“Viñedos del Contino estate embraces vineyards and wines, and is rooted in an ancestral home inside a bend in the Ebro river. Our wines are made exclusively from the stocks planted on its 62 hectares located in Laserna, near the town of Laguardia in the Rioja Alavesa wine making region.”
– Jorge Navascues, Head Winemaker at Contino
WINEMAKER NOTES
Wine produced from well-selected grapes, in perfect ripeness and manually harvested from our own vineyards around the plot Finca de San Rafael. Grapes, after destemmed, fermented in stainless steel tanks of 12,000 liters at 28-30ºC and after a post fermentative maceration of 15 to 20 days they made the malolactic fermentation. The wine was then placed in barrels already used (40% American oak and 60% French) where it will remain for two years, then, it will be bottled and will continue ageing for one more year in our cellars until it is released to the market.
It is a year with little rainfall during the whole vegetative cycle but well distributed in the critical phases of the crop with total rainfall of 368 l/m2 within the average of the last four years. Autumn and winter of mild temperatures, not very severe frost in January and February and warm Spring and Summer. The sprouting has been early, beginning on March 20th, flowering on May 29th, beginning of the set on June 3rd and veraison on July17th in the earliest and least productive plots of Tempranillo, San Gregorio Grande, Bartolo and Lentisco. A healthy harvest which starts on September 18th. 453,005 kilos of red grape and 12,850 kilos of white grape are made in Contino. Finishing right at the beginning of the autumn rains on October 14th with some botrytis foci in the last two days.
FLAVORS
TASTE PROFILE
ABOUT VINEDOS DEL CONTINO
The history of the house dates back to the 16th century and is reflected in the winery’s name. The officer in charge of the one hundred soldiers who watched over the royal family continuously (or ‘de continuo’ in Spanish), from the Catholic Monarchs era onwards, was known as the ‘contino’. Its rich history also tells how Saint Gregory (the patron saint of vineyards) once passed through this Riojan estate, which is why his figure appears on the winery’s logo, and some of the vineyard’s plots bear his name.
The 62 hectares of vineyards are divided into individual plots, all of which are harvested and cultivated separately. This allows for the best understanding of each plot and wines that reflect their own unique characteristics.