Part III of the Navarra Blog: The Tasting notes, or, “Sips and Scribbles”
I’m overly fond of describing wines, on paper, and in hurried, loopy cursive. I’m often asked to transcribe it all into a more legible format, and here it is!
Bodegas Inurrieta: founded in 1999; Falces
Noteworthy: After EVENA embarked on a project to discover just how many distinct varietals of grapes are in Navarra - the answer is 2000 - Bodegas Inurrieta chose 20 to study and develop closely. (All 2000 are planted in their vineyards, however). Musa and oneca are two whites showing tremendous potential.
Winemaker: Jabier Marquinez
•Mimao 2023 Garnacha Blanca
Richly yet elegantly floral, with almond, apricot, and Easter lily. Perfumed but not cloying. 3-4 months in barrel, 1/3 new and 2/3 old.
•Orchidea Cuvée 2022 Sauvignon Blanc
From a windy, stony vineyard comes this sauvignon blanc who seems to have a chardonnay soul. Fermented in foudres and then aged eight months in barrel, 1/3 new and 2/3 old, the wine still needs time to rise above its oaky origins. Aromas of vanilla and flowers. Nice acidy on the palate, with characteristic passionfruit and lemon zest.
•Orchidea Sauvignon Blanc 2024
Gorgeous varietal aromas, studded with minerals. Smooth silky texture, with full-bloom sauvignon blanc passion fruit, herbs, boxwood and lime. The steep vineyard encompasses terrain that ranges from sandy soils down by the river, rolling rock in the middle, and limestone and slate at the top.
•Intacta 2024 Blanco Semidulce
Made of sauvignon blanc and left with 15 grams of residual sugar, Intacta has eye-popping acidity that balance the sweet notes. The aromatics range from flowers to marshmallow to meringue in a captivating way.
•Inurrieta Coral Rosado 2024
A blend of cabernet sauvignon and garnacha, harvested at dawn, the Coral is pale and Provençal in nature. A challenging style as no white grapes are allowed in Navarra’s rosados. In fact, until very recently, only the sangrado (saignée, or bled) method was allowed.
•Inurrieta Mediodía Rosado 2024
Garnacha, syrah, cabernet sauvignon, graciano, and merlot make up this traditional Navarran rosé. The sexy cherry color leads you into a many-splendored blossom of strawberry, stone, and tart cherry fruit. A delight - refreshing, complex, and lovably tart.
•Sur Roble 2023
Garnacha and syrah are blended here for a ‘southern’ wine sensation. Think warm-climate notes of roasted tomato, spiced meat and pansies. Full-bodied and lush.
•Norte Roble 2023
Merlot and cabernet sauvignon make up this ‘northern’ blend. Purple berries and lead pencil dominate the aromas, while plum skin and blackberry spread broadly across the palate. Rich and complex, with notes of black pepper and allspice.
•Inurrieta Cuatrocientos 2022 Crianza
A meaty blend of merlot, cabernet sauvignon, garnacha, and graciano that spent 12 months in oak. An easy, satisfying wine that’s balanced if straightforward.
•Innurieta Mimao Garnacha Tinta 2024
Frangrant garnacha perfection! Perfumed with cherry, red currant, and rose hips followed by an entrancing palette of dried strawberry laced with minerals and white pepper. Full, balanced, and bright, it had my mouth watering. The grapes came from 6 different plots, mostly of stony, poor soils, and the wine underwent batonage two or three times per week. Interestingly, 20% of the juice is removed to use in the Mediodia Rosado.
•Puro Vicio Syrah 2021
‘Pure Vice’ is a smokey, leathery, lovely expression of syrah in Spain. Again, it is easy for this grape to over-ripen in many parts of the country, but the cool of Navarra and the precision of winemaker Jabier keep restraint and elegance in this otherwise meaty, mouthful.
•Altos de Inurrieta 2020 Reserva
75% graciano and 25% cabernet sauvignon blend so beautifully in this wonderfully big and expressive, with black fruits, smoke and a hint of cow hide. The yin of black currant and and floral plum notes are balanced by the yang of some earthy petrol whiffs. Compelling texture and depth. Many awards have been given to this wine, including Gran Bacchus Oro, a top prize in Spain.
•Laderas de Inurrieta 2021 Graciano
It enchants the nose with ripe prunes and plums and then bathes the palate in a velvety, juicy robe of smokey dark fruits. Long, firm, and shows impressive backbone, illustrating why Riojans blend it into their most age worthy wines. For a grape with more seeds than any other, graciano shows beautifully here, thanks to careful and artful vinification.
