This has its positive side – for example, in a tricky vintage where colder, wetter weather has stopped the grapes from ripening properly in Rioja Alta, it can be useful to add in riper fruit from the warmer, more Mediterranean Rioja Oriental zone.īut things are starting to change. One consequence of this is that traditionally, winemaking in Rioja has put a big focus on blending – mixing together grapes grown in different zones of the region to achieve balanced wines. Both large producers and the cooperatives transform grapes into wine, bottle and sell it, and at the same time hold a lot of power in the so-called Consejo Regulador or governing body which decides the rules Rioja’s growers and wineries have to play by. Rioja has lots of growers – about 14,800 farmers who grow grapes which they then sell on to about 574 actual wineries which transform the grapes into wine, bottle it and sell it. This structure means that growers tend to have supply contracts with the larger producers or are members of the various large cooperatives. For example, if you go to a wine fair, you’ll often find a stand just for wines from the Rioja Alavesa – this is because the Basque government financing the stand is happy to support its native Basque producers, but is not prepared to do the same for Rioja producers from further down the road whose winery might be in La Rioja itself or even Navarra!īut there are other reasons too why Rioja’s wine sector is different to the rest of Spain. Most of it is in the Spanish province of La Rioja, but it also strays into other provinces like Navarra to the north-east flank, the Basque province of Álava to the North – hence Rioja Alavesa - and even a tiny bit of Burgos. That’s partly because in political terms the wine region of Rioja covers quite a broad area. While from a winemaker’s perspective, there are important differences between the three zones, unlike lots of other well-known wine regions, the reasons behind Rioja’s internal divisions have perhaps more to do with politics than geology or soil type.
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