos Oroz, who are giving it a fresh style and bringing their experience as restaurateurs from their successful Pamplona restaurant, Chez Belagua. The menu focuses on product-driven cuisine that is always of excellent quality and local origin, adopting Aroa’s idea of sustainability for the restaurant as well, and paying special attention to the pairings suggested by Rosa, a sommelier and lover of the wine world. The restaurant is open for lunch from Wednesday to Sunday. Two distinct menus have been created: the Aroa Menu (49€), the flagship of the gastronomic offer, and the Seasonal Menu (26€), which is only available Wednesday to Friday (not public holidays). The Aroa Menu, offers three starters for sharing and six main courses to choose from. The menu features regional ingredients including artichokes, asparagus, and mushrooms, as well as typical fare from Navarra such as braised beef cheeks and cod loin. Additionally, they serve high-quality fish and delicately prepared meats. From the famed rice pudding or torrijas (Spanish-style French toast) to the Idiazábal cake or molten lava cake, the handcrafted desserts are legendary. For its part, the Seasonal Menu, which is more focused on day-to-day dining, features a variety of starters and main courses that maintain the spirit of traditional cuisine while incorporating a touch of modernism and high-quality local ingredients. Both menus contain pairings with wines from the bodega (including the occasional Vintae wine) specially prepared by Rosa. For a more comprehensive experience and to gain a better understanding of the winery’s sustainable and organic project, they now offer group packs that include a tour at the winery and lunch. Book now on
+34 948 921 995.
ENTREPRENEURSHIP SUPPORT
Yo Soy Tierra, a Cordoba-based Project dedicated to the cultivation of plan sponges, has been awarded the first Proyecto Clea Grant We recently finalized the first “vintage” of the Proyecto Clea, an initiative launched last year by Bodega Bardos with the support of FADEMUR (the Federation of Women’s Associations in Rural Areas in Spain), aimed at promoting female entrepreneurship in rural areas each year with a grant of 5,500 euros. Lucía Sánchez Julián has always aspired to living and working in her village. After a lengthy search, she discovered the appropriate product for her business in the Sierras Subbéticas Natural Park in the province of Cordoba: loofahs (vegetable sponges). Her town, Carcabuey, is where she grows them, processes them, and distributes them throughout Spain via internet. We will be shortly publishing a new edition via Fademur’s Ruraltivity platform, and we will continue to discover and assist the developers of fantastic ideas who are securing a bright future for our rural communities.
4/2022
LOPEZ DE HARO PLANS
ON THE FRONT COVER OF DECANTER! Decanter, the prominent British wine magazine, chose to feature on the cover of its March issue, which is normally dedicated to Spanish wines, an image of our CEO, Richi Arambarri, taking the plunge in the fountain of the Labrador monument in Logroño, in the middle of the San Mateo Festivities. The awesome photo is the work of Gilbert Bagés, a photographer specializing in wine who you can follow on social networks as @drinkinmoderation
A unique and pleasurable wine tourism experience at Hacienda López de Haro Our Rioja winery is introducing a new wine tourism offering with unique and innovative plans for increasingly demanding guests in search of new experiences. In addition to our popular “tasting” visit, which includes a practical tasting class on the various stages of winemaking, we now offer plans outside the winery: a visit to the vineyard and winery for a more comprehensive experience beginning right in the vineyard, or a visit to the winery combined with a walk through history to learn about the cultural heritage of the Rioja Sonsierra. For those who have already taken the tasting tour and are searching for something else, we now offer new tastings ranging from a fun and unique introductory workshop to specialized tastings with distinct references or unusual pairings of wines and sweet or savory dishes. For the more “advanced,” there is the workshop “Bring out your inner winemaker” in which you will learn how to create your own coupage in the most enjoyable manner possible. If you’d rather go at your own pace, we still have our wine bar and terrace where you can enjoy a glass of wine and a picnic basket, enabling you to have a great time wherever you like. All of these new activities are tailored to groups and are available in three languages: Spanish, English, and French. They will soon be available for booking on the winery’s website. If you’re interested in any of these, please contact Ainhoa Mouriz, our wine tourism guide, at +34 676393955 or enoturismo@haciendalopezdeharo.com
VINTAE MEDAL TABLE We have updated our medal count to reflect the outstanding scores achieved by our new Rioja project, Viñedos El Pacto, in the long-awaited Rioja Special Report 2022 by Tim Atkin MW. El Pacto is immediately classified as a Fifth Growth on Atkin’s list of the DO’s greatest wineries, in addition to receiving excellent scores and encouraging comments.
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