2021 LAN Rioja Crianza

The 2021 LAN Rioja Crianza is one of our goto red wines in the summertime. Not only does it pair well with summertime dishes, but it is very affordable.
On this night, we paired this Rioja Crianza with deboned, chicken thighs marinated in teriyaki and grilled. The side dish was a typical Hawaiian noodle dish that was elevated by the Haleiwa Sun Noodle Company mein that our daughter sent us.
The Bodegas LAN was founded in 1974 and the name is taken from the initials of the three provinces of Lagrono, Allava, and Navarra that lie in the heart of the Rioja Alta.¹ This wine is made from 94% Tempranillo and 6% Mazuelo.
María Barua has been the head winemaker and technical director since 2002. Fermentation takes place in stainless steel tanks, 15 days maceration, with continuous pumping-over to optimize color extraction. It is then aged for 14 months in hybrid oak barrels, followed by 9 months bottle ageing.
The wine was very pleasant with bright red fruit notes of strawberries and raspberries with a soft tannin finish that paired very well with the teriyaki chicken and noodles.

References:
1. LAN Rioja.

Vintage 2025: July Weather

We have had a very wet spring, you know the old saying, "April showers bring May flowers", well this year, April showers brought May showers, June showers and now July showers! A farmer's best friend is the weather app and here is what it showed for the previous week from July 7-14 and for this week, July 14-21. Rain! Rain! Rain!

Rain brings a number of things in the vineyard such as out-of-control growth, weeds, and most of all mildew. Our friends and our granddaughter have been coming to the vineyard at 6 a.m. to help with the July duties which include shoot tucking, lateral shoot removal and hedging. Some parts of our vineyard looks like this, where a lot of work has already been done:

But some parts of the vineyard looks like this where a lot of work still needs to be done.

This is the state of the vineyard in July!

2019 Santenay Antoine Olivier Les Coteaux sous la Roche

July is hot, humid and rainy! No one in this family feels like cooking in this kind of weather, but we can still drink. A few evenings ago, we had this Antoine Olivier, 2019 Santenay Les Coteaux sous la Roche. It is a Chardonnay. We paired it with toast points with olive tenpanade and eggplant spread from Mount Vikos. We also had Saint Andre cheese. The spreads and cheese went very well with the Chardonnay which was medium body, with a slightly reductive nose which blew off upon swirling. The wine tasted like lemon drop candy with a lively acidic finish.
The Product Information Sheet for this wine that I found online mentioned the following:
The grapes come from a single vineyard ‘Coteaux Sous la Roche’, which translates as ‘under the rocks’. For the winemaking process, the grapes were gently pressed and then racked to barrel where fermentation took place using natural yeasts. The wine was kept on its fine lees and underwent bâtonnage to impart texture and complexity to the wine. Malolactic conversion took place in barrel. The wine was 100% barrel aged for 12 months, in traditional Burgundian barrels of 228 litre barrels, of which 25% were new oak. The wine was then transferred to tank where it spent a further six months, prior to being lightly fined, filtered and estate bottled.

Vintage 2025: It's July!

Time marches on. It's July! We have fruiset in the vineyard. Somehow between the extreme heat and the rains the vines managed to set their fruit. We were working between the Cabernet Franc and the Barbera and this is what fruitset there looks like:

After a hot and humid day in the vineyard, it is raining again tonight!