Rioja La Insula

Spain
Rioja
2022

The third vintage of this particular cuvee. 100% Garnacha from La Insula, a tiny plot of ungrafted vines on a sand bank beside the River Ebro. Hand harvested, fermented with 25% whole clusters and indigenous yeasts. The wine was racked into a 500-litre oak barrels and aged for 14 months. Malolactic completed.

96 points
""Beach sand" is how Miguel Merino describes the 120-year-old source of this remarkable Garnacha, located next to the Ebro River in Briones. Aromas of ginger, clove and rose petal lead you into a palate that's elegant, refined and subtly wooded, all pomegranate and wild strawberry and graceful tannins. A vineyard that coped with the heat of 2022. 2025-34"
Tim Atkin,
Tim Atkin
Special Rioja Report 2025
94 points
"The 2022 La Ínsula Garnacha was the palest of the reds in this tasting and the more aromatic and floral, true to the variety, developing some notes reminiscent of cereals with time in the glass. It was sourced from a small ungrafted vineyard registered in 1912 (but probably older) that provides depth, clout and elegance to the wines, perhaps because of the sandy soils. It achieved good ripeness in this warm and dry vintage that was more apt for the Mediterranean grapes, while keeping a low pH of 3.2, denoting freshness. It has very fine, elegant tannins, softer than the majority of 2022s. It fermented with 25% full clusters and indigenous yeasts in a plastic bin and matured in a large Austrian oak cask for one year. Only 730 bottles produced. It was bottled in April 2024."
Luis Gutiérrez,
Wine Advocate

SKU/Code: 
DB4840-22
Product Line: 
Wine
Red
Varietal: 
Garnacha