Bodegas Artuke El Escolladero 2018.

The 2018 El Escolladero is a single-vineyard bottling from a plot in the village of Ábalos. It's a blend of 85% Tempranillo and 15% Graciano from vines planted in 1950 on classical clay and limestone soils at 600 meters in altitude. The uncrushed grapes fermented in concrete vats with indigenous yeasts, and the wine had an élevage of one year in 600-liter oak barrels. This is a little riper, earthier, perhaps a little more rustic than the La Condenada or Paso las Mañanas. This is a lot more open, expressive and aromatically advanced and a little rounder and softer. From the 2018s, the Locos and Escolladero are more Mediterranean, and the Mañas and Condenada feel more Atlantic (cooler climate). The tannins are silky and polished, fine-grained and round within that chalky texture. 1,200 bottles were filled in January 2020.

The Artuke family doesn't stop. They don't stop looking for ways to improve their vineyards and wines, and they have also recently purchased a further 3.2 hectares in the villages of Samaniego and Villabuena de Rioja. They now work a total of 28.9 hectares in Baños de Ebro, Ábalos, San Vicente de la Sonsierra, Samaniego and Villabuena, all head-pruned traditional varieties, mostly Tempranillo but also some 15% Graciano and 3% Viura. The average age of their vines is around 30 to 40 years, and their total production is 150,000 bottles.

I tasted mostly 2018s, a "generous crop if it wasn't for mildew from a somehow challenging year that was cooler, and the ripening cycle of the grapes was longer. We started harvesting the 2nd of October and finished the 29th, so we had time to pick at a relaxed pace with cool temperatures and almost no rain." Two wines stand out in 2018, Paso Las Mañas and La Condenada, especially this last one. Their eponymous red is already from 2019, "a fruit-driven vintage with good ripeness and a harvest that started the 23rd of September."

I talked to Arturo de Miguel 20 minutes after they entered the last grapes from the 2020 harvest in their winery, and he was really happy with the quality and health of the grapes. They lost maybe 25% of the crop to mildew in June, as they work organically in the vineyards, but the grapes they picked were great and they kept the acidity. They will make a white for the first time, as they bought three hectares of vines that have quite a lot of Viura - Luis Gutiérrez, The Wine Advocate Oct 31, 2020.