Bodegas Amaren

Amaren means "the mother's" in Basque. It began as a wine, not a winery: the Tempranillo of the 1995 harvest that Juan Luis Cañas dedicated to his mother, Ángeles, in Villabuena de Álava. Juan Luis had taken over the family winery, Luis Cañas, in 1989; his grandfather Carlos had started it selling wine in bulk and delivering it around the district by mule and cart.

Amaren first had its own facilities inside Luis Cañas, in Villabuena, and later a new winery in Samaniego, less than a kilometre away, at the foot of the Sierra de Cantabria. It works old vines, up to 110 years old, in Samaniego, Villabuena and Leza, on clay-limestone soils, and concentrates on single-varietal Tempranillo, Graciano, Viura and Malvasía within DOCa Rioja.

The white is 85% Viura from vines over sixty years old and 15% Malvasía Riojana from a century-old vineyard at 550 metres. It ferments in new French oak with native yeasts and spends ten months on its lees with weekly bâtonnage.