La Pequeñita Malvasía Tinajas 2018

The macerated white 2018 La Pequeñíta Blanco Macerado Malvasía Riojana comes from a range that wants to showcase the small plots ("pequeñita" means "tiny") that were traditionally lost in big cuvées. In 2018, there is also a 100% Maturana Blanca version from young vines, but this one was produced, like in previous vintages, with Malvasía Riojana (Alarije) from 80+-year-old vines from their La Cala estate vineyard in the village of Villalba de Rioja at 640 meters in altitude, where they white varieties are interplanted with the reds. It had a slow fermentation with the skins and natural yeasts in an old clay pot (tinaja) and a long maceration of up to four months. The wine was transferred to used 228- and 500-liter oak barrels, where it matured and decanted naturally for seven months. The wine has a bright golden color and an ever-changing nose, starting with some creaminess, moving to some more tropical aromas and finishing with notes of yellow fruit and dry flowers. I must say it's quite unusual for Rioja, textured and nuanced, quite seamless and velvety. The wine is quite precise, clean and harmonious, and it didn't have any added sulfur. Impressive. Only 934 bottles were filled in August 2019.