Part II of the Navarra Blog: Nine Wineries and Five Sub-zones in Four Days.
Welcome to the second installation of the “What’s Cool in Navarra?” blog. I hope you enjoy my overview of each winery and some highlights in the glass.
Bodegas Inurrieta: The first of nine wineries and five sub zones in four days
The first winery we visited was Bodegas Inurrieta, in the sub-zone of Ribera Alta where there’s a confluence of Continental and Mediterranean climates. A large outfit with 500 acres and thirteen different wines, they successfully craft wines for the supermarket as well as for the elitist of gastronomic tables. I tasted all 13 wines, as well as barrel samples and experimental varietals - yes, starting at 10:30 am - and my palate was perfectly pleased. The very first wine, Mimao 2023 garnacha blanca, was my initial glimpse into a trend I had not expected, a theme I would see repeated on each day of my Discover Navarra Media trip. Although comprising less than 2.5% of production, garnacha blanca is the medium of choice for some of the most cutting edge, impressive white wines I experienced in my travels. Winemakers in all five of Navarra’s sub zones (Valdizarbe, Baja Montaña, Ribera Alta, Ribera Baja, and Tierra Estella) are crafting white grenache wines that are balanced and bright, full of gently ripened fruit aromas, and creamy yet chiseled. They possess the energetic contrast of fine, cool alabaster in a Mediterranean orchard full of loquats and lilies.
Innurieta’s Mimao 2023 was a stunning introduction into this genre. It was perfumed but not cloying, redolent of almond, apricot, and Easter lilies. (See descriptions of all the wines I tasted at the end of this article). Another important trail marker along the wine route in Navarra was their Mediodía 2024, a dark and vivid rosé. The name means ‘Mid-day’ but it bore none of the corruptive, offensive connotations that a similarly-named canned drink of hard alcohol and seltzer evokes when I see it on liquor store shelves that used to hold fine wine in the USA. Rather, “You love wine!” is Mediodia’s message, and her very color conveyed purpose and passion. It smacked of Navarra in a glass. A blend of garnacha, syrah, cabernet sauvignon, graciano, and merlot, Mediodia looks like cherry juice, then brings strawberry and wet stone notes to the party. Bone dry and delightfully tart, it’s wine that brings more wine drinkers into the fold.
At the other end of the wide spectrum was Altos de Inurrieta Reserva 2020, a dark and smokey wine of 75% graciano and 25% cabernet sauvignon. Deemed ‘Best Wine of Spain, Bacchus Oro’ four times already, this big, expressive wine is an excellent example of fearless new winemaking trends. Blending Spain’s tart and tannic (more seeds than any other grape!) graciano, with the easy-ripening cabernet sauvignon is bold ingenuity. You may know graciano as the grape that so gallantly supports and guides tempranillo into old age in Rioja and cabernet sauvignon as Bordeaux’s age-worthy pride and pillar; here they blend beautifully as they challenge tradition.
Bodegas San Martin: A cool incongruence
One of the coolest, hippest young winemakers in Navarra is also the winemaker for a cooperative, that organization known for creating practices and wine that are… fair. Winemaker Gonzalo Celayeta makes wine that clocks in way above ‘fair’ at a resounding ‘excellent.’ At the Cooperativa known as Bodegas San Martin he makes three wines named Alma de Untx, garnachas all; a white, a rosado, and red. (He also makes wines of his own, as you’ll see in the tasting notes at the end). Each was a quintessential, herbaceous and structured example of the garnacha grape grown in this rugged, arid earth in the windy foothills of the Pyrenees, but bordering on a the Bardenas desert, the largest in Europe, that delivers intense Mediterranean heat. As we made our way to Gonzalo’s little tasting temple in the vineyard, tangles of pale, dried herbs crunched beneath our feet at every step, intensified by the warm sun and unceasing breeze.
