For the first three-quarters of the twentieth century, Rioja produced one of the world's most distinctive styles of red wine—a marriage of Northern Spanish grape varieties (led by Tempranillo) aged in American oak for up to six or eight years or even longer. With the delicacy of red Burgundy, but aromatics all their own, they stood the test of time, developing into wines of great style and elegance with age.

Like other traditional schools of winemaking, this classic style of Rioja was an accident of history, having been born in the 1870s and 1880s when Bordeaux needed to replace wine lost when Phylloxera ravaged its vineyards. Rioja was a convenient source, as it lay just 200 miles south of Bordeaux and was spared Phylloxera until 1899. Now-famous companies like López de Heredia, Marqués de Murrieta, and CUNE were founded-housed in exotic Victorian bodegas and drawing on hundreds, if not thousands, of acres of vineyards. They provided wine to the Bordelais but also to the world. And a singular style of winemaking evolved.

The Riojans proved that they could make wine as fine as those of France and do so on a large scale. But in the 1980s and 1990s, this traditional style of Rioja very nearly perished. As in other regions throughout the world, young winemakers abandoned the methods traditional to their area in favor of modern techniques perfected elsewhere. This change may have occurred with particular speed and passion in Rioja, as Spain looked to the future, coming out of its painful four decades under Franco rule.

There was an explosion of new wineries in Rioja, and virtually every one of them turned its back on the classic American oak barrels in favor of new French barriques. They also adopted vinification and aging techniques that we are more accustomed to see in California or Tuscany.

Fortunately for those of us who love traditional wine, old-style Riojas have not totally disappeared. A few diehard bodegas continue to turn out soulful Riojas like those made 50 or 100 years ago. The most notable example is of course López de Heredia, which refuses to give into fashion and has changed very little in the past century. But there are others who continue to make at least some wines that are essentially traditional, such as La Rioja Alta, Bodegas Riojanas, and CUNE.

But the other glimmer of light is that Riojas are among the world’s longest-lived red wines, capable of aging gracefully for 30, 40, or 50 years, with ease. And until very recently, old Riojas—lovingly cellared by the producers and great restaurants in Spain—could still be had at bargain prices.

For years, we’ve been buying old Rioja whenever we’ve had the chance, inspired by a tasting we’d attended in London in December, 1998, featuring wines from a private Madrid cellar. It was one of those wine epiphanies that changes us forever. Since then, we've been plumbing similar collections from Spain, paying sometimes laughably low prices for 30, 40 and 50-year-old treasures.

But such purchases may soon be impossible. With the greatness of these old wines becoming more and more appreciated, and since young wines are rarely made in this style anymore, prices are going up at a staggering clip. Part of the problem has been that the traditional producers themselves have been forced to protect their vanishing stocks of “library wines” as demand soars.

Interest in these great, irreplaceable wines is just beginning to build, and it’s looking like a repeat of what has happened with traditional Barolo and Barbaresco. For now, there are still bargains to be had, but the window of opportunity won’t be open forever.

While a winemaking revolution has raged around them, a handful of bodegas have stayed true to the traditions that made Rioja famous. Perhaps the best known of these in the United States is López de Heredia.

Little about López de Heredia has changed in the more than 130 years since its founding. It occupies the same historic cellars and unlike most of their competitors, which are now owned by outside investors, López de Heredia is owned—and every detail of its operation is handled—by the family who founded it.

Most Rioja wineries buy grapes from dozens of small growers; but not López de Heredia. They own every inch of the vineyards that supply their wines. Only natural yeasts are used and there is no filtration. They still age their greatest wines in wood for six to eight years and even make their own barrels.

The bodega is now in the capable hands of the family’s youngest generation—Maria José, Mercedes and Julio César. Yet, still nothing changes. In fact, these three are as philosophically committed to the winery’s traditions as their parents and grandparents were before them.

Bosconia & Tondonia

López de Heredia produces a number of wines, including Crianzas and Reservas—red, white and rosé. But the winery’s glories are its Gran Reservas.

Like Vega Sicilia with its Unico, López de Heredia only makes Gran Reservas in great years—of which there have been but twenty since 1890.

López de Heredia Gran Reservas appear under two different labels, Tondonia and Bosconia, each named for a vineyard the family purchased nearly a century ago.

The Tondonia red Gran Reservas are revered for their complex fruit and their structure. Though the grape make-up varies from vintage to vintage, a typical blend is about 75% Tempranillo, with the balance Mazuelo and Graciano.

The Bosconia red Gran Reservas typically spend a year less in wood and are made from a higher percentage of Tempranillo. Bosconias tend to be bigger, softer and earthier than Tondonias.

In most great years, both Bosconia and Tondonia are made—offering an intriguing contrast in styles that reminds us of the stylistic duel between CUNE’s Imperial and Viña Real. If a comparison is to be drawn, Tondonia resembles Imperial in its refinement and elegance, and Bosconia mirrors Viña Real in its lushness.

