Cortijo

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Country of Origin: Spain
Location: Rioja Alta
People: Patrick Mata & Alberto Orte, Owners | Made expressly for Compañía de Vinos del Atlántico
Viticulture: Practicing Organic

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Cortijo 2021 Rioja Tinto DOCa (VR) Login In Stock

Cortijo means ‘cottage’ or ‘shack,’ a reference to the fact that shacks, often times, make better wine than most high-flown Chateaux in Rioja. The Philosophy of Cortijo is very simple yet very effective: to make better wine, you need to harvest better grapes. Cortijo improves the quality of its wines by doing a better job in the vineyards. Rather than building a chateau or a beautiful tasting room, Cortijo pays to take care of the only meaningful ingredient, the grapes. Beginning with the 2009 vintage, Cortijo is made with estate-owned grapes. The goal with Cortijo is to show a pure, youthful expression of Rioja Alta. It is very difficult to find such a pure expression of Rioja at this price point.

Location, Soil, Climate: The vineyards are located in the towns of Hormilla, within the Rioja Alta (Zone 3), Najera, Briones and Arenzana, the latter two sited at approximately 1,865 feet elevation. Najera is around 2,067 feet. The soils in Briones are thin red clay and sandy limestone with small particles of thin clay. In Arenzana the soils are clay and limestone with alluvial sediment. For climate, the area’s average temperature from April-October is 61.5º F with 18.3 inches of yearly rainfall. The moderately warm days and cool nights of this Continental Atlantic climate forces the grapes to ripen slowly, resulting in wines that show brighter aromas and more fruit flavors.