Telmo Rodriguez is one of the most outstanding names in our Spanish selection. Along with Peter Sisseck and Alvaro Palacios, he is one of the leading figures of his place of growth (Rioja), and also the biggest pioneer of vineyard-based classification. He has travelled intensively throughout Spain, and in the last 30 years, he has worked on 355 different parcels, with a total of 80 hectares of grapes and 43 old local varieties. Among the several wine regions, the centre has always been Rioja, where he returned to in 1998, to search for old parcels, trying to figure out what Rioja wine used to be like before the Bordeaux merchants arrived in the wine region.

The northern sub-region of Rioja is Rioja Alavesa, and Telmo's estate here is called Bodega Lanzaga, where very limited quantities of parcel-selected wines are made. From a total of four vineyards in two villages, the wines are prepared in the traditional style: organic viticulture, spontaneous fermentation in open wooden vats, ageing in used barrels. The wines are real rarities, with only a few barrels being made and 1,500-2,000 bottles of each. This year, we’ve brought in some of them for the first time. The most popular of all is Las Beatas

The village of Labastida is the birthplace of Rioja wine. Rioja's first well-known winemaker, Manuel Quintano, was born here in 1756, and it can be traced back 1,300 years that this village has always had wine culture. Tabuérniga, one of Telmo’s most important vineyards, is a 2.7-hectare, terraced vineyard that he had longed for since 1980, and which had been cultivated by its previous owner for 50 years. It’s an exceptional location in a steep valley, with mixed vines of old varieties planted on the limestone terraces, alongside fig and peach trees. It’s rich, detailed and aromatic.