This unique, scrubby, mountain-ringed landscape lies in the sub-zone Baja Montaña, and the cooperative that Celayeta stewards is known as San Martin de Untx. Initially representing 192 growers, they’ve been turning their herb-scented garnacha grapes into wine for the locals since 1914. Around this time in Southern Europe, cooperatives were formed to help stem the flow of destitute farmers abandoning their lands due to decreasing prices and increasingly challenging agricultural conditions. A community beset by the twin the plagues of pests and corporate extortion, grape growers could scarcely eke out a living. Cooperatives committed to buying every grower’s grapes for fair prices; then they produced, bottled, and sold the wines whose profits were then distributed back to these same viñerones (grape growers). This communal concept was a lifeline and stabilized many rural communities. The downside was, and often still is, the inherent incentive for growers to harvest high yields, (payment is by the kilo), which is at odds with the fine winemaking that requires low yields. This flaw in the system was negligible in the first three quarters of the century as Spain weathered not only two world wars and a global depression, but also a Civil War and almost 4 decades of a fascist, repressive dictatorship. Wine was a beloved necessity consumed at most meals; the expectation was that it deliver refreshment, peace, and familiarity, not lofty levels of the sublime. Once Spain was admitted to the EU in 1985 (at that time it was called the EEC, the European Economic Community), investment flowed and wineries benefitted. Technology ushered in a new era of cleaner, finer winemaking, and cooperatives lagged behind. Gradually, Spaniards began drinking less everyday wine purchased at local bodegas where they refill your old bottle from a spigot, and more expensive, branded wine.
Bodegas San Martin has stayed relevant and proven resilient, operating continuously since 1914; they still have 80 grower members. I’m fascinated by cooperatives that overdeliver, and this is a winning example of such excellence. The 2024 Alma de Untx Garnacha Blanca offered a glorious bouquet of fennel pollen, thyme, and white rose followed by lemon oil and juniper on the palate. The 2024 garnacha rosado of the same name was an energetic mouthful, complex with those mountain herbs spicing up bright cherry and strawberry fruit. And the 2023 Alma de Untx Garnacha Tinta was the quintessential garnacha with its firm-edged tannins lacing up a beautiful bodice of ripe cherry, pomegranate, stone dust, and summer savory.
I love when garnacha dares to be delicate, and the winemaker doesn’t ratchet up the tannins to fit into the easy popularity of ‘full-bodied.’ This is what I’m always seeking in a glass of garnacha, that harmony between sufficient tannin to be structured, but not so much as to be too tightly muscled and dominant; fruit that reads red and ripe, but not so ripe that sweet gum flavors emerge; and, an echo of the birthplace, in this case a terroir abundant in tenacious herbs. All three Almas were complex, transparent, balanced, and quite inexpensive - and far better than any wine I’ve been served at stateside weddings.
Bodegas Ochoa: Humble winemaking royalty
In the Ribera Alta lies the renown Bodegas Ochoa, where Adriana and Beatriz are ushering in a new era for their family winery. I was familiar with their sublime sweet moscatel - it was on my wine list in my restaurant in Madrid back in the 1990’s. Grape growers since 1370 and a full-fledged winery by 1845, Ochoa is flourishing under their respectful yet progressive leadership. The 6th generation sisters exude passion, humility, and savvy. They’ve divided their broad range of wines into three categories: Ahora (Now), the wines made in their own expression of the land they inherited and steward; Aqui (Here), the mono-varietal wines uniquely reflective of this place; and, Siempre (Always), the legacy wines of the storied winery. Their father was the director of Evena, (Estación de Viticultura e Enología de Navarra) the viticultural and enological research station, from 1980 - 1992 and figured prominently in Navarra’s wine revolution.
Here in the Ribera Alta, smack dab in the center of Navarra’s viticultural area in and around the town of Olite, we were again at a crossroads of climates. Cool and moist Atlantic air flows from the northwest while the arid desert influence blows in from the east. This creates the coveted diurnal temperature swing that can be the difference between good wines and great. Long, warm days allow for optimal ripening, but cool nights allow the vines to rest and reset. Too much heat makes cloying, overripe wines while a lack of it yields thin and reedy wines.