Miraculous Whites

While the family’s best reds are divided evenly between the Bosconia and Tondonia labels, the finest whites wear just one label: Tondonia. Many say that the Tondonia whites are López de Heredia’s greatest achievements.

Made from 85% Viura and aged for a minimum of six years in old barrels, they have a distinctive opulence and richness that increases as the wines age, bringing out notes of honey, butterscotch, hazelnut, often with a Graves-like character. But even after decades in bottle, they maintain their freshness.

CUNE is a true giant of traditional Rioja, as anyone fortunate to have tasted a three- to six-decade old Imperial or Viña Real can attest. These are both wines of bottomless depth and breathtaking perfume, standing easily not only alongside their Rioja peers, but with  the best of France and Italy as well.

Imperial and Viña Real are two of the greatest in the tradition of the elite “pairs” for which the old-line Rioja bodegas became famous, each with a distinct bottle shape to identify it. Typically the wine in the slender, Bordeaux-style bottle is the more elegant example while that in the broader Burgundy shaped bottle is more powerful and full-bodied.

But CUNE took this practice even further by basing the wine for each style on the different terroirs of Rioja’s greatest sub-regions, Rioja Alta and Rioja Alavesa.

Thus the Bordeaux-style bottled Imperial is the very definition of Rioja Alta elegance, based on Tempranillo from this region’s finest sites, balanced with small amounts of Mazuelo, Graciano and even a touch of white Viura.

In contrast, Viña Real in the Burgundy bottle exemplifies the richer, more powerful style of the warmer Rioja Alavesa, in a blend of Tempranillo augmented by Garnacha and Mazuelo from CUNE’S vineyards located around the Camino Real in Alavesa’s Elciego.

Both wines, whether reserva or gran reserva, are revered by Rioja connoisseurs for their velvety texture and kaleidoscopic complexity. And both age with ease for decades.

The Arc of History
One of the oldest of the traditional Rioja firms, CUNE was founded in 1879 by Eusebio Real de Asúa of Bilbao in partnership with Isidro Corcuera, one of Rioja’s finest winemakers, and was one of the first to establish a bodega in Haro’s famed Barrio de la Estación, taking advantage of the railway line as a convenient means of transporting their wines.

With the means to ship to the important hub of Bilbao and then abroad CUNE flourished, winning medals at a number of prestigious fairs and quickly establishing an international standing as one of Rioja’s greatest houses, a reputation they still enjoy today, under 5th-generation owner Victor Urrutia.

Through the dynamic leadership of Victor and his sister Maria, and the new era at CUNE has been marked by a surge in quality, while, in the words of John Gilman, doing “an absolutely admirable job of maintaining Cuné’s great traditions.”

Bodegas Riojanas is one of the grand old names of Rioja, having produced heroic wines since their founding in 1890.

Riojanas’ classic winemaking and soaring quality have been exemplified over the decades by two wines: the velvety, rich Monte Real and the hauntingly perfumed, refined Viña Albina. Both can be counted among the region’s most historic, and consistently great, traditional cuveés.

Yet, Riojanas was not placed, as other bodegas were, in Rioja’s 19^th-century transportation hub, Haro. Instead it has always been set in the very heart of Rioja’s winegrowing area, in Cenicero, where its owners, the Artacho family, have been growers for generations.

Cenicero’s terroir has long been revered as the source of some of the very best Riojas, complete wines that combine the elegant structure of Rioja Alta with the full body of Rioja Alavesa.

As long time Cenicero viticultors the Artachos have proudly made their top wines from the sites they have tended for centuries, bottling them in the classic Rioja tradition of a Burgundy shaped bottle for the powerful Monte Real and the slender Bordeaux bottle for the elegant Viña Albina.

Both wines were made by the textbook methods of Rioja’s old school: blended with a base of Tempranillo enhanced by Mazuelo and Graciano. And, in the case of Monte Real, Garnacha was added to the blend.

Both wines were fermented in large upright wood tinas and then aged for many years in American oak barricas followed by extensive time in bottle prior to release. This regime held for every wine that bore a Monte Real or Viña Real label—regardless of reserva designation.  

Riojanas’ approach, applied to the fruit from their great sites, created wines that age easily for a half century or more, as proven by the enduring greatness of Monte Real and Vina Albiña from the 1940s, 1950s and 1960s.

For 165 years, there have been few Rioja producers as important as Marqués de Murrieta. The bodega’s founder, Don Luciano de Murrieta, essentially created Rioja as it came to be known. Until he started his firm in 1852, Rioja was primitively made and short-lived.

Murrieta changed all of that.  He spent four years in Bordeaux studying winemaking, where he learned to destem the fruit, ferment in oak vats and, most importantly, age in 225-liter oak barricas. The result was the first great, long-keeping Rioja, 50 barrels of which were exported to Havana. Marqués de Murrieta’s fame spread rapidly and the archetype for noble Rioja was born.

