Jose Gil - La Canoca Rioja 2021

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Producer	Jose Gil
Country	Spain
Region	Rioja
Varietal	Tempranillo
Vintage	2021
Sku	12105213
Size	750ml

  

WA

96

CC

96

La Canoca is a tiny 0.5-hectare vineyard in the village of San Vicente. This 50-year-old parcel is planted with Tempranillo with a small percentage of Viura on silty clay and limestone soils. Half the harvest is included in José’s San Vicente village wine, while the remainder is bottled as a parcel wine.

Jose Gil grew up in San Vicente de la Sonsierra, where his family have been grape growers and winemakers for generations. His grandfather, father, and uncle own Bodegas Olmaza, a small 35-hectare estate famed for its vibrantly traditional “village” wine. Before modern or traditional Rioja, there was a simpler style of whole-cluster, co-fermented, and shortly-aged wines that were as naked and honest an expression of Rioja as one could find. So it should come as no surprise that when José Gil started his own project, he would follow in his ancestors’ footsteps and be more interested in the vineyard than the cellar.

Jose currently farms 5 hectares of vines located in the villages of San Vicente, Labastida, and Briones. Practices are manual and organic although he is not certified. The vines range in age from 5 to 130 years old with the majority Tempranillo, a small percentage of Viura. The oldest vineyard plots a co-planted with tiny percentages of other grape varieties which include Garnacha and Palomino. When the grapes reach the cellar after being harvested by hand, they are fermented either whole-cluster, or partially destemmed. All fermentations are by indigenous yeasts and extraction is gentle. After pressing the wines are racked into 225-300L French oak barrels and transported to the aging cellar in San Vicente.

The 2021 La Canoca is mostly Tempranillo with some white grapes and comes from the same plot in the hamlet of Peciña in the higher altitude part of San Vicente de la Sonsierra. The soils are rich in calcium carbonate and the altitude and exposure provide power and structure that give the wines aging potential. It fermented with some whole clusters, had a long and soft vinification and matured in oak foudres. It's ripe without excess at 14.2% alcohol. It is superb, all nuance and subtleness, complex and insinuating, with notions of something savory (broth?), violets, spices and herbs, with a seamless and precise palate, super fine tannins and a fine thread in the texture. Only 500 bottles were filled in September 2022.

Jose Gil doesn't stop. The two wines La Canoca and El Bardallo moved from single-vineyard wines to paraje, or lieu-dit, wines in the 2022 vintage, which increases the number of bottles to about 3,200 bottles each. There's a new white, which will be released after several years of fine-tuning the style they are looking for. There are new plots from La Canoca in 2023, places that he described as "incredible locations and soil qualities." In 2024, he and his wife leased with the option to purchase 4.5 hectares of very old vineyards (80 and 120 years old) in different locations and soils in Labastida, including one hectare of white planted with different varieties. I tasted the 2021 and 2022 versions of the five reds they produce. The 2021s are superb, but the 2022s, a little juicier and more primary, are not far behind.

There are currently 11 hectares of vineyards, owned and rented. They use 500- and 600-liter barrels that age in underground cellars under the San Vicente de la Sonsierra Castle and have a production of 26,000 bottles. This is one of the most exciting young projects in Rioja.

Published: Feb 29, 2024