Artadi
La Poza de Ballesteros
Rioja Alavesa
2019

The producer

Artadi is somewhat of a newbie in terms of Rioja – established only in 1985 – but quickly rose to the highest level of quality in Rioja. Artadi has been hugely successful with vineyards in Navarra (Artazu) and Alicante (El Segue) and is also among the best of those appellations.

The range includes excellent village wines and several single vineyard wines, all exemplary quality. The top wine is Vina El Pison, from a 2.4ha single vineyard of very old vines near Laguardia. Since 2015 Artadi choose no longer to use the DOCa of Rioja, rather labelling the wines “Laguardia”. Regardless of classification, this is a powerful but extremely elegant representation of wines from Rioja, of which it is at least geographically part.

The wine

La Poza de Ballesteros is made from a 5,6-hectare single vineyard plot, in Elvillar de Alava, planted in 1960 to Tempranillo. Vines are west facing, at 600 meters of altitude, and in poor clay-limestone soils. 100% Tempranillo, Poza de Ballesteros ferments for 10-12 days in open-top vats with daily pigeage and pumping over and is then allowed to mature for 9 months in French oak barrels. A wine of intense and ripe fruit concentration, with a dense and velvety texture, and broad yet ripe tannins. Poza de Ballesteros can be kept for decades.

We choose our wines based on a range of criteria (see how we choose our wines) of which critic scores is just one. Rather than simply highlight the best score to promote a wine, our average critic score is calculated from the scores provided by several respected wine critics, who we follow for specific regions. They do not represent all critic scores and, wherever possible, we try and give more weight to more recent reviews. Where appropriate we consider market-based scores like Global Wine Score or Wine Searcher Average scores.

As a rule, we look to offer wines that achieve a 92/100 average critic score or better and frankly a lot of very good wines simply don’t make the cut. As a high-end provider we want to reflect that positioning in the quality of wines we offer. Such wines are only a tiny fraction of those generally on offer in the market. We believe that an average score is a more conservative and representative approach, but it is still subjective and only offered as a guide to our customers, who will (and should) do their own research. We will add individual critic scores to our website in the future.