Rioja has been for a while now at a threshold, a place that sooner or later all of the most celebrated wine regions find themselves.The traditional and familiar wineries that defined its style are firmly established, producing some of the finest wines in the world, while on the other side of the gate young growers and winemakers are working to find their place, refining - and sometimes indeed redefining - the style of the wines made in the region.  What the new generation of winemakers and bodegas share is an emphasis on place, not in the cellar.  Instead of making wines that represent the region as a whole, with a marked house style, they focus on sites and vineyards, hoping that their wines reflect the different terroirs and landscapes found in the region.  Miguel Merino Jr is the perfect example of someone making the best of this moment, with a solid foundation in the style that made Rioja’s most emblematic and venerated wines, while at the same time creating something new.

His father paved the way, when after a successful career as a wine exporter he decided to start a small bodega, choosing Briones as their focal point, a small and historic village where old vines abound, and are mostly planted in steep slopes, with varying soil-types of sand, clay, and limestone, and markedly Atlantic influenced climate.  Merino Jr. worked on and off with him and in other wineries, and he and his wife Erika joined full-time in 2017, bringing contemporary ideas to the production (such as the emphasis on single-vineyards, the creation of a monovarietal Garnacha and a white wine, as well as a stronger focus on farming.)  Today he owns 7 hectares of vineyards, and farms another 6, distributed among 24 different plots, all located in Briones.  The oldest of his vines were planted in 1929, many in the 60’s and 70’s, and the younger ones planted in 2001.

His portfolio is now made of the first wines created by his father, still conforming to the traditional standards of the region, labeled Reserva, and Gran Reserva, as well as new wines named after the vineyards Merino Jr chose to focus on.  The style on both lines is decidedly elegant, and what stands out after the judicious work in the vineyards - all done by hand, without the use of herbicides or fertilizers - and the soft approach in the cellar is balance, his main goal.

The still tiny production - just under 60,000 bottles - is growing as his work keeps getting discovered and praised, and some of his work and wines become references for the new Rioja, such as the single-vineyards La Loma (Tempranillo with a bit of Garnacha), and La Quinta Cruz (100% Mazuelo or Carignan.)