Have you ever wanted to make your own top-notch, premium Rioja wine? That’s exactly what the family and friends of Bodegas Ysios recently experienced with the winery celebrating the start of its Grano a Grano harvest on 5th October 2024 in Laguardia.
The Ysios team was joined by its extended family, both relatives and close friends, to mark this special moment. This is one of the most important days in the winery’s calendar when the community comes together to enjoy a unique event and to start harvesting the Tempranillo that will become the next release of the highly sought-after Grano a Grano wine.
As the name suggests, the harvest is no easy task as grapes are carefully selected and picked by hand, berry by berry. Yet it wasn’t just the Ysios vineyard team who undertook this task: all the gathered families and friends were sent out to the vineyard to earn their lunch! After picking, they carefully set about destemming the grapes before the pressed wine was transferred to barrels for fermentation and ageing.
While the winemakers will oversee the wine’s development over the coming years, family and friends know that their hard work will be respected with gentle winemaking practices and slow, patient ageing. Previous vintages have spent up to two years in barrel with further time in bottle before release.
Bodegas Ysios
A Rioja crafted by the whole community
‘Grano a Grano’: Patience rewarded
Innovation is important at Bodegas Ysios: the winemaking team strives to push boundaries and constantly improve quality – but never at the cost of traditional methods, which have been passed down by generations of growers. Some of the wines, Ysios Selección for instance, follow the blending tradition that has made Rioja famous. Finca Las Naves, by contrast, is a single-vineyard wine, part of Rioja’s relatively new Viñedo Singular category, and sees 16 months ageing in a 2,000-litre French oak foudre. Ysios Blanco, meanwhile, is one of the more experimental wines, fermented in a mix of large oak barrels, stainless steel tanks, concrete eggs and clay amphorae.
Where innovation meets tradition
While there is still some time to wait for the launch of this year’s Grano a Grano (another two to three years), past vintages reveal a wine of the highest quality and a perfect expression of the Ysios vineyards.
Discovering the 2021 vintage
In partnership with BODEGAS YSIOS
Discover more: bodegasysios.com
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Hailing from Rioja Alavesa, Spanish producer Bodegas Ysios is marking the latest harvest with its 2024 ‘Grano a Grano’ celebrations.
Tenuta di Arceno's resident winemaker Lawrence Cronin
After all their efforts in the vineyards, all the invitees sat down to enjoy a meal, in the style of a big family gathering, to celebrate the work of the Bodegas Ysios team throughout the year and to enjoy their outstanding wines. This lunch was a way to show gratitude to the community, their traditions and history which forms an important part of the Ysios philosophy.
The winery aims to combine traditional winemaking methods with the best of modern technology to produce wines that represent both the heritage and future of Rioja. The winery itself is a constant reminder of this: the beautiful modern architecture of the bodega, designed by Santiago Calatrava, that nestles into the foothills of the ever-constant Sierra de Cantabria.
A family gathering
Bodegas Ysios is also committed to protecting the heritage of the Riojan landscape and terroir through a profound respect for the land. The winery subscribes to regenerative viticultural practices to return vital nutrients and biodiversity to the soils. When the community gathered to pick the grapes for this year’s Grano a Grano, they were impressed with the perfect condition of the vines which will go on to express the purity of the Tempranillo variety.
Safeguarding heritage
By involving the wider Ysios family, the winery seeks to create exciting experiences for its local community and future generations of growers and winemakers. In this way, Ysios continues to craft the highest quality wines, like Grano a Grano, that honour tradition and point to the region’s future.
Looking to the future
Ysios Grano a Grano
The 2021 vintage, the current release, offers bright cherry and strawberry aromas with mountain herbs, a hint of black pepper spice and well-integrated oak. Complex and layered, this elegant interpretation of Rioja can be enjoyed young, whilst also promising superb ageing potential. The superb quality of the 2021 vintage was recognised with a prestigious Silver medal at the 2024 Decanter World Wine Awards.
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Bodegas Ysios is committed to protecting the heritage of the Riojan landscape and terroir through a profound respect for the land.
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https://bodegasysios.com/