Wine & Spirits - Winter 2019 - 77

O LD WO RLD

Top 100 Wineries

Luis A. Rodríguez Vázquez
SPAIN | RIBEIRO
Farming small parcels of vines in the Galician hills of Ribeiro,
Luis Rodríguez Vázquez consistently produces some of the
greatest wines in Spain.
MARIA JOSÉ, MERCEDES, PEDRO AND JULIO CESAR LÓPEZ DE HEREDIA

R. López de Heredia
SPAIN | RIOJA
This venerable house has become a modern-day star with its
unabashedly traditional Riojas.
A CLASSIC ESTATE IN HARO, López de Heredia
was founded in 1877. The current generation at
the helm of the estate-Maria José, Mercedes
and Julio Cesar-run it essentially in the same
way their forebears did, farming and harvesting by hand, and vinifying the wines slowly,
with extended aging in oak barrels produced in
their onsite cooperage. No wine is released here
before it's ready: All the releases we tasted this
year had aged for more than a decade, and all
will continue to evolve for many more years,
if allowed. It's probably easiest to find them in
restaurants: Last year, López de Heredia placed
number one as the most popular brand in our
Annual Restaurant Poll; this is the winery's seventh appearance in our Top 100. -R.D.T.

LUIS RODRIGUEZ
VASQUEZ

2005 Rioja Reserva Viña Tondonia Blanco ($50,
96 points) A blend of viura grown in the chalkier sections of the Tondonia vineyard, with a touch of malvasia Riojana, this aged for six years in oak casks, and
several more in bottle. Golden in hue, this needs time
in the glass to reveal all its detail. What starts out as
pale, brothy savor builds into notes of juicy peach
and crisp green apple, rose and beeswax, with a
structure that suggests it will stay fresh and fascinating for many more years to come.
1877
The López
de Heredia family
WINEMAKERS: Julio
Cesar, Maria José
and Mercedes
López de Heredia
FOUNDED:

photo of R. López de Heredia by Pepe Franco

OWNER:

VITICULTURIST:

Julio Cesar López
de Heredia

2009 Crianza Viña Cubillo ($29, 92 points) This
parcel, 59 acres of calcareous clay about two miles
from the winery, is planted exclusively to red varieties; the López de Heredia family always bottles it as
a Crianza wine. The 2009, a blend of 65 percent tempranillo and 25 percent garnacha with some mazuelo
and graciano, belies that designation in its nuance
and silky texture. With scents of tobacco and cedar
and generous red-plum flavor, it's compelling now,
and only gets better with air.

ACRES OWNED:

420
CASES PRODUCED:

50,000
ESTATE GROWN:

100%
IMPORTER:

Think Global
Wines, Santa
Barbara, CA

2006 Rioja Reserva Viña Tondonia ($50, 90
points) Tondonia is the estate's most prized vineyard, a 247-acre site that founder Rafael López de
Heredia began developing in 1913. He hoped to create a wine in the manner of Bordeaux, but with local
grape varieties. The wine remains a blend of tempranillo, garnacha, mazuelo and graciano with extensive
aging in barrel and in bottle. The 2006 is mature and
elegant, the fruit firm and zesty, gentled by age.

LUIS RODRÍGUEZ VÁSQUEZ GREW UP in the small
town of Arnoia, where he returned after studying oenology and philosophy in Madrid. He
has dedicated his career to recovering the local
varieties in the granite hills of Ribeiro, his home
region, just north of the Minho River and east of
Rías Baixas. Much of the land here was replanted
to bulk-wine varieties as Ribeiro's wine trade succumbed to phylloxera and the Spanish civil war,
and Ribeiro's great terroirs remained largely
unknown, though probably not for long. For
now, Rodríguez Vásquez's wines are remarkably
affordable for the beauty, delicacy and longevity they offer. He works with spontaneous fermentations, holding his younger-vine whites in
stainless steel while his older-vine blends age in
oak. His 12 acres of vines are scattered across
100 parcels, many that he planted himself, all
farmed without herbicides. His viticulture shares
some of the intimacy of Burgundy, and though
his vines speak a different language, they have a
similar talent for evoking the place where they
grow. -J.G.

2016 Ribeiro Os Pasás Viña de Martin Blanco
($32, 95 points) This young-vine blend captures
springtime in Galicia's coastal hills, a delicate scent
of apple blossoms lasting through the freshness of
rain. Aged on its lees in stainless steel for a year, the
wine's flavors and textures have evolved into the tingling crunch of apples contrasted by umami notes as
resonant as a broth of mushrooms, herbs and pork.
It's as satisfying as it is beautiful.

FOUNDED:

1988

OWNER/
WINEMAKERS/
VITICULTURIST:

Luís Rodríguez
Vásquez
ACRES OWNED:

12
CASES PRODUCED:

3,000
ESTATE GROWN:

85%
IMPORTER:

José Pastor Selections, Fairfax, CA

2015 Ribeiro A Torna dos Pasás Tinto ($35, 95
points) A blend of fruit from 10-to-20-year-old vines,
including brancellao, caíño longo, caíño redondo
and ferrol, this brings the ripe, floral juiciness of the
grapes to life, the wine's dynamic energy seeming to
capture the sun in its black-raspberry afterglow. Its
pipe-tobacco scents have the resonance of a minor
chord, along with a rooty note that brings you back
for another taste.
2013 Ribeiro Escolma Blanco ($69, 93 points)
Made from old-vine treixadura, albariño, lado and
torrontés, Escolma ferments in French oak barrels,
where it rests with its lees for a year before three
years of aging in bottle. Though youthfully tannic, this
2013 is compellingly delicious, its freshness opening
to flavors of Marcona almonds, toasty lees, rhubarb
and crushed pineapple. This will be ready to drink ten
years from the vintage.
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