Artadi La Hoya 2022

This La Hoya shows slightly sweet berries along with rose petal and dark mineral character. There are touches of ripe blue fruit and goji berries as well. Chalky tannins on the palate, with iodine and a bit more roundness from the blue fruit. But essentially, this is still a stony red. From organically grown grapes. Drink or hold.

The bottled 2022 La Hoya delivers what it promised last year, after spending two winters in oak, the first one in 500- and 600-liter barrels and the second one in foudre. It's from an east-facing 3.6-hectare vineyard planted in 1965 on deep and dark soils on hard sandstone, in a hole (that's what the name means), possibly a lake in the distant past. It combines the fruit of the sandstone with the clout of the silt and is expressive, aromatic and open. It's clean, harmonious, quite approachable and quite round, with good ripeness and 14.6% alcohol but with good overall freshness. 5,000 bottles produced. It was bottled in June 2024. (Luis Guitérrez)