Bodegas San Martin, Cooperativa: founded in 1914; San Martin de Untx
Noteworthy: Gonzalo Celayeta is the winemaker and technical director for the Cooperative, since 2006, and he also owns and leads two other projects: Gonzalo Celayeta Wines, since 2004, and, Bodegas Unsi, since 2014.
Winemaker: Gonzalo Celayeta
•Alma de Untx Garnatxa Blanca 2024
Aromas of fennel flower, thyme, and white rose. Beautiful on the palate, and one of the lightest white grenaches I’ve ever tasted. Lemon and almond oils, juniper, and mountain scrub. Wound with acidity.
•Unsi Garnacha Blanca 2023
Grown and made in Unsi, a small area between Unje and San Martin de Untx, the Unsi wines are bottled at the Cooperativa. Precise and graceful garnacha blanca. Incredibly silky and quite full-bodied, with notes of lemon zest and a hint of oak.
•Alma de Untx Rosado 2024
Full of character, this 100% garnacha rosé spends three months in mixed-use barrel. The cherry and strawberry notes are classic, but the wild herb and spice quality is bracing and unique - juniper, thyme, rosemary. Balanced and complex with light metallic notes and a broad, complete mouthfeel.
•Alma de Untx Garnacha 2023
Consider this quintessential red garnacha a village wine, and marvel at its expressiveness. More cherry than strawberry, the wine is pretty concentrated and exceptionally juicy, with firm-edged tannins that bring structure and balance. Five months of mixed-use barrel.
•Unsi 2021 Garnacha de Montaña
This was the most aged wine we tasted with Gonzalo, with eight months of barrel and three-plus years of bottle time. Black cherry dominates, but leathery notes, light oak, and garrigue-y herbs round out the palate. Tart raspberry acidity will ensure a few more years of aging.
•Unsi Dulce de Garnacha
This very sweet, late-harvest dessert wine gives seductive wafts of dates and sultana raisins. There’s a complicated process behind all this honeyed richness: one year in barrel, one year in demijohns in the sun, and then several years in a mini solera system (Think:fractional blending, as with Sherry). The grapes were harvested at 17-18º alcohol and the resulting wine weighs in at a heady but welcome 15.5º. A delightful amalgam of a great Catalán ráncio and a sweet Montilla-Moriles (similar to Sherry, but from the D.O. Montilla-Moriles rather than from the D.O. Jerez).
Bodegas Ochoa: dates back to 1370 with the current winery founded in 1845; Olite
Noteworthy: Adriana and Beatriz Ochoa are rooted in a storied past, but have a forward-looking vision for their land that compels them to farm ultra progressively.
Winemaker: Adriana Ochoa
•Oxoa 2023
Apricot, honey and orange, the classic aromas of moscatel, are beguilingly fruity and rich - and then the wine shows up on the palate almost bone dry. Honeysuckle and white flowers tease in this plump, aromatic wine that spends six months each in oak and concrete egg (known for enhancing a wine’s aromatics).
•Labrit Rosado 2024 Garnacha
Although slightly subdued on the nose, the wine is full of presence on the tongue. In this very vineyard where our tasting took place, there are over 200 clones of garnacha ripening at different times. A single harvest ensures balance in the wine as some will be riper and sweeter while others will be greener and more tart. The result is a brilliantly harmonious rosado, with a taut texture and refreshing acidity. This was also one of the few examples of a pressed rosado as opposed to the traditional saignée method.
•Labrit Blanco 2024 Garnacha Blanca
Subtle but lovely aromatics are followed by a beautiful mouthful that bursts with citrus and minerals. Quite lean for a garnacha blanca, the wine has a graceful, dancer-like quality. Hints of tangerine, kumquat, and pear.
•Labrit Tinto Eco Garnacha 2022
Pomegranate, earth, bing cherries, and pansy fill my nose with garnacha glee. Although wine’s color is not dark, it shows up quite concentrated and full-bodied, with firm but agreeable tannins. The three months spent in old oak has softened the wine slightly. All organically grown grapes.
•Ochoa Gran Reserva 2015
A blend of tempranillo, merlot, and cabernet sauvignon, this lovely wine smells of eucalyptus, blood, and fleshy dried cherries and plums. She’s a gloriously aged wine, still full-throated and tannic, with lively acidity and a long finish redolent of cocoa nibs and beef.
•Ochoa Gran Reserva 2005
Smokey beef and ripe red currants on the nose, followed by silky, oaken cherries with notes of thyme, rosemary, and menthol. Balsamic and toast, with black raspberry and red tulip. An excellent example of a Navarran blend, similar to the 2015, and desirable in every way.
