We ask because we have to. Legal drinking age differs by market — 18 in the EU, 21 in the US. Nothing on this site is for anyone younger.
Rioja · SpainA diary, not a press release
Every entry belongs to a vintage, not to a calendar. A 2025 wine keeps collecting news long after the year ended — bottling, labels, whatever it does next. I write it while it happens.
Vintage
2026
Not named yet
Planned 3,000 kg
2,000 red · 1,000 white
2× vintage 2025
Walked the rows this morning. Skins are ahead of the seeds and I keep tasting to decide whether to wait. Last year the fruit came in short on acid and I corrected it in the cellar; this time I'd rather pick a few days early and not have to.
In 2025 I borrowed everything — space, press, barrels, patience. This year I bought my own barrels before I bought a single kilo of fruit, which is the first decision I've made here in the right order.
2,000 kg of red and 1,000 of white — double the 2025 buy, and the first number here I chose in advance instead of discovering. Whether that was brave or stupid is a 2027 question.
Vintage
2025
Bottled · in the world
What if yes? Blanco
What if yes? Tinto
1,500 kg · 4 barrels
Borrowed cellar · not planned
What if yes? Blanco and What if yes? Tinto. It isn't a slogan, it's what the open barrel asked me in November — and the label prints it in letters cut from a potato, so the mark is a real press, not a drawing.
Two barrels of white, two of red, bottled by hand over one long day. About thirty labels went on crooked. Those are the ones I kept.
Malolactic pushed the bung out of one red barrel and it stood open for two days before anyone noticed. I was fairly sure it was oxidised and gone. We took it to the end anyway and it came out better than the barrels that behaved. I still don't have a tidy explanation.
I came as a volunteer, not a producer. A conversation with a colleague turned into 1,500 kilos of Viura and Tempranillo and no winery to put them in. Everything after that was improvised in someone else's cellar.
Next entry when there's something to say