Today’s Story: El Coto de Rioja
El Coto de Rioja was established in 1970 when they completed their first harvest in Rioja, however the winery was not completed until 1976 in Oyón of the Álava province. Rather quickly, El Coto de Rioja ramped up their commercial goals and throughout the 1980s laid the foundation for drastic increases in global exportation that occurred during the 1990s. By the mid-1990s, demand for the wines was nearly outpacing production so El Coto de Rioja expanded their original winery and became the leading brand in the Spanish market for Crianza and Reserva by 2000. In 2004, the estate’s Los Almendros vineyard (450 hectares) became the largest in Rioja and today the winery is the largest winegrower in the Denominación de Origen Rioja. In 2010, El Coto de Rioja started producing white wines which preceded, in 2014, the creation of a separate winery (still within the overall facility in Oyón) built exclusively to produce white wines.
As briefly mentioned, El Coto de Rioja is the largest winegrower in the Denominación de Origen Rioja with 730 hectares planted to vine. These vineyards are spread throughout the region, broken down into 8 separate “farms.” Maintaining their own estate vineyards is a crucial aspect of the winemaking process for El Coto de Rioja, for it helps them ensure a consistent quality across all the fruit. This mentality continues to the winery itself, which is organized as twelve “separate” wineries each designated to complete one step of the winemaking process. For example, there are separate buildings for production, blending, aging, bottling, and the finished product, all with optimized conditions for their tasks.
To learn more about the estate or to look through their portfolio of wines, check out the website here.
Today’s Wine: 2012 Coto de Imaz Rioja Gran Reserva
90% Tempranillo, 10% Graciano; 14.5% ABV
The 2012 Coto de Imaz Rioja Gran Reserva is opaque deep ruby/purple in color and nearly black at its core. I decanted this for 5 hours or so, tasting along the way, and it needed it. While initially the nose is dominated by oak, cinnamon, and vanilla, over time it develops to showcase black cherry, plum, cassis, tobacco, black tea, graphite, rocky mineral, and cedar. Moving to the palate, I get notes of tart cherry, blackberry, black raspberry, licorice, red florals, baking spice, iron, and oak. This is full-bodied with high acidity, grippy medium (+) tannins, and a medium (+) length finish.
Price: $30. I think this is a great value for Rioja, especially a Gran Reserva. This would be a great accessible wine for people trying to explore Rioja who may not be familiar with the region or the Tempranillo variety. Drinks beautifully now with some air, but plenty of gas left in the tank.
JB's Wine Talk 