2017 Señorío de San Vicente Rioja 750 ml

A brooding blend of dark berry, crushed violet, and tobacco marks the unmistakable signature of Señorío de San Vicente—the first single-vineyard wine ever produced in La Rioja, and a blueprint for some of Spain’s greatest reds. 

Today, some of La Rioja's top wines are single-vineyard, single-varietal bottlings that masterfully express the extraordinary terroirs from which they are grown. Señorío de San Vicente is the original, and it does that better than almost any, with Top 100 honors from Wine Enthusiast and Wine Spectator to prove it.

The 2017 Señorío de San Vicente is the latest release in this proud lineage, and shows that the Eguren brothers have hardly rested on their laurels. Its 96-point score matches its highest rating in the last five vintages from Jeb Dunnuck, who hailed its “decadent bouquet of red and black currants, blackberries, Asian spice, cedarwood, vanilla, and candied violet nuances.” 

We’ve been fans since the beginning, when Robert Parker called San Vicente, “one of the more stunning newer-styled Riojas to emerge from Spain,” imploring that “readers should take note, as I suspect prices will only go up.” 

If Parker feared skyrocketing prices, he might be stunned to see how affordable this Rioja still is. The kind of Bordeaux and Napa Valley wines that typically pull down 96-point ratings blew past the $100 point years ago, yet the Señorío de San Vicente's price is far below that—which makes it an incredible value, especially in the critical big-leagues. 

Jeb Dunnuck called the 2017 “rich and powerful, yet also balanced and elegant,” adding, “this full-bodied Rioja will benefit from 4-5 years of bottle age and keep for 30 years or more. It's a beautiful wine.” 

Before Marcos and Miguel Angel Eguren, there were no single-vineyard wines in La Rioja. In 1985, the brothers carefully planted 45 acres of a rare Tempranillo clone in a tiny valley at the foot of the Sierra de Cantabria mountains—they named their vineyard La Canoca. The brothers spaced the vines more tightly than they ever had before, forcing them to send roots deep into the limestone-rich soil for nutrients, energy, and what would turn out to be immense, mineral-driven complexity. 

The fierce competition between vines yielded incredible concentration in Tempranillo, enhancing blackberry bass notes and red cherry intensity, while the unusually high altitude of the site—1,800 feet up on steep slopes—maintained freshness, keeping acids crisp and vibrant.

The hand-harvested grapes were like jewels and the Eguren brothers knew it. Instead of following the tradition of making Rioja from many different sites with multiple varieties, Marcos and Miguel Angel followed the example of the best single-vineyard wines of Bordeaux—Señorío de San Vicente was born, and so was a revolution in Spanish winemaking.

Don’t miss it.