2016 La Mateo
Rioja, Spain
Regular Price $12.99
Sale Price $9.99
The challenge in making a good, cheap wine is that nearly every step that you undertake to make a better wine is antithetical to making a cheap wine.
First of all, to make a cheap wine, you need cheap grapes. So, you can’t grow or buy grapes from the best locations as those grapes are too expensive. Older vines produce more concentrated (better) fruit, but at much lower yields, so you need younger, more prolific vines to keep costs down. Dry farming also produces better quality fruit, but, again, yields are lower, so you need to irrigate to get high yields of less quality fruit. Pruning aggressively can benefit the quality of the fruit, but that’s labor intensive and yield reducing. Can’t do that and keep it cheap. You can’t ferment slowly and macerate for a long period of time because time is, quite literally, money. You can’t age the wine in new barrels (very costly!) nor age it in any vessel for any considerable length of time.
So, in order to make an lower priced wine, you need a source of plentiful, inexpensive fruit that you can turn into wine quickly and rush to market. It’s no wonder that the resulting wine is often dull, at least. (There actually is a wine that follows that recipe…it’s called rosé.)
This wine, however, follows the expensive wine recipe. Old (45 yrs), low yielding, non-irrigated vines, hand-picked, fermented slowly then aged for 6 months in 2 year old barrels. The wine is rich, balanced and well-made. It starts off a bit reticent but gains weight and aromatics in the glass. Half way through the bottle, you’ll find yourself amazed at how good this wine is. The winery really should not be able to sell this wine this cheaply and stay in business.