Adriana and Beatriz Ochoa decided to convert their beautiful vineyards to organic back in 2010, and now emphasize regenerative farming. Beatriz pointed out a plot of land left fallow to allow the partridges, among other creatures, to repopulate. They recovered a small spring in the process, and planted trees to serve as a refuge. An explosion of life itself swooped and shimmered in that space, and I was overcome by the sight of such natural, riotous beauty. Beatriz and Adriana trust that sacrificing a few hectares of grapevines will allow a broader diversity of life forms to flourish, birthing a wellspring of health for their vineyards as a whole, and helping them to balance the potential ravages of climate change. I’ve found the best wines come from viñerones who humble themselves before nature rather than wrestling her into submission. They are often women.
The tasting would prove me right. In a display of superlative hospitality, the ladies of Ochoa (I saw only women on the day we visited) had set us a long table festooned with a white tablecloth, right in the vineyard, the desert looming but invisible behind us. We tasted nine of their wines, while butterflies bobbed about us in the brilliant autumn sunshine. Where there are butterflies, there are no pesticides, and the whole place reverberated with life seen and unseen. Ochoa does mean wolf in Basque, after all; perhaps the reverence for nature is simply inherent in their DNA.
Oxoa 2023 was the first wine we tasted, and it seemed to encapsulate that sunny, fragrant moment in glass. A moscatel fermented completely dry, the wine offered classic varietal aromas of honey and orange, and had spent 6 months in oak barrels and another 6 in concrete egg. Moscatel has been cultivated in Navarra since the 12th century, (like chardonnay it was brought from France by King Theobold), and the sweet, honeysuckle-scented wines were coveted by monarchs and monks alike. As golden sweet wines have fallen out of favor, the number of hectares planted to moscatel in Navarra has dwindled to just 85; Ochoa is home to 26 of them. Oxoa is a brand new way to enjoy a very old grape; light, dry, and refreshing, but with wraiths of Sweet Moscatels of Vintages Past teasing at the edges of your mind. Similarly echo-y is the Moscato de Ochoa 2024, a sparkling wine with only 5.5% alcohol and an effervescent bouquet of lychee and lemon. ¡Más, por favor!
My recently-acquired penchant for Navarran garnacha blanca was sparked anew by Ochoa’s whisper-subtle Labrit Blanco 2024 garnacha blanca. Part of the Aqui line of wines, Labrit Blanco was elegant, citric, and lean. No white flower smack-in-the-face leaving you with a virtual yellow pollen stain on your nose, but rather a quiet beauty of metallic minerals and exquisite pear blossom on the palate. Again, only a tiny fraction of their vineyard holds garnacha blanca, but you can feel the future in its sheer winsomeness. The red counterpart, Labrit Garnacha Eco, possessed a similar elegance.
At the other end of the spectrum completely, the Ochoa Gran Reserva 2005 reminded me of my love for old wine. This was the first vintage Adriana made, at the tender age of 25. In the Siempre line of wines, this classic Navarran blend of tempranillo, merlot, and cabernet sauvignon illustrates time, place, and talent in a smokey, beefy, menthol-scented red currant and silky cherry dream.
Bodegas Manzanos: Church bells for centuries
Think back to the pilgrims on their way to Galicia, if you will. The next winery I visited was founded back in the 13th century as an inn for pilgrims en route to Santiago de Compostela. Known then as Las Campanas for its remarkable church bells and the town’s name, it produced the basic sort of wine necessary for refreshment, for transport in skins, and for Catholic rites. In 1890 the Fernandez de Manzanos family converted the hostel into a full-fledged winery that the fifth generation continues to lead. Now a fully modernized outfit with a sprawling collection of over 1500 hectares of vineyards in Navarra and Rioja as well as several wineries, Bodegas Manzanos produces about 15 million bottles annually. Assimilating Old World sensibilities with state of the art technology, they have finely tuned the Navarran blend of French and Spanish grapes we came to know and perhaps not always love during the 1990’s into a polished, cutting edge mode. Winemaker and technical director Borja Ripa is crafting wines of a fresher, less dense nature, even when they are full-bodied and oak-aged, as many still are.
