Parker om:
Tartalo
The 2024 Tartalo comes from a plot planted with a field blend, 0.7 hectares planted in 1920 in the village of Elvillar (Rioja Alavesa) at 600 meters above sea level in the zone known as Barranco de San Julián on limestone soils that deliver no more than 3,000 kilos per hectare. This is the most calcareous vineyard he works. It's mostly Tempranillo with a little Viura and some scattered plants of Graciano. The grapes were picked early to avoid too high alcohol and fermented partly destemmed and partly whole clusters that were foot trodden with indigenous yeasts in stainless steel, then the wine matured in 600-liter barrels for 10 months and periodically racked. This is very stony, earthy wine from very shallow soils, only 30 centimeters deep. The vines struggled and, despite their age, they are not very big, but that gives the wine incredible texture, and it's super dry and chalky, with fine granularity. The wine has the aromas of the place, full of aromatic herbs, rosemary and thyme. In 2024, this wine has lower alcohol than ever at 13%, with contained ripeness and a pH of 3.5. I've never seen it as chalky as this. He makes three barrels of this; two of them contribute to the blend of Kalamity, and the other one is bottled separately into this wine. There are some 900 bottles. It was bottled in September 2025.For Oxer Bastegieta, 2024 is a super vintage, fresher and finer-boned than 2023. He wants to emulate the old tradition of co-plantation and wines with character and freedom. There's a new red from Maturana Tinta, but it's always made, as he says, "my way," with much lower alcohol and surprisingly no pyrazines. He wants texture and freshness, which, for him, come from the cover crops, compost, microbiology of the soils, etc. He wants cleanliness, agility and precision in the wines. He has a co-plantation in the keyline system, 1.5 hectares in San Vicente de la Sonsierra (La Rad at 600 meters on very chalky soils) and 1.5 hectares in Leza and 700 meters in altitude, which he described as his legacy for the future.
