Granja Nuestra Señora de Remelluri

Parcel work below the Sierra de Toloño

The bunches for Granja Remelluri were selected vine by vine in October; Telmo Rodríguez, winemaker at Granja Nuestra Señora de Remelluri in Labastida, keeps that estate discipline close to the wine. His role here sits inside a family property restored in 1967 by Jaime Rodríguez Solís, after centuries of monastic agriculture and later decline. Rodríguez became co-leader at Remelluri in 2009, bringing the same argument he has made across Spain since the 1990s: wine should carry origin, local material, and precedent before it carries a cellar signature.

At this house, that conviction has unusually old ground beneath it. The name Remelluri is tied to Erramel Uri, and the property’s long story runs through the Monastery of Toloño, a medieval necropolis, and a preserved wine press. The modern estate also holds a place in Rioja’s recent history through the release of the 1971 vintage, presented as the first modern single-estate Rioja. Rodríguez’s work does not need to turn that history into theatre. The method is steadier: estate fruit, mountain exposure, indigenous varieties, and a refusal to smooth Rioja Alavesa into a general regional taste.

More than 150 plots, kept separate

The vineyards climb the slopes of the Sierra de Toloño above Labastida, in the valleys of Valderemelluri, La Granja, and Villaescusa. Plantings sit between 590 and 805 meters, with terraced amphitheaters facing south and limestone, calcareous clay, and exposed bedrock under the vines. Remelluri works more than 150 individual plots and vinifies them separately, a choice that turns the estate from a single address into a set of small decisions.

The farming is certified organic, with biodynamic treatments, regenerative practice, and agroforestry folded into the vineyard system. Vines planted from 1918 onward average over 70 years old. For the 2015 Granja Remelluri Rioja Gran Reserva, the fruit came from sites including Doroño, Villaescusa, San Esteban, Cascajo, and Portillo, at 680 to 780 meters. The blend was 40% Tempranillo, 40% Garnacha, 15% Graciano, and 5% other indigenous grapes, with a stated yield of 27 hl/ha. In the cellar, indigenous yeasts fermented the must in old open-top foudres. The wine then spent 30 months in French oak barrels of 225L, 400L, and 500L, alongside foudres from 1,200 to 2,000L, before bottling without fining or filtration on May 17, 2018.

A cellar held inside a monastery farm

The room at Remelluri is quiet in the way working cellars can be quiet, with movement absorbed by stone, barrel, and hillside. The tasting rooms and group dining spaces sit within a restored monastery farm rather than beside it, so the visitor does not step out of production and into scenery. The necropolis, museum, old press, cellar, and vineyard terraces make one continuous place.

Outside, the estate reads as mountain Rioja before it reads as architecture. The Sierra de Toloño rises behind the terraces; below it, the vines hold their lines along the slope. Inside, the cellar carries the slower part of the method. The 2015 Granja Remelluri remained there until August 2024 before release, a final interval that belongs as much to the house as the foudres, the limestone, and Doroño.