•Moscato de Ochoa 2024
A pretty, floral sparkling wine with only 5.5% is possibly the best summer quench there is. This one is nicely effervescent with wonderful snippets of lychee, lemon, and kaffir lime. The added bubbles are trapped in barometric tanks and no CO2 is added. Like a lacy, frilly sundress.
•Moscatel Vendimia Tardia 2024
This late harvest moscatel is intensely aromatic and irresistible, with notes of preserved lemon, bronze, lychee, and orange oil. Another complicated sweet wine! Adriana first makes the wine with October grapes that are somewhat dried on the vine but not yet raisinated. She stops the fermentation at 11% with neutral grape spirits, and then she adds November grapes (late harvest) and leaves it to ferment and further develop for 6-7 months. 15% alcohol and thoroughly delicious.
•Moscatel Vendimia Tardia 2013
Toasty and nutty aromas, ripe with date and figs emerge from this brown elixir. Beautifully mature, sweet, and balanced by a dart of orange acidity.
Bodegas Manzanos: founded in the 13th century as an inn for pilgrims; full-fledged winery in 1864; Campanas, Azagra, and Haro
Noteworthy: One of the oldest wineries in Navarra, and the first to make the rosado wines that would make Navarra famous.
Winemaker: Borja Ripa
•Castillo de Olite Rosado 2025 (tank sample)
A rosé tempranillo of this pink bougainvillea hue is a welcome if unusual vino. I love the way the raspberry and cherry fruit sings out with such enthusiasm. Full of personality and hitting all the high notes with zings of acidity, this rose was made using the saignée method with the addition of the last of the press from the pale pink Las Campanas Rosado, as well as a few months of barrel time. Mostly tempranillo with some garnacha.
•Las Campanas Rosado 2024
Considered an ‘Atlantic’ vintage for its coolness, 2024 delivers wines of a tighter, lighter style. This particular rosé is dry, herbal, and still resolving, but already attractive, with her timid forest strawberry quality and bright acidity. Pale and pretty.
•1864 Castillo de Olite Chardonnay 2024
A fresh and tart (no malo-lactic fermentation) chardonnay with a velvet glove touch of well-integrated oak. Roasted apple and unripe pineapple notes dominate, with lemon and hickory chiming in. A restrained and lovely 12.5% alcohol level, too!
•1864 Castillo de Olite Crianza 2020
A cheerful blend of 90% garnacha and 10% tempranillo, this lush red spent one year in used oak barrels. Its color is dark (4-5 days of a cold soak sets the color) and its personality is fresh. Black cherry, peat, and mulberry notes are flirtatiously tart and the finish is long and enjoyable.
•1864 Castillo de Olite Reserva 2018
This blend of 70% garnacha, 15% tempranillo, and 15% cabernet sauvignon (winemaker Borja Ripa’s father’s grows these grapes nearby in Alberin - the synergy is palpable!) coalesces into a lovely wine with distinct Bordelaise qualities. Blackberry, pencil shavings, and husky tannins reverberate in this perfectly mature, rich wine. Twenty four months in mixed use barrels. A wonderful, typical Navarran blend!
Marqués del Atrio: founded in 1899
Remarkable note: This is a sprawling company with 40 wineries, but still owned and operated by the 5th generation of the founding family.
Winemaker: Rodrigo Espinosa, working with Pablo Ossorio
•Faustino Rivero Ulécia Chardonnay 2024
A soft and pleasing chardonnay with pineapple and lemon notes. Primary, light, and refreshing.
•Doña Isabel Garnacha Blanca 2024
In an old-school bell-shaped bottle, this pale golden wine is an exceptionally light expression of garnacha blanca. Un-oaked and infinitely marriageable and quaffable.
•Doña Isabel Rosado 2024
Pale pink with a hint of orange, this light wine is tinged with herbs. The subtle fruit notes show up in pastels of red currant and wintergreen berry. Elegant.
•Faustino Rivero Ulécia Rosado 2024
The vibrantly-hued side of Navarran rosado is more distinctly garnacha than her lighter counterparts. Wine first, rosé second, she’s more insistent on the palate with her pronounced red fruit and ferrous notes.
•Faustino Rivero Ulécia Garnacha 2024
A dark and fleshy style of garnacha that conjures up images of animated villagers celebrating a saint day in a town square festooned with peppers on strings. Ripe strawberry, juicy black raspberries, and wet stones. Primary and wonderful.
•Doña Isabel Garnacha 2024
A slightly more masculine style of garnacha, this wine spent time in oak, including during its malo-lactic fermentation. Playful tannins and concentrated dark red fruits make a big, lasting splash on the palate.
