875m Chardonnay Fermentado en Barrica

875m is El Coto de Rioja's high-altitude line, named for Finca Carbonera, the estate in Bergasa that the house calls the highest vineyard in the Rioja DOCa. Finca Carbonera began as a white-wine project. After years of searching for the right climate and soil, El Coto planted it in 2010 with the white varieties the Consejo Regulador had newly authorised: Chardonnay, Sauvignon Blanc and Verdejo. That is how a Chardonnay comes to carry the Rioja name. A Tempranillo from the estate now completes the 875m line.

The 875 on the label is, in El Coto's words, the height at which this wine's vines are planted, and both the house's vineyard page and Liberty Wines, the UK importer, give Finca Carbonera that figure. Other El Coto pages put the estate's average height lower, at 800, 825, 840 or 850 metres. Liberty describes the vineyard as a glacis, a sloping bank below an old fortress, with stony, well-drained topsoil and wide swings between day and night temperatures that let the grapes ripen slowly and hold their acidity.

Since 2017 a winery has stood in the vineyard itself. The grapes are pressed there straight after picking, and the must, not the fruit, makes the journey to the house's cellars, which spares it the oxidation that a hot journey would bring.

For the 2024, Liberty Wines reports that the grapes were destemmed, given a cold maceration and pressed gently. Fermentation ran for 30 days at 16 degrees in new, untoasted French barriques. El Coto says the barrels are chosen to respect the fruit of the variety while adding weight and texture. The wine then stayed on its lees, with stirring, and spent about two months in oak before bottling.

The same importer describes 2024 in Rioja as a return to cooler, damper weather after several very hot years. It puts the crop about 30 per cent below 2023, and notes that heavy September rain made growers pick early to stay ahead of rot.