Rioja Focus: Contino’s Power and Freshness Dynamic

Contino’s Viña del Olivo comes from a unique single-vineyard estate in Rioja Alavesa that stands out for its ability to marry ripe concentration with vibrant freshness. Founded by CVNE in 1973 with the goal of creating a Bordeaux-style single-estate wine, Contino’s 55 hectares are divided across three terraces, each shaped by its proximity to the Ebro River. This combination of terroirs makes Viña del Olivo a distinctive expression of Rioja’s warmer subregions.

My vertical tasting of Viña del Olivo wines – the vintages spanned 2014 to 2023 – with technical director Jorge Navascues revealed not only the evolution of the estate’s winemaking but also the nuances imbued by this specific vineyard parcel in the village of Laserna. The site is one of the warmer locations within Rioja Alavesa, with deeper clay soils near the river that provide resilience in drought years.

The vineyard’s name is a nod to the century-old olive tree that presides over the parcel. Navascues explained that it produces wines with a darker fruit profile and higher natural acidity – a balance that makes it the freshest vineyard within the estate.

Located in the estate’s northeastern part, the vineyard features surface clay soils overlaying limestone subsoils and is goblet-trained with a high form of conduction. Planted mainly with tempranillo and smaller amounts of mazuelo, graciano, and garnacha, it is a low-yielding vineyard that produces concentrated, ripe wines.

According to Navascues, this requires careful management of extraction in the fermentations and macerations  to preserve the wine’s inherent concentration without overemphasizing it. With a few exceptions, this balance was evident throughout the vertical tasting.

The wine is normally made up of 80 percent to 90 percent tempranillo, with variable proportions of the other varieties depending on the quality and character of the vintage. In warmer vintages, higher proportions of graciano are included to bring additional freshness – a characteristic inherent to the variety.

The fermentation is fully destemmed with moderate macerations and relatively low fermentation temperatures of 24 to 27 degrees Celsius, including two pumpovers daily. Since 2017, aging has taken place in about 70 percent new oak barrels for 16 to 18 months, with the wood integrating harmoniously despite its quantity. Earlier vintages, like 2014 to 2016, included more new oak and at least 20 percent American barrels, lending toastier, grainier aromas to those wines.

The highlights from the tasting included the 2021 and 2018 vintages. The cool, balanced 2021 is regarded as one of the best Rioja vintages of the past 15 years, marked by fresh acidity paired with ample phenolics for structure. The 2018 vintage, challenged by scattered rainfall and late flowering, produced a wine notable for its aromatic complexity, concentration and refined fruit concentration.

Other vintages showed varied yet consistently impressive profiles: 2014’s warm, concentrated style with pronounced darker fruit; 2015’s evenly balanced ripeness; 2016’s vibrant energy and high alcohol balanced by brightness; and the 2017 wine, which weathered frost damage elsewhere with firm tannins and depth.

2019 was considered the greatest recent vintage of Rioja, as Jorge Navascues explained – at least until the arrival of 2021. The growing season that year was dry, although some rainfall before harvest eased maturation and extended the season, resulting in powerful wines with expressive fruit but also a marked sense of linearity.

The most recent releases, 2022 and 2023, offer an interesting contrast. The former was one of the driest vintages in Rioja’s recent history, marked by significant hydric stress that Viña del Olivo was able to withstand thanks to its high clay content. The resulting wine is polished, with lustrous tannins and expressive dark fruit.

The 2023 vintage was more balanced overall, although heat waves in August accelerated the harvest. Navascues said that key decisions during fermentation, particularly shorter macerations, were essential in retaining balance. The wine is more succulent and approachable than its predecessor, with a friendlier expression of fruit.

While Viña del Olivo wines show youthful structure and intensity, they reveal their true elegance after at least five years of aging, especially in warmer vintages such as 2014, 2016, 2022 and 2023. Ultimately, Viña del Olivo challenges assumptions about warm-climate Rioja sites by demonstrating that power and freshness can coexist – even thrive – in exceptional wines from this unique terroir.

– Jacobo García Andrade, Senior Editor

The list of wines below is comprised of bottles tasted and rated by the JamesSuckling.com tasting team. You can sort the wines by vintage and score. You can also search for specific wines in the search bar.