Dominio del Challao - Garnacha del Challao 2021

Robert Parker Wine Advocate

The super balsamic 2021 Challao Garnacha has a bright ruby color in this cooler and wetter year when the Garnacha really delivered what they expect from the grape. This comes from silty and chalky soils, the higher-altitude vineyard they work at some 620 meters above sea level, which was planted in 1989. It fermented with indigenous yeasts in concrete with some full clusters and matured in 2,000-liter oak foudre for 20 months. It has a moderate 12.5% alcohol, a low pH of 3.21 and an impressive nose with an explosion of thyme, lavender and rosemary, hints of camphor intermixed with fresh berry fruit and a spicy twist, developing notes of blood orange peel with time in the glass. It's medium-bodied and fine-boned, with very fine tannins; it's a little fuller than the initial 2020, with more structure and clout, not as ethereal. 3,102 bottles, 25 magnums and 10 double magnums were filled in August 2023.

I met a little earlier with Manuel

Tim Atkin

Lobenberg

This Garnacha is in the same league as the fabulous Garnacha from Comando G, from the high altitudes near Madrid. The vineyard lies below Mount Toloño, in the valley that is in the center of Labastida. The soil here is extremely calcareous. This wine is a puristic masterpiece and the messenger of wonderfully ingenious minerality. Delicate raspberry red in the glass with thick, uncolored church windows on the edge of the glass. Juicy, ripe strawberries and raspberries float towards the nose, as well as macerated wild berries, rose hips, cranberries and some potpourri. Even on the nose, this fragrant Rioja is lovely to put down; I don't even want to put my glass down again. In the mouth it creates an arc of tension from ripe red cherry fruit and sour cherry compote to cranberry and pomegranate. Phenomenally fresh, with fine, harmonious tannins. Then, only after swallowing, does this magnificent spice come out. Bay leaf, white pepper, a little coriander. The delicately smoky minerality, reminiscent of granite, is extremely impressive and it becomes more and more intense and monumental with more time in the glass. In a blind tasting, that would be a high-altitude Grenache or maybe even a cool-climate Pinot Noir?! This is the exciting, newly discovered Rioja and at the same time pure drinking pleasure. Definitely a wine that you can forget in the cellar for a few years because, despite all its freshness and finesse, it has the balance and structure for a long life.