Contino Garnacha 2021
Fragrant and distinguished Garnacha from Rioja
Contino, the château of CVNE in Rioja Alavesa, presents us with Contino Garnacha 2021, a complex and exquisitely elegant single-varietal wine meticulously crafted by Jorge Navascués.
Consumption features
Serving temperature
General features
Type of wine
Region
Grape variety
100% Garnacha tinta
Type of barrel
French oak barrels and Stockinger fudres
Type of bottle
Burgundy Bottle
Barrel aging time
10 months
Capacity (cl)
75
Alcohol content (% vol.)
14
General Information
Viñedos del Contino is the château of CVNE and a pioneer of its time. A house equipped with 16th-century cellars, which preserve the wines in the best conditions of temperature and humidity, and surrounded by its own vineyard, the sole source used by the winery for wine production.
From there, we bring you Contino Garnacha 2019, a wine with a bold personality that underscores the most modern side of the CVNE group. The grapes used in its production come from the Pajera estate, with calcareous soil; Central, with alluvial and sandy soil; and Lentisco, with stony composition. After manual harvesting, with selection in the field and on sorting tables upon arrival at the winery, the grapes are placed in a wooden vat, where a pre-fermentation maceration takes place until fermentation begins spontaneously. After eight days, fermentation is complete, but the garnacha remains in the vat until, 15 days later, it is transferred to a 2000-liter Stockinger foudre and 500-liter oak barrels, where the wine ages for 10 months. Five additional months of resting in a concrete tank will refine this fragrant and mineral wine with silky tannins and excellent acidity. A red wine from the D.O. Ca. Rioja, supremely elegant and captivating, positioned among the elite of single-varietal garnachas from the Iberian Peninsula.
Tasting notes
On the nose, Contino Garnacha is elegant, complex, and fragrant. Very fruity, with delicate notes of scrubland, lilac candy, and balsamic herbs.
On the palate, it is broad, with a mineral and slightly saline character. It displays great balance between acidity, body, and alcohol, with high-quality tannins that coat the palate in a very elegant way. Long-lasting finish.
The winery
Viñedos del Contino is the 'boutique' project of CVNE, a centenary firm from Haro that aimed to establish a small winery in the Rioja Alavesa subzone to create wines with their own personality. They found the perfect location at the San Rafael estate (Laserna, in the municipality of Laguardia), with very old vineyards and bordered by the Ebro River; and around this estate, the project began in 1973.
Contino is considered ahead of its time: it was one of the first 'châteaux' in Rioja, with facilities and vineyard on a single property, in a special area with a microclimate. It was also a pioneer in producing estate wines with a modern approach, featuring more intensity and new oak: the cornerstone of what would later be called 'alta expresión' (high expression).
It started with 35 hectares of vineyard, which have expanded to the current 62. The vineyards grow around the winery, located in an old manor house with 16th-century cellars that preserve the wines in optimal temperature and humidity conditions. Its wines are made exclusively with its own vineyards, and it boasts one of the best tempranillo vineyards in Rioja. Contino initially focused solely on red wines but later expanded its portfolio to include white wines. It has viura and malvasía vineyards that are 80 years old, to which it later added plantings of garnacha blanca. Its barrel-aged white wine is among the best in Spain.