Proprietary Blends
| La Rioja
José Gil is a rising star of a new generation of Rioja grower-producers focused on single-site, organically farmed wines. This village red is mostly old-vine Tempranillo with Garnacha and a splash of Viura, fermented with whole clusters and aged in a mix of concrete and old French oak for a Rioja-meets-Burgundy feel. Expect bright red cherry and raspberry with florals, freshness, and a savory streak.
About The Producer
Third-generation winemaker and native of San Vicente de la Sonsierra, José Gil is one of the most exciting voices in a new wave of Rioja growers rethinking the region from the vineyard up. His family owns Bodegas Olmaza, a respected 35-hectare estate in the village, and it was among those old family parcels that José first developed his instinct for what these ancient, high-altitude sites could express when handled with care. After studying oenology in Logroño, he spent two formative years in Burgundy and one in the Mosel before returning home and launching his own project in 2011, starting with just two hectares of vines that had grown too small and steep for the family operation to manage. Today he and his wife Vicky farm eight hectares organically, scattered across tiny parcels of 80 to 130-year-old bush vines in San Vicente and the neighboring village of Labastida, reaching elevations of up to 700 meters. The approach in the cellar is as spare as the vineyards demand: whole-cluster and destemmed co-fermentations, indigenous yeasts, aging in concrete and neutral 500-liter casks, no new oak. Tim Atkin named him Young Winemaker of the Year in 2021, and Luis Gutiérrez has called him one of the names to follow in the zone. The wines, built on Tempranillo interplanted with Garnacha and small amounts of white varieties, read like village Burgundy in their precision and sense of place — which is, of course, exactly the point.
