Remelluri is one of the most timeless and iconic landscapes of the wine world, as well as one of the most enchanting vineyards in Spain. Firmly anchored in its deep history, which dates back to the tenth century when Count Erramel, a Basque warrior and aristocrat from Álava, founded a small village on the site (uri in Basque); hence the name Erramel Uri evolved to Remelluri. The first wines were made here in the fourteenth century, when Hieronymite monks tended the monastery atop the nearby Sierra de Toloño mountains and founded a sanctuary and farm on the site. Today, Remelluri leverages its rich past to illuminate the path forward for not only the future of Rioja but also for world-class, terroir-based fine wines across Spain. 

Remelluri became the first single-estate/monopole Rioja of the modern era with its release of the 1971 vintage. Remelluri is currently owned and tended by the Spanish winemaking icon Telmo Rodríguez and his family, with Telmo’s creative partner Pablo Eguzkiza heading up the winemaking team. 

Remelluri’s vineyards are located contiguously along the slopes of the Sierra de Toloño mountains, part of the Sierra de Cantabria chain, in the valleys of Valderemelluri, La Granja, and Villaescusa, just above the village of Labastida in Rioja Alavesa. The Remelluri vineyards are at the highest elevation in the Rioja region, with south-facing vines planted between 590 and 805m, protected from the prevailing northern winds and frost. The Remelluri landscape is an integrated system of agriculture with great respect for the environment, which includes certified-organic farming with biodynamic treatments, as well as regenerative and agroforestry elements employed throughout the property to encourage biodiversity and harmony between the vineyard, mountainside, and human elements. 

The estate consists of over a hundred and fifty individual plots, all of which are vinified separately. One of the keys to the location’s significance is that the vines are planted in terraced amphitheaters following the contours of the mountainside, which shelters them from the harsh weather on the leeward side. Remelluri is pure mountain Rioja.

Remelluri Blanco has been the passion project of Telmo Rodríguez since his early days as a winemaker, becoming one of the most coveted and sought-after wines in all of Spain. The story goes that, in the early 1990s, Telmo’s father Jaime would never let him experiment with the red wines of Remelluri because the risk of failure was too great to make substantial changes. Instead, Telmo was given free rein to create a white expression of the Remelluri farm. He was inspired by his time spent learning winemaking in France with Gérard Chave in Hermitage, Clape in Cornas, and Château de Beaucastel in the southern Rhône. There, Telmo learned to make what he refers to as “human-scale wines” that spoke of people and place—wines with soul. That was exactly the type of terroir-driven white wine he set out to make in Remelluri’s high-altitude vineyards on the mountainside, overlooking the Ebro river valley, Rioja sprawling out below in every direction.

The concept of Remelluri Blanco remains the obsolescence of grape variety through the co-planting of different vines, ensuring the wine speaks only of the terruño of the place rather than of any particular grape or process. With Remelluri Blanco, Telmo has achieved something truly unique and singular, with each vintage coveted by the same collectors who search out Chave’s Hermitage Blanc and Montrachet by Domaine Leflaive. 

Blanco is assembled from 8.66ha of single plots, yielding a paltry 12.2 hl/ha, planted from 605m to 805m: Doroño, Villaescusa, S.Esteban, Cerraja, Valderemelluri, San Cristóbal, Canales, Uzmendi, Transistor, Tabiques, and Cerraja. Farming is certified organic with biodynamic viticulture, and green harvesting by hand with different pruning systems depending on grape variety, altitude, orientation and plant density. Soil management utilizes green covers and horses.

Remelluri Blanco illuminates a path forward for world-class, place-based white Rioja wines capable of improving in bottle, defying the notion that only the red wines deserve the world’s attention or respect. As with all of the wines of Remelluri, the white wine handsomely repays extended cellar aging and patience, and is produced in very small quantities, offered only to the best clients of Remelluri.

Vintage – The 2021 vintage will be remembered as a particularly good one due to the perfect weather conditions that were experienced throughout the ripening period and harvest. Remelluri enjoyed a short, but cold winter, and a very dry summer with high temperatures which delayed the start of veraison. However, a year that looked like it was going to be later than usual became an early vintage, due to fortuitous storms at the start of September, which, in combination with health-giving winds, worked together to complete ripening early. Harvest for Remelluri Blanco started on the 24th of September, lasting until November 11th with a good quantity of grapes in excellent health. 2021 was an excellent Remelluri Blanco vintage, with ideal ripeness, an elegant, balanced palate and exceptional fruit clarity, which will improve in bottle for a decade or more.

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