Bodega Ontañón Tempranillo Blanco

Ontañón Tempranillo Blanco has a Light yellow colour with a touch of green reflection. It has intense notes of tropical fruit aromas of pineapple and banana with hints of white flowers. On the palate, this wine is well-balanced with good acidity and a high expression of fruit with a lengthy finish.

The grapes were brought to the winery immediately after harvest. Once at the winery, the grapes were slowly pressed to extract must. After this occurs, the seeds are separated from the must in order to obtain the best aromas and flavours during the fermentation process.

This process happens over the course of 14 days in a controlled temperature of 16 ºC. The must ferments in an homogeneous, slow, and orderly way. Once fermented, we transfer the juice to its lees, where it spends 2 months aging on the lees, which adds to much more complex aromas and flavors that evolve over time. The wine is then removed from its lees, racked and then bottled after tartaric stabilization occurs.

In 1988, a local Rioja winemaker found a bunch of white grapes growing in the midst of one his tempranillo parcels in his Murillo de Río Leza property in the Rioja Baja. After several years of investigation, the Consejo Regulador of Rioja (regulatory authority) accepted this natural mutation of the Tempranillo and approved it as one of the varieties permitted to be grown in the DOCa. Only one generation separates the white and the red version of the grape, similar to white mutations of both Pinot Noir and Garnacha .

Bodegas Ontanon believed that this new variety had great aromatic potential and planted 15 hectares of the grape on their Rioja Baja properties in Quel. They are proud to share the final results with you in their Ontanon Tempranillo Blanco.