Alegre Valagñón, a new wave Rioja star
Website: https://alegrevalganon.com/
Very impressed by these wines from Alegre Valagñón. Husband and wife team Oscar Alegre and Eva Valagñón started their winery in 2014. They were previously agricultural engineers and met in Italy when they were studying winemaking.
They are based west of Haro, close to the Obarenes Mountains, where vineyards produce grapes with freshness. They own some vineyards but also buy from. Their approach is based on the vineyard, they use some stems in fermentation and mature their wines in neutral oak.
This project gets to the very heart of the Rioja region, and the way that wines used to be made before phylloxera brought the Bordelais and their small oak barrels and factory wineries here in the 19th century. It’s exciting to taste wines like these.
THE WINES
Alegre Valagñón Blanco 2021 Rioja, Spain
25% skin ferment. Fresh and linear with nice presence and bright fruit. Bold citrus and pear fruit with good acidity, and a touch of structure. 92/100
Alegre Valagñón Blanco 2017 Rioja, Spain
Textural and fine with nice depth and sweet pear and apple fruit, as well as some bright citrus. Lovely fruit with some fine stony notes. 93/100
Alegre Valagñón Las Llanas Blanco 2021 Rioja, Spain
100% skin ferment. Lovely fruit with pear and peach as well as some stony character. Textured with nice brightness, and has a bit of structure. Very expressive. 94/100
Alegre Valagñón Tinto 2020 Rioja, Spain
Juicy, lively and bright with lovely focused cherry and raspberry fruit, as well as a touch of meat and spice, with some grippy structure. Modern-styled Rioja with fruit to the fore but also good structure. 94/100
Alegre Valagñón Carra Sto Domingo 2021 Rioja, Spain
14.5% alcohol. Just 950 bottles made of this. Elegant and so refined but has some power, with sweet red cherries and redcurrants. Juicy and lively with a gravelly spicy edge, good structure and well integrated tannins. Lovely weight with hints of sappy geen and silky cherry fruit. 95/100
Alegre Valagñón Garnacha 2021 Rioja, Spain
Half whole bunch. Supple and fresh with lovely grip to the cherry and raspberry fruit. Has some spicy detail with nice grippy structure. Focused and vivid with good weight. 94/100
Alegre Valagñón Calleja 2021 Rioja, Spain
Floral and exotic with fresh red fruit aromatics. Really lovely aromatics! The palate is focused and grippy with nice density but also bright cherry and red berry fruits. Supple, fine and quite exotic. 95/100
UK agent: Armit