Marqués de Murrieta came into its own, however, with the acquisition of the Ygay estate near Logroño in 1878, giving Luciano complete control over the quality of his wine from vineyard to bottle. Ygay’s limestone, sand and gravel slopes produce rich fruit of great complexity and structure with the concentration to benefit from long aging in barrica.

Murrieta continues to make their top wines by methods little changed from those of the past. And Murrieta’s greatest glories are the wines labeled “Castillo Ygay Gran Reserva Especial,” made as both red and white. What really sets them apart from all other Riojas is the richness, power and complexity of the Ygay terroir, located at the point where Rioja’s three sub-regions of Rioja Alta, Rioja Alavesa and Rioja Baja meet.

Singular Terroir, Long Aging
For more than a century, the special Ygay terroir has given both red and white Murrieta wines the concentration to survive long aging in neutral American oak barricas. The mythic red 1978 Ygay Gran Reserva Especial—primarily Tempranillo, with a small amount of Mazuela—spent an incredible 18 years in barrel and 10 in bottle before deciding it was ready for the public to enjoy.

Yet, incredibly, Murrieta believes in even longer cask aging for its iconic white, Ygay Gran Reserva Especial Blanco. This unique gran reserva white is made mostly from Viura grapes, with a pinch of Malvasia.

The 1986 version was held for nearly 30 years before release, spending 21 years in barrel followed by 6 years in concrete tank before it was even bottled. The final result is a masterpiece, receiving an unprecedented 100-point rating from Luis Gutiérrez in The Wine Advocate.

The wine is  mindblowing—packed with fruit, with the exotic oak overtones that are a hallmark of perfectly aged traditional Rioja. Exquisitely balanced, with seamless structure, fantastic complexity and a richness all their own, they more than fulfill Don Luciano’s dream from so long ago.

La Rioja Alta is one of traditional Rioja’s true icons. For over a century, it has been one of the region’s greatest producers, as well as an ardent defender of the classic methods responsible for one of the world’s most distinctive and long-lived styles of wine.

In fact, La Rioja Alta is even more traditional now than they were three decades ago. In the 1980s, a time of sweeping change when many of the region’s bodegas were discarding the old ways in favor of modern methods, La Rioja Alta chose to increase both the barrel and bottle aging. This is despite the fact that both times were already among longest in the region.

The 1990s saw a return to complete control over their cooperage. This included the sourcing, importing and curing of the traditional American oak from which they fashion their barrels, something they had stopped doing in the 1950s.

A charter resident of the Barrio de la Estación—the area near Haro’s railroad station that’s home to fellow giants López de Heredia and CUNE—La Rioja Alta was founded by five growers in 1890. The firm remains under the control of the same families today.

For lovers of Old School Rioja, two of La Rioja Alta’s top wines are the rich, spicy Viña Ardanza Reserva—named after one of the bodega’s founders and released in a Burgundy-style bottle—and the Gran Reserva 904, which comes in a Bordeaux-style bottled and is both more structured and longer lived than the Viña Ardanza.   

In keeping with their differing styles the powerful and plummy Viña Ardanza Reserva is mostly 80% Tempranillo with the balance Garnacha while the more elegant, perfumed Gran Reserva 904 is almost all Tempranillo augmented by the bright Graciano.

The other great red in the La Rioja Alta lineup is the Reserva 890, the ultimate in Rioja classicism, still aged for six years in American oak barricas.

Bodegas Bilbainas, though known today mainly by insiders, was historically one of Rioja’s finest traditional houses, their reputation built on the richness and ageworthiness of their flagship wines Viña Pomal and Viña Zaco.

And the brilliance of these elite cuvées was not limited to the reserva bottlings, a fact made strikingly clear a few years at a San Francisco dinner, when a glorious 1964 Viña Zaco crianza easily held its own among the reservas and gran reservas from other producers.

The key to the glory of Viña Pomal and Viña Zaco are their great terroirs. Viña Pomal is one of the finest sites in all of Rioja, a plateau of gravel lying at the confluence of the Ebro and Tirón rivers which produces complete wines of great depth and power.

On the other hand, Viña Zaco’s classic Haro alluvial silt and calcareous clay soil results in a clarete that is the essence of Rioja Alta finesse. And in keeping with the traditional Riojan practice of fashioning two prestige cuvées in defining bottle shapes, Viña Zaco is in the high-shouldered Bordeaux bottle associated with the more elegant wine, while Viña Pomal is in the Burgundy-style bottle indicating more richness and power.

That Bilbainas owns both of these revered sites is due to the desire of Bilbainias’ founder, Santiago Ugarte, to secure his own nearby sources of supply for the bodega he established in Haro’s Barrio de la Estación in 1901. While the firm continued to acquire land, the fine Pomal and Zaco terroirs were kept separate, to ensure that their special characters were captured in their own special bottlings.

For most of the twentieth century, Bilbainas made traditional Riojas that rivaled the best. But in recent years, the bodega has taken a turn towards somewhat more modern winemaking.