Why it matters
The producer
Bodegas Valdelacierva was founded in 1988 in Navarrete, a small market town on the Burgos road ten kilometres west of Logroño, in Rioja Alta. What the founders inherited was not just real estate but a scattered patchwork of old parcels across six municipalities: Briones, San Asensio, Baños de Ebro, Yécora in Rioja Alavesa, Navarrete itself, and Fuenmayor. The estate now farms 80 hectares of premium vineyard. The oldest vines on those plots are 130 years old. Nobody in 1988 planted a 130-year-old vine.
The Hispano Bodegas group owns the winery today, and technical direction sits with Emma Villajos Barja. The winemaking position is distinctive in Rioja: the house pursues both classic Crianza and Reserva-tier wines and a growing portfolio of individually registered single-vineyard parcels under the DOCa Rioja's Viñedo Singular scheme. Valdelacierva now holds one of the highest counts of Viñedo Singular registrations of any winery in the appellation. That is a producer choosing to be judged plot by plot rather than tier by tier.
Place and vineyards
Where the wines begin
Navarrete sits in the geographic heart of Rioja Alta, the cooler, higher western sub-zone of the Rioja DOCa that runs from Logroño toward the mountains of the Sierra de la Demanda. The Burgos road out of Logroño rises slightly as it leaves the Ebro plain, and Navarrete sits on that low rise, exposed to Atlantic weather patterns that temper the otherwise warm, continental Riojan summer. Altitude, Atlantic influence, and clay-calcareous soils combine to hold freshness in the fruit through harvest.
The dominant soil across the Navarrete home parcels is clay-calcareous: a mix of compressed limestone and clay that retains moisture through dry summer periods and keeps vine stress moderate enough to preserve aromatic freshness. The producer attributes the wines' aromatic delicacy and smooth palate weight directly to this soil type.
In the cellar
Vineyards and cellar
The vineyard parcels are small and numerous, more than 200 individual plots spread across six municipalities. Vine age ranges from 25 to 130 years. Old vines produce less fruit per plant and concentrate flavour and tannin in smaller berries, which is why vine age is a formal criterion for Viñedo Singular status. Farming these fragmented, widely scattered plots requires more management effort than working a single contiguous block, but it gives the winemaking team access to fruit from multiple soil types, exposures, and ripening schedules.
Wines to know
The range in view
The Valdelacierva range is built around three distinct layers. The Crianza is the foundation tier: a Tempranillo wine in cherry-violet, almost violet colour, with a nose of fresh red and blue fruit, strawberry, and plum. The palate is fruit-led, with soft rounded tannins and the easy balance the producer deliberately sets as the modern Rioja register. American oak vanilla sits in the background without dominating the fruit.
The Garnacha is the range's second grape story. Grown on rocky alluvial canto rodado soils, it opens with an intense nose of red and black fruit that carries a sharp, acidic edge alongside balsamic notes and a cocoa undercurrent. On the palate it is fuller and more persistent than the Crianza, with weight and length that come from the soil as much as the cellar.
A useful way in
A bottle to begin with
Valdelacierva Crianza is the first bottle. It is a Tempranillo wine from 80 hectares of old-vine parcels in Rioja Alta, aged in American and French oak at Crianza minimum. Cherry-violet in the glass, fresh red and blue fruit on the nose, soft rounded tannins on the palate: the wine is the clearest statement of the house's fruit-forward, modern-within-tradition Rioja style. The American oak adds vanilla and texture without burying the Tempranillo fruit underneath it. Buy it to understand where the winery stands before moving to the single-vineyard range.