Luis Cañas Reserva Selección de la Familia 2020, Rioja DOCa

The Reserva Selección de la Familia is one of the flagship reds from Bodegas Luis Cañas in Villabuena de Álava, in Rioja Alavesa. It is a blend of 85% Tempranillo and 15% Cabernet Sauvignon, which makes it one of the few Riojas to include Cabernet. The fruit comes from old vines of around 55 years in plots around Villabuena, Samaniego and Leza at about 500 metres, on poor soils that keep yields naturally low. After a cold maceration, the wine is fermented in temperature-controlled cement tanks and goes through malolactic fermentation in barrel. It is then aged for 20 months in a mix of French and American oak and bottled unfiltered.

In the glass it is a deep, intense cherry red. The nose is complex, with blackcurrant, plum and blueberry, cedar and fine oak, hints of leather, dark chocolate and coffee, and fresh herbal notes of thyme and rosemary. The palate is full yet juicy, with balanced acidity, velvety tannins and savoury depth, and a long, refined finish.

Serve at 16–18°C, ideally decanting it an hour or so beforehand. It is excellent with roast lamb and beef, game, hearty stews, flavourful poultry and aged cheeses. It is drinking well now and will keep improving until the mid-2030s.

Bodegas Luis Cañas is a family winery in Villabuena de Álava, in Rioja Alavesa, sheltered to the north by the Sierra de Cantabria. The family’s roots in Rioja go back more than two centuries. Earlier generations sold their wine in bulk, and it was Luis Cañas who moved the business to bottled wine under the family name. His only son, Juan Luis Cañas, took over the management in 1989 and led a thorough modernisation of the winery. Today the family farms around 90 hectares of its own vineyards organically, with long-term contracts on a further 200 hectares, spread across more than 800 small plots with an average vine age of around 50 years. All grapes are picked by hand into small trays and sorted again at the winery.