Badiola V1BN4 (Villabuena) 2018

Part of our range of Vinos de Pueblo, Villabuena makes some of our favourite wines, which tend to be a perfect example of the ideal, middle-weight, highly drinkable, yet extremely age-worthy Rioja Alavesa.

Vineyard parcels are on hillsides, around 500m in average altitude, well protected by the Sierra Cantabria. Ripening is later than in Laguardia but earlier than in Leza, giving the most beautiful balance between freshness, elegance and good fruit concentration. Badiola Villabuena shows precise and pure berry aromas, finely grained tannins and an amazing flow on the palate, even when young.

All our village wines are made in the same way. Grapes from the selected parcels in each village are handpicked in small crates and manually selected on a sorting table. We consciously do NOT use our optical sorting equipment for our fine wines, because manual, human sorting allows us to keep the desirable diversity and subtle variation in ripeness and grape morphology, adding complexity and personality of the individual parcels of old vines to the final wine. Alcoholic and malolactic fermentation processes are simple, in small stainless steel tanks. Maceration times and gentle pump-overs are decided individually by tasting, looking for balance and the maximum expression of personality, but not for high extraction of colour or tannins.

We decide on ageing vessels and time individually for each vintage, combining stainless steel and concrete tanks with bigger and smaller oak vessels, both new and used. The aim is to understand and respect the expression of the unique village character, without excessive use of new oak or oxidative ageing. In the case of Badiola Villabuena 2018, 44% of the wine was aged in first and second use barriques of 300 litres of French oak, for 9 months. The rest of the wine was aged for the same time in tank. Both elements were blended and bottled in February the 3rd of 2019.

7.369 bottles made.

Vintage: 2018

DOCa Rioja – Rioja Alavesa

Variety: 100 % Tempranillo