2019 Artuke Finca de los Locos Rioja Tempranillo

Artuke is a rarity in Rioja: a small, terroir-focused winery. Owned and run by brothers Arturo and Kike, Artuke only use grapes from their vineyards in and around the small town of Baños de Ebro, tucked under the Sierra Cantabria on the northern edges of Rioja.The Artuke aim is simple: to make vibrant wines expressive of the village, uncluttered by oak, extraction or other artifice. The brothers farm organically and their elevated, cool climate vineyards produce wonderfully bright versions of Rioja.Finca de Los Locos is an old, single vineyard wine grown high on slopes of the Cantabrian mountians north of the town of Banos.Arturo and Kike de Miguel’s grandfather planted the vines in the 1950s, though other farmers of the day thought he was mad to work such a difficult, rock-strewn slope when so much land was available on the flat plains of the Rioja Valley floor. Sixty years later however, this single parcel is consistently producing some of the finest examples of terroir-focused wine in the region.