Sierra de Tolono Nahikun Blanco 2023

Sierra de Tolono Nahikun Blanco 2023

Sierra de Tolono
$45.00

Grape: Malvasía, Viura, Rojal, Calagraño
Vintage: 2023
Type: White

This dry white wine is an ancestral field blend crafted by Sandra Bravo from some of her oldest vineyard vines in Rioja Alavesa. The fruit is hand-harvested from five scattered micro-plots near the village of Villabuena de Álava, where vines grow on shallow, rocky soils. Bravo revived these ancient plots to incorporate forgotten white varieties like rojal and calagraño alongside traditional malvasía and viura. The grapes are co-fermented spontaneously with native wild yeasts and mature in neutral five-hundred-liter oak barrels.

It displays a bright straw-yellow color, releasing an inviting nose of green orchard fruit, lemon flesh, and white flowers over a stony baseline. A sleek, medium-bodied frame balances ripe peach flavors with an underlying chiseled mineral core. A lively wave of natural acidity cuts through the waxy texture, maintaining great freshness and an athletic energy. The short wood contact provides a structural cushion that frames mid-palate cleanly.

Sierra de Tolono is Sandra Bravo's Rioja Alavesa project, based in the high, limestone-rich foothills below the Sierra de Cantabria. After working in several regions, Bravo returned to make wines that express the cooler, more Atlantic side of Rioja through old vines, organic farming and parcel selection around villages such as Rivas de Tereso. Her cellar work avoids the heavy oak signatures associated with classic Rioja, favoring native fermentations, concrete, amphora and used wood. The wines are fresh, floral and precise, built around Tempranillo, Garnacha, Viura and the mountain wind that preserves acidity in this part of the region.