Bodegas Contador
Benjamin Romeo Contador
Rioja Alta
2009

The producer

Among a lot of top wineries with history going back over a century, Contador appeared only at the turn of this century. They came a long way quickly helped by the winemaker Benjamin Romeo who spent 15 years at Artadi before releasing the first Contador in 1999 and garnering international attention with wines that scored perfect points in the early 2000s.

In 2008 a striking new gravity-flow winery was built surrounded by the various vineyard plots owned by the estate and production expanded with a small range of exceptional wines, both white and red. These are powerful expressions of Rioja whether it is the simple A Mi Minera (“My Way”) or the profound oak-aged white Que Bonito Cacareaba.

The pinnacle of this production is simply labelled “Contador” 100% Tempranillo from surrounding vineyards aged for 20 months on new French oak.

The wine

Contador is Bodega Contador’s flagship wine, made from fruit sourced from several prime single vineyard plots in San Vicente de la Sonsierra. Fermentation is in oak vats, followed by 20 months maturation in new French oak barrels. Immense complexity with purple fruit concentration, spices, sandalwood, and cured meats, the palate is dense and intense with firm structure and finish. Only 6,500 bottles are produced per year.

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.