Abeica

Abeica has farmed vines in Ábalos for five generations. This three-hundred-inhabitant village in La Sonsierra sits beneath a mountain ridge that acts as a natural screen, with vineyards on clay-limestone soils between 450 and 590 metres. Julián Fernández bought the first plots for family use; today siblings Isabel, Ricardo, Pachi and Raúl lead the project. In the nineties the bodega grew by buying in grapes from neighbours — the four siblings chose to go back to working only with their own vines.

The oldest vines are over 135 years old. Viticulture is organic in practice, uncertified — they call it living viticulture: whole-family manual harvest, no tractor (steep slopes are worked with a mechanical mule), low yields and parcel-by-parcel selection. Varieties are Rioja's own: Tempranillo, Garnacha, Mazuelo for reds and Viura, Garnacha blanca and Torrontés for whites. Each vineyard has its own name: Carronillo, Larrumbe, El Bardallo, Abaris. The Mazuelo de Larrumbe grows at 590 metres and yields barely 1,500 bottles; Abaris is old-vine Viura fermented in French oak.

Winemaking blends the carbonic maceration of Rioja tradition with whole-cluster fermentation and cold pre-fermentation. The wines have a clear sense of variety and of place — the kind that only comes from old vines in land you own.