Bodegas Moraza is in San Vicente de la Sonsierra, one of the first villages in Rioja Alta to be known exclusively for the high quality of the wines made within its medieval settings.  The village name means literally under the mountains, and indeed everywhere you look the towering mountains of Tolono - a part of the Sierra Cantabria - dominate the horizon.  The small town stands left of the Ebro, the river that crosses the vast Rioja region, and it is here, surrounded by vineyards, that the Moraza family built its winery six generations ago.  The family has been growing grapes and making wines since their beginning, and today it is run by the charismatic winemaker Janire Moraza.

Janire started getting involved in the late 2000s and her first vintage was 2013.  With the help of her husband, Patricio Brongo, she formalized many of the ideas and practices that the family already applied to their farming - working without herbicides and chemicals, following a lunar cycle for pruning and racking - and started the process of biodynamic certification (the vineyards had been certified organic since 2006.)  She tells us that when she started talking about biodynamics to her father, he told her that they were already using many of the principles.  She improved on those and started making the 500 and 501 preparations to treat the vineyards, and a lot of work became focused on soils.

Today all of their 23 hectares have organic and biodynamic certifications.  The majority of the parcels is found in San Vicente de la Sonsierra, but a couple are closer to Abalos, and Pecina, a little further along and north from the river.  There is also one plot in La Bastid. 
In the cellar the work is minimal, and slightly atypical for Rioja in that none of the wines are made or staged in oak.  As they make clear "our winery was completely built in concrete in 1983 according to the wine-making principles that prevailed in our ancestral house. It has been designed to work with gravity over three floors, so we can avoid over pumping and unnecessary manipulation.  Loyal towards our philosophy of letting the fruit fully express itself, fermentation takes place spontaneously in concrete tanks with indigenous yeasts."

The focus on purity of fruit is evident on all wines, which are bright and fresh on the palate, and enhance the character of each varietal.  They work mostly with Viura for their whites and skin contact wine, but also make a Tempranillo Blanco and cultivate and use other native whites such as Calagrano.  The reds are made of Tempranillo and are sometimes blended with Garnacha, and Graciano, which also shine singularly with a couple of monovarietal bottlings.

Janire and her work is an excellent addition to our portfolio, and Bodegas Moraza is proof of the wide-range of wines and diverse character of Rioja, which we continue to explore and support at Bowler.