2019 | Olivier Riviere | Pozo Alto

This is ripe, powerful and round, aromatic and expressive wine. it presents itself with great elegance and charm with precise aromas.

Reviews:

• Wine Advocate: The red 2019 Pozo Alto was produced with the grapes from an old plot in the village of Leza. The blend is 75% Graciano, 20% Tempranillo and 5% Garnacha with 14.3% alcohol and 5.6 grams of acidity. The destemmed grapes fermented with a three-week maceration, and the wine matured in 500-liter oak barrels for 12 months, followed by a further 26 months in 1,000-liter oak foudre. This is ripe, powerful and round, aromatic and expressive, in a much more powerful year (because of the character of the year), because the vinification and élevage were the same. The very high percentage of Graciano is very noticeable, making the wine very spicy, with lots of notes of freshly cracked black peppercorn. There's more natural concentration of the fruit, low yields, and Rivière was careful with the extraction. It has abundant but fine-grained tannins, plenty of energy and good balance. This should develop nicely in bottle. It's the most powerful vintage and the most powerful wine in the portfolio in 2019. Wait a bit. 1,300 bottles were filled in February 2022. He got rid of this vineyard (and sold Losares and Eusebio to Pago Carraovejas from Ribera del Duero), so 2020 will be the last vintage of this wine.

Producer Information

Currently making wine in Rioja, Arlanza and Navarra, Frenchman Olivier Rivière is a good example of the new wave of young, small producers who have emerged in Spain over the last decade.He started to work with well-known producer Telmo Rodríguez but it didn’t take him long to start buying grapes for himself. Over the last few years, Rivière has also managed to purchase some distinctive vineyards in different regions which he vinifies separately following a Burgundian approach. His first production came from El Quemado in Covarrubias, a lovely and remote valley in Ribera del Arlanza appellation in Burgos (Castilla y León). Alto Redondo followed in Navarra with some recent purchases in Rioja. Olivier consults for Bodegas Lacus in Aldeanueva de Ebro (Rioja Baja); it is at these facilities where he makes his wines. For Olivier vineyards come first, focused as he is in obtaining high quality grapes. Small fermentation tanks (cement and oak vats) ranging from 2,000 to 5,000 litres enable him to ferment separately either top vineyards or village wines. He usually ferments his reds with stems and he always uses large barrels (300-500 litres) to age his wines.In Rioja Olivier sources his grapes from different areas; old Viura from Labastida for his complex, barrel fermented white El Bastid (formerly called Jequitibá, about €18 in Spain, 7,000 bottles) and a striking and profound wine called Mirando al Sur (only 600 bottles) which literally translates as “Looking South” given that it is aged in sherry butts.

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