Borja gave us 2025 tank and barrel samples to taste, and each was in that arresting, highly expressive state typical of mid-October, mere weeks after fermentation. Fermented grape juice is technically wine in the way that a tiny green apple nub on a tree in June is technically an apple or the way that raw lentils and water are technically supper. What’s missing is the harmonious influence of time, nature, and talent to coax complexity from the raw to create a convincing product. Normally the October ‘wine’ unleashed directly from the tank spigots into a glass (one often plucked off a shelf shared with beakers and pruning shears, slightly besmirched and then quickly polished on someone’s shirt, in many of my winery experiences ) will be exuberant, cloudy, intensely varietal, often still bearing traces of fermentation and yeast notes. The wines will decant themselves into clarity, develop a myriad of aromatics, and evolve into that complex and inimitable quaff we also call wine. That process will never cease to fascinate me, and the splashes of chardonnay, viura, tempranillo, and garnacha I tasted spoke energetically and clearly of their varietal selves. There was no mistaking the clean, willowy chardonnay, the pithiness of the viura, the fleshy raspberry strength of tempranillo, and the herbaceous and ripe strawberry quality of the garnacha. It is thrilling to experience them naked, and for a brief moment I felt a spasm of kinship with the natural wine lovers who want every wine experience to be exactly this - unadulterated, fresh, and zingy. Alas, it doesn’t last without preservation, and that’s a discussion for another day. And yes, our glasses were clean!
The famed, deeply hued rosados of Navarra originated with Bodegas Manzanos in the 1950’s, say they. Like all the wineries I visited, they are also producing Provençal style pale rosados, but I got the general sense their hearts aren’t in it. And who can blame them, really. It’s like swapping beef tenderloin for tofu or maybe just another example of outside pressure to chase a market trend just as they were expected to do in the 90’s when they were told to rip out garnacha and replant with cabernet and syrah. I’ve been drinking these dark rosés since the ’80’s, and they’ve only gotten fresher and more complex as winemaking has modernized and the cool climate more adroitly illustrated.
We tasted the 2025 garnacha rosado tank sample, destined to be the pale bottling called Las Campanas Rosé, and it was attractively tight, crisp, and herbal. It did, however, pale in comparison to the deep pink 2025 tempranillo rosado barrel sample, destined to become the Castillo de Olite Rosado, which was a sensual offering of ripe raspberry and cherry, with notes of wintergreen and brambly blackberry. Interestingly, it is made by the sangrado (bled) method with the addition of the last pressing of the Las Campanas Rose. A wine-lovers rosé, to be sure! I also found the 1864 Castillo de Olite Chardonnay 2024 to be irresistible, as you will see in my enthusiastic tasting notes.
Marques del Atrio: Big footprint, artisanal spirit
The next winery to see was Marques del Atrio, in the Ribera Baja sub zone. An outfit even larger than Manzanos, its holdings sprawl across several D.O.’s in Spain and they export to 50 countries. It, too, is in the hands of the fifth generation of family members and perhaps this is why the sheer size of the operation was never palpable in their quite
delicious wines. You know how we wine professionals are. We definitely tend to prize tiny over towering, so it is particularly noteworthy when the big boys deliver. I felt edified and enchanted as I tasted garnacha in almost every possible color and stage of life within two of their bottlings, the Doña Isabel and the Faustino Ribero Ulécia lines. The 2025 tank samples of white, pink, pinker, and red were all as fresh, boisterous, and charming as they should be, like recess at a kindergarten. The garnacha tinta, for example, had yet to undergo malolactic fermentation,* and glowed with an intense shade of violet. I could feel its purity and potential in the exuberant purple-red fruits and crushed stone notes. Winemaker Rodrigo Espinosa espouses the Ulysses technique that, among other things, maximizes terroir (a deep root system is encouraged). He uses compressed air instead of pumps, resulting in gentler technique that extracts less tannin, creates fewer lees, and minimizes green flavors. Perfect for the late ripening, sensitive, thin-skinned garnacha .
