A precise, medium-bodied Spanish red wine from Rioja Alavesa, ready to drink now or set aside to age.
This is Tempranillo drawn from five different villages across Rioja Alavesa, blended into something fresh and fluid. A short, cool maceration and a gentle fermentation in concrete tanks keep the fruit lively, and eleven months in French oak rounds the edges without smothering it. The tannins are fine and well integrated rather than gripping, giving genuine purity and precision on the palate. It's balanced and easy to drink from the moment you open it, though the structure underneath means it will happily hold for a few years if you'd rather wait. A moderate growing season, with cool nights through the final stretch of ripening, kept the acidity honest and gave the wine real freshness.
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"This is the Rioja I reach for when someone wants something serious without having to wait ten years for it. Ukan Winemaker Koldo Eguren blended Tempranillo from five different villages in Rioja Alavesa for this one, all on clay-limestone soils, giving it an elegant structure, with tannins that are already beautifully integrated. Our team keeps reaching for this bottle, and once you've tried it, you'll understand why."
UKAN Winery is a young project in Rioja Alavesa, founded by Koldo Eguren, the fifth generation of one of the region's best-known winemaking families. He's applying generations of accumulated knowledge to a different approach: single-vineyard selection from key Cru villages, prioritising grape quality and detailed, hands-on winemaking over volume. The estate follows the Bordeaux model, with UKAN as the top wine and Senderos de UKAN as the second. We were introduced to UKAN through Jamie at fellow independent Old Chapel Cellars, who discovered the winery and first flagged it to us. We then invited UKAN's ambassador, Alejandro, over to show us the full range, and the partnership has grown from there, giving us the chance to bring you more of what UKAN does. Reserve Wines has a semi-direct, exclusive relationship with the winery.
This Spanish red wine has already picked up strong scores across the board: 93 points from Tim Atkin, 92 from Wine Advocate and 94 from Peñín. It's exactly the kind of Rioja our team reaches for again and again: precise, well balanced and drinking beautifully now, with enough structure to reward a few more years in the cellar if you're patient.
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