Yjar Rioja 2017

96 Points Wine Advocate

The new top-of-the-range is the 2017 Yjar, a difficult name in most languages, selected because the property used to be managed by the Duque de Híjar—this is just a different spelling. It's a red produced with Tempranillo and a significant amount of Garnacha grapes from selected soils from Remelluri. It's a wine that transcends the vintage, with spicy notes, a complex and changing nose, really harmonious, serious, with super sleek tannins, seamless with a polished mouthfeel with a chalky finish. This is a separate project and with a different style from Remelluri (closer, perhaps, to the style of the personal wines from Telmo Rodríguez. It's a wine that will be sold through the Place de Bordeaux, the result of their understanding of the soils from the property, something they knew empirically but for which they now have a more scientific explanation. It feels younger and less developed than the classical wines from Remelluri. It matured mostly in foudre, and there is no trace of oak; the wine feels very young, clean and modern. It's a great effort for a challenging year. It should develop nicely in bottle. 7,000 bottles produced.