Sierra de Tolono Rioja Tinto 2022

Sierra de Tolono Rioja Tinto 2022

Sierra de Tolono
$22.00

Grape: Tempranillo
Vintage: 2023
Type: Red

The mountains of Sierra de Toloño, with their clay and limestone rocky-soils, are perfect conditions to grow Tempranillo. This is Sandra Bravo's "workhorse", the wine that points the way to some of the most elegant expressions of Rioja Alavessa we've encountered. Harvested by hand, mid-October, the wine ferments spontaneously and then ages for 8 months in neutral barrels, and a little bit in amphorae. It is bottled unfiltered and unfined. Spicy, textured, and mineral.

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.