•Fernando Rivero Ulécia Garnacha Crianza 2021
With a smattering of merlot (8%), this garnacha aged in old American oak is a soft and spicy red with dark cherry and autumn leaf notes that speak of time and tradition in Spain. Quite delicious, and thoroughly energetic and excitable with food!
Aroa: founded in 2010;
Noteworthy: 100% of the energy used at Aroa comes from renewable sources. Their best garnacha grapes come from a vineyard planted in 1920, and it sits at one of the northernmost points in Navarra.
Winemaker: Iñaki Olaberri
•Lakar Le Naturel Garnacha 2020 Ecológico - Organic
A storm of aromatics envelop you as you swirl this onyx-toned wine: ripe and sultry cherry, rich balsamic spices, and an evergreen coolness. Full-bodied and tannic with a complexity that blossoms with perfume and purpose with each minute. Utterly charming and rather mysterious.
•Le Naturel Blanco 2023
•A complex pineapple fragrance emerges, like a roasted pineapple mousse. This no-sulfite garnacha blanca is somewhat weighty on the palate, but then lifted by a lively acidity that smacks of tart cider. Designed for early drinking as it is not stabilized.
•Pet Nat le Naturel
Also garnacha blanca, this naturally petulant wine is leesy and oxidative with lively bubbles. There’s no disgorgement and no sulfites - drink now.
•Le Naturel Tinto 2024
This red garnacha is surprisingly dark, considering it was left on its skins for only 5 days during fermentation. (Ten or twenty would be more common). This short skin-contact lowers the astringency and tannin, making the wine an easy, fragrant quaff. Meant to be drunk within two years as no sulfites are added, the wine is redolent of red fruits and redder flowers, with crushed stone notes. Big bing cherry energy. I love the lack of funk in this natural wine, where baking spices, violets and strawberries run wild. Iñaki explained to me that such a clean natural wine is only possible with the healthiest of grapes with zero botrytis, and the utmost of cleanliness in the winery.
Bodegas del Señorio de Sarría: founded 1953; Puente la Reina;
Remarkable note: Forest surrounds the vineyards, fomenting biodiversity and moderating temperatures. The resulting extra-healthy vineyards support a high percentage of old vines, with low yields and superior taste. Also, all the bottles bear the caption “Camino de Santiago” to situate you completely in their historic place in the world.
Winemaker: Milagros Rodriquez
•Señorio de Sarría Chardonnay 2024
Earthy notes of petrol and marine layer fill my nose, and then the wine proves quite floral in the mouth. Noteworthy lemon acid uplifts. Impressive weight with savory, briny notes. No lees, no oak, many layers, much character. After a few minutes, toasted butter qualities emerge.
•Señorio de Sarría Chardonnay 2025, tank sample
This tank sample was easily recognizable as the same creature as the wonderful 2024. Although turbid and youthfully fresh, it is thoroughly delicious. Slightly more tropical.
•Señorio de Sarría Rosado 2024
This rosado fits into the ‘light’ category in every way. Faint colors and a shy nose belie the intensity on the palate of this blend of garnacha and graciano.
•Viñedo Cinco de Señorio de Sarría, Rosado 2024
Named for its exceptionally fragrant character - think Chanel No.5 - this dark rosado is indeed quite perfumed with rose, green apple, lily of the valley, almond blossom and cherry confiture. Made with the sangrado method, the wine was left on its skin for 12 hours. It’s pleasingly intense on the palate with bright raspberry and blue fruits. Smooth and lactic, with jumpy acidity. 100% garnacha, from a 70 year old vineyard.
•Viñedo Cinco de Señorio de Sarría Rosado 2025, tank sample
Dark and turbid with unsettled youth, this rosado is nonetheless attractive - and highly aromatic! Explosive on the palate, a kaleidoscope of forest berries. See you next year, beautiful!
•Viñedo Uno de Señorio de Sarría Garnacha de Viñas Viejas, 2021
All the garnacha used to be allocated for the rosés, but in 2019 they started making this full-throated tinto. 2021 is the second vintage. On the nose the whiffs are earthy and laden with dark forest berries. Despite the cool vintage, the wine is concentrated and tannic, full-bodied and structured. Quite complex, with blackberry, bark, and juniper on the palate. Nine months in French oak - she’s going to age like a queen.
•Viñedo Uno de Señorio de Sarría Garnacha de Viñas Viejas, 2025, tank sample
Deep red fruits abound, and winemaker Milagros Rodriguez explains that they will slowly morph into black fruits with barrel time. It portends greatness.
