La Rioja Alta S.A., Vià±a Alberdi Reserva, 2019

Some wines are bad. Some are good. Some are monsters. Enter Alberdi.

4.1 on Vivino,50k ratings, 90+pts all round, completely dominating the Rioja scene.

It’s wines like these that make you think, ‘I’ve got to see what all the fuss is about’.

The harvest is done by hand, selecting whole bunches in the vineyard that make the cut. The wine was aged for two years in American oak barrels made by in-house coopers —toasted to the exact specification that the winemakers demand.

They carried out four rackings in the traditional way, from barrel to barrel, separating by candlelight the sediment that formed during the ageing process.