Lopez de Heredia Tondonia Reserva Red 2012

Don Rafael López de Heredia y Landeta arrived in Haro in 1877 — a young Chilean-educated student of viticulture and oenology who had come to Spain to learn the trade. He fell in love with the alluvial-and-limestone soils on a peninsula of the Ebro River near Haro and began designing what is now the López de Heredia bodega — the oldest in Haro, and one of the three founding bodegas of the modern Rioja designation. Don Rafael established the headline Viña Tondonia vineyard in 1913, on the same Ebro peninsula that drew him to the region.

The bodega has remained essentially unchanged across 140 years. The house works solely with natural yeasts, eschews filtration, ages its top wines in American oak for six to eight years (the Bosconia and Tondonia Gran Reserva can age in oak for over a decade), and even makes its own barrels in-house — one of the very few bodegas worldwide still operating its own cooperage. The wines are oxidative-style Rioja in the strictest historical sense: long oak ageing, long bottle ageing, and an emphasis on the slow oxidative complexity that distinguishes López de Heredia from modern fruit-forward Rioja styles.

The fourth generation — sisters María José López de Heredia (winemaker and managing director) and Mercedes — now run the bodega. Viña Tondonia (red and white) is matured for six years in American oak and another six in bottle before release; Viña Bosconia (red), Viña Cubillo (red, intermediate ageing) and Gravonia (white) round out the range. Recent vintages released today are typically 12–15 years old at first market — the bodega operates on a generational time scale that no other major Rioja producer matches.