01. Because the world made us this way, originating from different parts of the globe, with family genes and origins from other parts of the globe, so that our surnames are unusual in the land of Rioja. 02. Because despite this unusualness of our surnames in Rioja, we decided that the project should be named after […]
January 2021 was colder and wetter than usual. According to the website www.meteosojuela.es, the thermal anomaly was minus 0,3º and the water anomaly was 166%. It started with the Filomena squall that brought very low temperatures and snow during the first and second week. After the passage of this now legendary squall, we had eight […]
Panoramic view of the Ebro as it passes through El Cortijo, a district of Logroño. If you look (very) closely, you will see that it has just passed under the two surviving arches of the Roman bridge of Mantible. To the north, the meander encircles the well-known Finca de San Rafael, that reddish clay-ferrous plain, […]
We have chosen the mountains as the image of our winery. The mountains convey ideas of ascent, verticality and solidity; of mass. Besides, those chosen also express our idea of diversity, biodiversity, which we understand to be a tradition in Rioja. At the base is Table Mountain. It is the base not so much […]
In our previous instalment of VINEYARDS AND WINES we talked about how diversity is the winemaking tradition of the land of the Rioja. To explain this, we relied on the book by Pedro Balda and Fernando Martínez entitled “Minority Vine Varieties in La Rioja”. Now we are taking the next step and aim to explain […]
When we tried to define our project with a perfect phrase, the following one appeared to be most inspirational: “Rioja, tradition is diversity”. Perhaps the inspiration was not so much so, but rather a reflex action of self-protection: can there be anything more diverse than a South African winemaker making Rioja wine? However, we do […]
When we talk about Rioja wine, we have a problem with location, because we think at first that it is wine produced in La Rioja, as a region or community, which is not exact. Specifically, we must refer to wine produced in the area defined as the Rioja Qualified Designation of Origin (DOC Rioja), produced […]
The D.O.Ca Rioja is one of the most important wine regions in the world. As a D.O. it was established in Spain in 1925, and was awarded the category of “Calificada” (qualified) – the only one to date – in 1991. The D.O.Ca Rioja is a great valley that occupies about 150 square kilometres […]
My earliest childhood memories are of running barefoot in a village in the Swartland region of South Africa – about fifty kilometres north of Cape Town. Because, if you look closely, it all goes back many years, almost as far as my years. My earliest childhood memories are of running barefoot in a […]