•Señorio de Sarría Reserva Especial 2019
The aromatic profile of this dark wine is both serious and beguiling - blackberry, fireplace, pencil lead, toasted cacao bean. On the palate the wine is simply luscious, and glows with gravitas. Layered with perfectly ripened fruit, tannin, cassis, and vanilla, this reserva shows off her 2 years in French and American oak proudly but with class - nothing ostentatious. She’s delicious now, and will be for 15 more years.
At the Denominación de Origen headquarters, we were schooled in Navarra’s rich history, both viticultural and geopolitical, and then plied with seven exemplary wines. Our teacher was the learned and affable Javier Adot, as passionate as he is expert on all things Navarra.
•Castillo Monjardin Chardonnay 2024
Hailing from the sub-zone Tierra de Estella, Castillo Monjardin is a renown and recognizable label delivering here varietally-perfect chardonnay. Citric and green fruits with a lighter hint of stone fruits swarmed my senses. The wine was bright and groovily acidic, with a note of resin and another of snapped twig. Elegant, with notes of fine lees.
•Principe de Viana Chardonnay 2024 Vendimia Seleccionada
From the largest winery in Navarra, located in the Ribera Baja sub-zone, this barrel-fermented chardonnay is varietally spot on, with stone fruits and tropicalia in abundance. The texture is rich, plush, and buttery, and I yearn for a roasted fish. Since 1983 they’ve been turning out lovely, widely distributed wine.
•BeBike 2024 Garnacha Organic 2024
With the catchy nickname “The Monovarietal Route,” BeBike was an entirely new brand for me. It’s pale salmon color and herbal aromatics gave way to an excellent mouthfeel, bright with citric pings and threaded with iodine and lees-y notes. Dry, attractive, and gastronomic. Six hours of skin contact to bleed this ethereal color.
•Alma de Untx 2024 Rosado Garnacha
See Bodegas San Martin
•El Chaparral de Vega Sindoa Garnacha Old Vines 2022
I knew this wine even before the label said ‘old vines. ’ Now this quite mature vineyard offers wines of more depth and complexity. Although I would still prefer less oak (6 months in barrel) as it subdues the fruit a bit on the nose, the wine is a bright and true on the palate. Wild strawberry, jasmine, and black currant are poised and powerful.
•Finca La Pared Cuvee Especial 2019 Sonsierra Navarra Hills Vineyards
To balance the warmth and sun of Tierra Estella, winemaker Kepa Sagastizabal selects grapes from a vineyard at high altitude (600 m) where it is considerably cooler. This syrah and graciano blend is smoky, sultry, and blue-fruited. Full-bodied and meaty, spiced with black peppercorns and cheery with cassis, the Cuveé Especial is one of the most expensive wines we tasted on the wine route, at about 150E. Deeply complex, long on the palate, and quite unique.
•Marques de Montecierzo Moscatel de Grano Menudo
An organic sweet wine with exuberant aromatics of lychee, orange blossom sweet tangerine, and jasmine. The sweetness bathes the tongue in golden raisins, honey, and lemon drops. 10.5% alcohol, thanks to a stopped fermentation.
At the wine bar with Javier, we two more wines that were the epitome of cool:
•La Roya Guerinda Baja Montaña, 2023
Made from garnacha gris which is technically not allowed in the D.O. Navarra, this elegant 12 carat gold-colored white was sleek and racy, with notes of melon and a distinct Seville orange acid. Shyly fragrant at first, the wine exploded on the palate with barely ripe peach and papaya notes. Lean overall, but giving enough. exquisitely made wine, redolent of chamomile and thyme.
•La Huella de Aitana 2021 Zen Cuvee Garnacha
A premium rose, in fact, the Best Rosé in Spain, 2024. The classic herbal notes I’ve come to know here greet me, but with gravitas. Incredibly silky texture, with notes of peach skin and fennel pollen. Absolutely beautiful. Eight months in barrel and ten in terra cotta anfora. By Gonzalo Celatayo of Bodegas San Martin. On another day, we drank his La Huracán de Daniela, a provocatively complex and delicious blend of garnacha blanca, chardonnay, viura and sauvignon blanc. As irresistible as it was innovative, the wine was perfectly balanced, and nothing short of flower petal shower in the rain at the edge of a forest.
While dining, I had the pleasure of tasting Amatría 2023, a wine I loved but on which I could not take tasting notes. The same goes for Viña Zorzal Señora de las Alturas 2023 and Viña Zorzal Chardonnay 2024, as well as the 2024 La Huella de Aitana Rosado.
Notes by Deborah Hansen
Wine Matters, LLC
Owner-Consultant-Sommeliere