If you are a devotee of ultra-traditional, old-school Rioja, names like López de Heredia, CVNE, and La Rioja Alta are likely etched into your cellar's DNA. But there is a tiny, under-the-radar house you've likely never heard of, and we’ve been waiting nearly six years for their Gran Reserva bottling to finally land stateside: Bodega Akutain. This minute, family-run estate commands just 6 hectares of vines, operating on a mere fraction of the scale of the region's historic titans. Rooting for Akutain feels like cheering for the ultimate underdog, but the juice in the bottle stands shoulder-to-shoulder with the giants. Their coveted Gran Reserva is a rare beast, crafted only two or three times a decade when a vintage achieves absolute perfection. The last time they saw fit to release one was the legendary 2004—a wine we still vividly remember for its broad-shouldered grandeur and mesmerizing cigar box spice.

For this highly anticipated 2015 throwback blend, Akutain pulls fruit exclusively from Gembres, their highest-elevation vineyard plot nestled against the mountains at 600–650 meters. The iron-rich clay and limestone soils of this wind-swept site yield a structurally muscular, pristine raw material. While everything is still harvested entirely by hand and fermented with natural yeasts, the 2015 marks an exciting, deliberate departure from the estate's strict history of all-American oak by introducing 30% neutral French oak into the aging regimen. This subtle tweak preserves Akutain’s classic, earth-bound soul while imparting a seamless, tightly knit precision. After spending 28 months in barrel and another 30 months resting in their subterranean natural caves, the wine has emerged as a masterfully synthesized study in tension and grace.

This brilliant evolution has caught the attention of the wine world's most discerning palates, with Luis Gutiérrez of Robert Parker’s Wine Advocate bestowing a massive 95-point score on this stunning release. In the glass, the 2015 Gran Reserva delivers a striking profile of broad-shouldered black cherry and dark currant fruit seamlessly interwoven with seductive Cuban cigar, cedar, and complex spice box notes. It possesses a magnificent sense of muscularity and depth, yet it remains a deeply soulful, handcrafted testament to Rioja Alta's finest terroir. Boasting perfectly vibrant acidity and fine, age-worthy tannins, this benchmark Spanish red is built to effortlessly improve over the next two decades. Pop a bottle into large Bordeaux stems, give it a quick 15-to-30-minute decant, and secure enough for your personal cellar before this minuscule production vanishes entirely.

¡Viva España! 

Critical Acclaim:

95 Points, Wine Advocate:

“The 2015 Gran Reserva should be released around September 2022, and it's a classical, long-aging red produced with selected grapes from their oldest vineyards, the one around the winery planted in 1975 and Gembres from 1986. It fermented with indigenous yeasts for nine days followed by malolactic in tank and a slow decantation before being racked into well-seasoned, neutral oak barrels, 70% of them American and the rest French, where the wine matured for 47 months. They only produce this wine in exceptional years, and it had not been produced since 2004! It's really interesting to taste the Crianza, Reserva and Gran Reserva from 2015 together, as I did, because the progression from one to the next is pretty obvious, how each wine is a lot more complex, compete and deep. There's a lot of power here; there's plenty of tannins, but the tannins are very high quality. This is a great classical Gran Reserva that should make old bones and age in the style of the great classical wines from Rioja.”