Bodega Akutain, Rioja Reserva For Cheap

Bodega Akutain, Rioja Reserva

Rioja, like Bordeaux, is a wine-producing machine with hundreds of estates churning out millions of gallons per annum. Still, the best producers in the region offer some of the most refined and longest-lived wines on the planet—we’ve offered many—but they, too, tend to be large-scale operations. Except Bodega Akutain. They are as “garagiste” as Rioja gets.

Here’s the rare bodega whose artisanal scale means it’s been years since we’ve been able to secure enough “Reserva” for an offer (as for “Gran Reserva,” nobody even knows when that day will come; to my knowledge, ’04 is still their current release!). So, yes, today’s 2015 bottling is an exciting affair, and well worth the wait: Bristling with dark berries and spice, its glorious perfume and irresistible savoriness is an unadorned masterclass in Tempranillo perfection. It has all the head-spinning complexity of any of the big boys’ top-end bottlings with a deep, soulful core belying its farmstead origins. And while it’s drinking beautifully now at seven years old, it’ll easily go a decade in the cellar. Grab up to six. Quantities are very limited.

Akutain is largely a one-man operation where you’ll find Jon Peñagarikano Akutain manning a horse stable-turned-cellar. He farms just 6.5 hectares (absolutely minuscule by the region’s standards) in the Rioja Alta, regarded as the subzone responsible for the longest-lived wines, and home to legendary estates like CVNE and Lopez de Heredia. Also most unusual for the region is the fact that Akutain follows a true “estate” model, meaning Jon only makes wine from fruit he farms himself. It isn’t talked about much, but the truth is most Rioja bodegas are buying a majority of their fruit. Indeed, 80% of all the grapes grown there are farmed by families who own only vineyards and no winery facilities. Akutain represents true “micro-scale” famer-to-table Rioja.

The Akutain story begins with Jon’s father, Juan José. Juan was deeply ingrained in the Rioja wine industry for years, albeit not as a grower or winemaker. He actually sold cooling and refrigeration systems to wineries, and counted many of the most famous producers in the region as his clients. The job offered Juan the opportunity to get to know the region intimately as he drove back and forth constantly between the region’s most famous vineyards. Plus he had plenty of chances to taste examples from his clients’’ voluminous libraries. After spending years secretly searching for the ideal site to plant a vineyard of his own, he found it in 1975. Just a few miles west of Haro, he established the vineyard his son works today, comprising 75% Tempranillo and 14% Garnacha with a tiny splash of Viura. All three varieties are in play today. They’re fermented separately by native yeasts and then blended before being aged in very old American oak barrels for 17-27 months, followed by an additional year in bottle.

After a 30-minute decant, Akutain’s 2015 Rioja Reserva is best served in a Bordeaux stems around 60 degrees. It harkens back to an older, more traditional style of Rioja in its filigreed aromatics and elegant structure. The nose sings with fruit and savor, dried red cherries, black plum, and blood orange in unison with anise seed, dill, sandalwood, leather, and tobacco. On the palate, it’s vibrant and almost juicy, with resolved tannins and a sneaky streak of baked clay minerality. There’s no new oak to get in the way, no overly ripe flavors, just wonderfully unadorned, soulful Rioja magic that reminds us why these are some of the most respected wines in the world. This is special stuff!