El Coto de Rioja

El Coto de Rioja brought in its first harvest in 1970. In 1976 it opened its winery in Oyón, in Rioja Alavesa, and Oyón is still home. Today it is part of Grupo Barón de Ley, together with the Barón de Ley winery in Rioja and Finca Museum in Cigales.

The house took its shape in 1979, when Eduardo Santos-Ruiz, whom El Coto calls the soul of the company, put the team together: Pedro Guasch as winemaker, Julián Díez on sales and Julio Noain on finance. The 1980s went into building a sales network across Spain. By 2000, by its own account, El Coto led the Spanish market in Crianza and Reserva. Liberty Wines, its UK importer, names César Fernández as the winemaker who oversees production today.

The house has always tried to own as much of its fruit as it can. It now holds more than 800 hectares in all three Rioja subzones, which makes it, by its own count, the largest vineyard owner in the DOCa, and it buys the rest from growers on long-term contracts. In Rioja Alavesa its vines in Elvillar, Yécora and Oyón are mostly old, in small plots sheltered by the Sierra de Cantabria. In Rioja Alta it farms around Cenicero, with vines over fifty years old. Finca Los Almendros, at 450 hectares, is in the house's words the largest single-estate vineyard in the denomination.

Then came the push into white wine. In 2010 El Coto planted Finca Carbonera, in Bergasa, with white varieties the Consejo Regulador had newly authorised. It built a winery only for whites at Oyón in 2014, and in 2017 a second one in the vineyard itself, so that the grapes can be pressed the moment they are picked. Those whites now include a varietal Verdejo, a Sauvignon Blanc under Coto Mayor and the 875m Chardonnay.

The cellar in Oyón is twelve small wineries, each for one step of the work. Fermentation runs in vats of 50,000 litres or less, and the reds age in oak barrels that the house says it renews every year. The range runs from El Coto Crianza through Coto Mayor and Coto Real up to Coto de Imaz Gran Reserva. A house that made its name on Crianza and Reserva red ended up planting what it calls the highest vineyard in Rioja, and planting it for white wine.