*The fermentation process whereby the sharp malic acid in the wine is converted to smooth lactic acid, resulting in a rounder, lusher wine
With our rustic lunch of jamón, tortilla, roasted red peppers, tomato-tuna salad and bread, I took deep draughts - as opposed to the calibrated mouthfuls that get spat out while tasting - of the 2021 Garnacha Crianza Fernando Rivero Ulécia. A blend of 92% garnacha and 8% merlot aged for 9 months in old American oak, the wine was soft and spicy, with a dark cherry core seasoned with autumn leaf notes. I perceived the merlot as a subtle and welcome garnish that took the wine to into its fullest harmony, as Angostura bitters does in a cocktail.
Aroa: Purity on a hill
I shivered audibly as a chilling light rain called chirrimirri in Basque dripped down my neck and the fog obscured my view of the Urbasa and Andia mountains in the distance. Atop a 440 meter high hill amidst truculent centenary garnacha vines interspersed with gnarled and dead ones, I’ve never felt so alive.
Spellbound, I listened to winemaker Iñaki Olaberri and Joaquin Gámez discuss their reverence for this land here at a winey called Aroa, in the Tierra Estella sub zone. They poured me a cold glass of Lakar 2020, their high-end bottling of garnacha. Technically the cepage is 97% garnacha tinta, 2 % garnacha blanca, and 1% unidentified varietals, all from this spectacular vineyard dotted with olive trees, scrubby pine, and broom.
Using some biodynamic and all organic farming methods, they craft low- and no-sulfite wines; to Lakar they add 14 g per liter. The wine was almost black, and practically opaque. Made in concrete tanks, it later rests in old foudres for five months. From that dense liquid arose the fragrance of eucalyptus, walnut skin, and black cherry, and then it utterly charmed my palate with warming brown spice notes embedded in a red-fruited dew. The very soul of garnacha revealed herself to me in that moment, unabashed. It was so delicious I forgot to spit. I was feeling more alive by the minute.
Back at the uber resource-preserving winery, we tasted tank samples that were electrifying examples of unadulterated garnacha, followed by Aroa’s line of wines called Le Naturel, including a Pet Nat, all made with no added sulfites. The 2024 Le Naturel Garnacha, designed for early drinking due to its unpreserved state, ( I love that they point this out!!) was a violet-scented, strawberry-rich garnacha that felt like a throwback to two centuries prior, so pure and unabashedly beguiling was this wine. You could almost taste Aroa’s profound commitment to sustainability. Or maybe it was the prestigious certifications I could see on the wall, especially the Wineries for Climate Protection, granted to only a handful of Spanish wineries. At Aroa, the philosophy is based upon a respect for nature’s logical order, and a promise to give back to the land that has so generously given to them. There was a harmonious energy about the place.
Señorio de Sarría: Precision and tradition
The ninth and final winery, in the Valdizarbe sub zone, was Señorio de Sarria, another I remembered from my restaurant-owning days in Madrid. For the second time on this wine trek, I only saw women at the winery. This intrigued me, for when I co-owned said restaurant in Madrid during the 90’s, every single salesman would ask if my husband was available when it was in fact me who did all the wine purchasing. They were even more skeptical when I wrote a check. In 1998, I was one of only four women in a class of forty students at Sommeliere school. Clearly things have evolved for the better in my dear Spain, and the winemaking as well as vineyard management here at Sarría were above reproach. Also a large operation with over 100 hectares and around 1 million kilos of grapes, the vineyards had nonetheless been meticulously selected for each varietal’s optimal growing conditions, and the average age of the vines was impressively old.
