Collection: Bideona Rioja - The Kiwi Connection

Bideona has been a favourite a Wine Direct for a while now with the ‘entry’ level wines always over delivering on value and character. However, up to now we haven’t been able to get our hands on their famed ‘Village Wines’. These wines are a classic examples of the Wine Direct ethos of supplying ‘wines with character, made by interesting people from fascinating parts of the world’.

The other cool thing about Bideona is that Kiwi Master of Wine Sam Harrop MW was one of the founders and below describes his approach to developing the style of the Village Wines wines:

"The wines of Bideona are wines with an intense character – a sense of place. All three are made from the same variety – Tempranillo and in the same manner, with moderate new oak influence, cool fermentation temperatures, moderate extraction. The aim - to express the wonderful vineyards and NO a winemaking ideology, these three wines are so different and so unique. Made to appreciate in youth and to continue to improve with age for 15-20 years, these are truly remarkable wines. It is our belief that the best vineyards of Alavesa have the potential to make some of the greatest red wines on the planet."
 - Sam Harrop MW

Bideona owns or manages over 300 parcels of extraordinary vines in villages throughout the Rioja Alavesa, the coolest, smallest and most Atlantic sub-zone of Spain’s most famous wine region. The vineyards of the Rioja Alavesa are defined by parcels of old bush vines planted on terraces or hillside slopes with a high percentage of limestone. Located in the foothills of the Sierra Cantabria, Bideona’s vines have an average age of 50 years and many were planted in the 1920s, 30s and 40s, before high-yielding clones became available.

Bideona puts the focus firmly on terroir by making each wine in its Vino de Pueblo (Village Wine) range as a field blend of Tempranillo and other native varieties from plots in an individual village. Each is named with an acronym – L3Z4 for Leza, L4GD4 for Laguardia, S4MG0 for Samaniego and V1BN4 for Villabuena – owing to DOCa Rioja regulations that only allow village names to be marked if both the winery and the vineyard are in the same location. In Addition the designation Crianza or Reserva is deliberately omitted here, since the wine would have to be completely matured in barriques, which contradicts Bideona's terroir philosophy. Less wood equals more origin is the motto here.