Raindrops (Ain’t) Fallin’ on My Head
“Sometimes, in our vineyards closest to the Sierra [Cantabria],” Bodegas Lar de Paula founder Fernando Meruelo told me when I brought a group of U.S. wine buyers to his bodega in the village of Elvillar de Álava earlier this month, “the rain clouds above the mountain look so close you feel as if they’re about to fall right on top of you.”
But as I have mentioned here more than once, only rarely do those rainclouds topple over into the Ebro valley (and onto Sr. Meruelo’s head).
Such is the climatic feel up here in the northernmost reaches of the Rioja Alavesa subzone, seemingly a stone’s throw from the sheared limestone massifs that form what RODA winemaker Agustín Santolaya calls Rioja’s northern wall.
That northern wall is not only majestic and imposing, it’s also precisely what keeps that waterfall of clouds at bay on most days, as well as one of the reasons why you’d be forgiven for believing that Rioja is somehow miraculously suited to viticulture.
PHOTOS: Top, a building in the town of Elvillar de Álava, home to Bodegas Lar de Paula, with the limestone crags of the Sierra Cantabria in the background (photo by Jill Paradiso). Bottom, a view of the same mountain range from Finca Valpiedra, near town of Cenciero, roughly 9km southwest of Elvillar, showing the protective influence of Rioja’s “northern wall” (photo by José Guerra).