2013 | Artadi | El Carretil

A wine with deep sensations: one can feel the vibrant fruit along with fibrous and sculpted tannins. A fusion between ripe flavor profiles and the precision of mineral characters, the projection of fine tannins and the encompassing texture of a delicate wine.

Reviews:

• Wine Advocate: A wine that always feels more marked by the oak, the 2013 El Carretil showed abundant roasted notes, hints of coffee and dark chocolate, with empyreumatic sensations. This wine always had a lower pH and higher acidity, which according to López de Lacalle might be the reason why the wine is consistently more marked by the oak; I don't quite understand this, because my experience is that usually wines with higher pH and lower acidity tend to show more the effect of the oak. This will certainly require some more time in bottle, especially for the toasty notes to get integrated, because the palate does not show oak tannins, but rather the chalky austere tannins from the rather austere soils (with some 17% active limestone when the average is about 12-13%), which are whiter and quite shallow. It's also true that the wine matured in new barriques. ("I hate used barrels," Juan Carlos López de Lacalle told me. "And the problem is that we still don't get the quality of oak we want in larger barrels...") This is the oakier of all ten wines I tasted from Artadi. Will it integrate with time? I hope so, because the quality of the wine is super.

Producer Information

Artadi is a well-regarded, high-profile wine producer based in the Rioja Alavesa town of Laguardia although famously having left the local Rioja wine body, it produces wines under the Vino de Mesa title. It makes a range of Rioja-style wines albeit with a subregional focus and is perhaps best-known for its single vineyard labels, all made from Tempranillo. The single vineyard labels include El Carretil, La Poza de Ballesteros, Quintanilla, San Lazaro and Valdeginés, as well as the flagship El Pison. The 2004 vintage of El Pison wine received 100 points from American wine critic Robert Parker. Other notable wines include the Pagos Viejos cuvée, the value-level Viñas de Gain and the entry-level Artadi Joven, produced from carbonically macerated Tempranillo and Viura. Artadi also makes a white Viñas de Gain from 100 percent Viura aged in oak as well as a sparkling Cava, also from local Viura. The producer began life in 1985 as a cooperative of 13 growers with well-situated vineyards around Laguardia. The vineyards and winery were purchased in 1992 by fourth-generation local winegrower Juan Carlos López de Lacalle and in the subsequent decades, the wines garnered much international critical and consumer appeal.

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