Winery: Bodegas Luis Cañas                              

Region: Rioja Alavesa

Vintage: 2018                                          

Bottle: 75 cl                                                   

Grape Varieties: 85% Tempranillo and 15% others.

Type: Red Wine Reserve

Alcohol Volume: 14.5% vol.

Serving Temperature: 17°–18°

Production:

The family's iconic wine. Sourced from high-altitude vineyards in poor, rocky soils, here the vines have adapted to their environment to emerge as true survivors. 

Made from selected Tempranillo grapes with a small percentage of the other traditional varieties. The grapes are sourced from singular plots with poor topsoil and a cool, deep subsoil, which naturally restricts vine yields. The vines have an average age of over 50 years and are located at 450 to 650 metres above sea level in the Villabuena de Álava area and some neighbouring municipalities.

The grapes are hand-harvested, followed by a double table selection. Fermentation takes place in new oak barrels. Aged for 20 months in new oak barrels (50% French oak and 50% American oak).

Tasting Notes:

It is clean on the nose, with subtle and complex aromas of ripe black fruit blending with toasted and mineral notes. Smooth and velvety on the entry, the palate is flavoursome and aromatic. It displays a warm finish with scents of black fruit, caramel, and black liquorice, complemented by hints of fine wood. It presents an excellent structure with fine, juicy tannins. A long finish marked by a slight spiciness and lingering notes of ripe fruit.

Bodegas Luis Cañas is located in the heart of the highly acclaimed wine region known as the Rioja Alavesa. It is a family-owned winery devoted to winemaking and viticulture for over two centuries, although it was only in 1970, with the commercialisation of its first bottled wines, that the winery took off. Throughout the 1990s, a bigger emphasis was given to the production of good-quality wines, consequently experiencing a rise in sales and becoming what it is today: one of the leading wineries in the Rioja Alavesa.

The winery owns 90 ha of vines and works another 200 ha under contract, all of them spread out over 870 mostly small-sized parcels of advanced age and planted on poor chalky clay soil and mostly on slopes and terraces. The result is low yields of excellent quality.