The first wine released from Arínzano's Chardonnay Lab, a project that tested 36 different vessels to find the one that carried the estate's limestone most faithfully into the glass. A sphere of bare concrete won.
Tasting Notes
Clean, bright yellow with straw tones and green reflections. The nose is strikingly frank and mineral, closer to the smell of rain on dry ground than to orchard fruit, and after a few minutes in the glass the scrubland around the vineyard arrives with it, thyme and rosemary. The palate is fresh, saline and sapid, with an Atlantic edge and real depth running in a straight line rather than spreading out. Creamy in texture from a year of lees movement, yet completely balanced, round and without a hard edge anywhere. Malolactic fermentation was blocked, which is why the freshness holds despite the ripeness.
Quick Facts
- Grape: 100% Chardonnay
- Origin: Spain, Navarra, D.O.P. Pago de Arínzano
- Plot: Canteras Pinos, the highest point of the estate, sitting on a limestone fault
- Soil: 15 to 20 cm of topsoil over solid calcareous rock
- Yields: Around 2,000 kg per hectare, extremely low
- Winemaking: Hand harvested into 12 kg crates with bunch selection, direct pressing for the free run must, fermented at 14 to 15°C, no malolactic fermentation
- Ageing: 12 months in an unlined spherical concrete tank, so the wine stays in contact with the same calcium carbonate the vines grew in
- Alcohol: Around 14.5%
- Bottles are individually numbered
Food Pairing
Grilled turbot or hake, lobster and langoustine, scallops, roast poultry with herbs, aged Idiazábal, and vegetable dishes with thyme or rosemary. The salinity makes it unusually good with anything from the sea.
Serving
Serve at 10 to 12°C, and give it time. This is a wine that changes in the glass, and the herbal notes only arrive several minutes after opening.
About the Producer
Arínzano lies in a valley split by the river Ega in Tierra Estella, Navarra, where vines have been worked for close to a thousand years. In 2007 it became the first estate in northern Spain granted Vino de Pago status, its own appellation covering one property alone. The estate runs to 355 hectares with 125 under vine, farmed sustainably in a conservation programme designed with WWF. Pureza belongs to the top Arínzano range, above the Hacienda de Arínzano wines, and comes from the Chardonnay Lab launched in 2021 under winemaker José Manuel Rodríguez Aguado. That project aged the same Chardonnay in 36 different containers, from barrels of varying origin and toast to amphorae, foudres and concrete in several shapes. Pureza is the concrete sphere, and it is the one the team judged truest to the ground it came from.