By this time in the trip I had tasted a dozen or so examples of chardonnay, the grape brought from the Champagne region to Navarra in the 12th century. At what point can we call a grape indigenous? Perhaps after nine centuries, we can. The Señorio de Sarría Chardonnay 2024 was brought to life by hands expert at growing and vinifying this grape. With all the marine layer aromas of an excellent Chablis, this Navarran Chardonnay was floral on the palate, peppered with lemon acidity, and laden with savory, oceanic notes. After a few minutes, toasted butter qualities emerged. I was smitten by its character and elegance. Right away we were given a tank sample of the 2025 vintage that was destined to become that same un-oaked and no-lees wine. Through its turbidity, I could see clearly that it was the same creature as the 2024 but with a few more fresh tropical notes, and thoroughly delicious. I could easily envision both drinking wonderfully for the next five or even ten years.
Cabernet sauvignon is also well understood and utterly mastered here. It is a grape that often gets too ripe in Spain, acting like an overzealous sweetener in many a blend. Not so with the Señorío de Sarría Reserva Especial 2019, a bewitching blend of 90% cabernet sauvignon and 10% graciano. Precision and restraint came through in the perfectly ripened blackberry fruit, and the complexity denotes a deft hand. The wine is characteristically redolent of lead pencil and fireplace, and the weight on the palate is oh so agreeable.
I walked back to our little van replete with fine wine and abundant respect for the winemakers who made time to share with us. Thoroughly impressed by all that is new and cool, and by the way they merge traditional and modernity so skillfully, I could truthfully say that Navarra is ascendent.
Summing up the Navarra Experience
Tempranillo may be Spain’s most famous grape. The legendary, age-worthy wines from Rioja put her on the map almost two centuries ago. As consumer markets, chiefly American, clamored for varietal names on labels, tempranillo acquired even more renown. Wines made from tempranillo clones, such as tinto fino in Ribera del Duero, for example, will often sport the name tempranillo for caché. Navarra itself was coerced to uproot garnacha and plant tempranillo in the 1970’s, reducing garnacha’s footprint from over 90% of the vineyard down to less than 30%. Yet, today, garnacha is a rosy red rising tide all over Spain, surpassing tempranillo in hectares. In Navarra, the wealth of old vines, those of 50 years or more, is heavily concentrated in garnacha, with over 231 hectares; tempranillo has under 5 with such age. Garnatxa is the yin to cariñena’s yang in the powerful Priorat wines. Passion projects of recovering old vines garnacha in places like the Gredos mountains and the D.O. Méntrida are earning widespread acclaim and garnering ever-higher prices. Several D.O.’s are dominated by garnacha, such as Aragón, Calatayud, Somontano, Campo de Borja, and Cariñena.
Their mettle and the moment are melding
Nowhere seems to be capturing the zeitgeist of fresh, fruity yet tensile garnacha like Navarra, where they are leaning proudly into their cool climate while drinkers are learning to value lighter wines. I witnessed not only the winemakers’ passion and aptitude for cultivating and vinifying their old new friend garnacha, but I also saw how their mettle and the moment are melding. As the next generation comes of wine-consuming age, reaching not 21 but 25 years old, they are expressing new wine criteria. More interested in sustainability than pedigree, these young drinkers demand wines that are approachable and affordable. An inarguably easy-to-love wine, garnacha also possesses many qualities that keep prices reasonable: new oak barrels are not required; the grape is prolific and plentiful in nature; the wine is delightful and drinkable when young. How fitting!
The garnachas I tasted offered a beguiling transparency of terroir and an edgy take on a grape with boundless character if properly nurtured. Once maligned, uprooted, and cast aside, garnacha is a comeback story that goes beyond economic justice and family tradition. It’s incredibly cool.
Part III: “Tasting Notes, or, Sips and Scribbles” to follow.
By
Deborah Hansen
Wine Matters, LLC
Owner-Chef-Sommeliere