From the atlas
Bodegas Baigorri
At A Glance
- Region: Rioja Alavesa, Rioja, Spain
- Grape: Tempranillo (primary); Maturana (indigenous revival)
- Founded: 2002
- Winery: Underground gravity-flow facility, descending 35 metres
- Listed wine: Baigorri Finca Las Navas
- Soil: Clay two metres deep over limestone
The Producer
Bodegas Baigorri was founded in 2002 in Rioja Alavesa, the westernmost and highest sub-zone of Rioja, where the vineyards sit on clay-heavy soils above a limestone base and the Atlantic influence keeps temperatures lower than in the warmer Rioja Alta and Rioja Oriental. The winery descends 35 metres underground, designed by architect Iñaki Aspiazu so that fruit received at the top of the building moves through every stage of production without a pump, a mechanical lift, or a hose under pressure. Gravity does the work from harvest to cask.
That engineering decision shapes everything that follows. Whole and destemmed berries drop gently into 5,000-litre French oak fermentation vats. Remontage happens by gravity. The wine is never bruised by a pump. The single-vineyard Finca Las Navas Tempranillo is the clearest result of this method: a wine that sits between the concentrated old-vine Reserva style and the more approachable fruit-forward direction that much of modern Rioja has moved toward.
Place
Rioja Alavesa occupies the northern bank of the Ebro river, within the Basque Country rather than La Rioja province. The appellation label on a Baigorri bottle reads Rioja, but the sub-zone is distinct: cooler, higher, with heavier clay soils over limestone compared to the alluvial sands and pebbles that characterise lower-lying parts of Rioja Alta. Those clay-limestone soils, two metres of clay above a pure limestone substrate, encourage vine roots to push deep for water and minerals. The result appears in the wines as firmer acidity, tighter tannin at youth, and a mineral thread that runs through the fruit rather than sitting apart from it.
Rioja Alavesa is Tempranillo country above all, but the sub-zone has also been the home of near-extinct indigenous varieties that a handful of producers have spent the past two decades recovering. Baigorri is among them.
Soil And Site
Finca Las Navas, the estate's flagship plot, covers nearly four hectares oriented north to south. The soil is clay-limestone, the same two-metre clay depth over limestone that characterises the Rioja Alavesa style at its most typified. The north-south orientation means morning and afternoon sun reach the vines at low angles, slowing ripening and preserving acidity. The vines are masal selections, meaning cuttings taken from the best individual plants in the vineyard over generations rather than from a single commercial clone. Masal selection produces genetic diversity across the block, which in turn gives the wine a broader aromatic range and greater stability from year to year.
Story
When Baigorri was founded in 2002, Rioja was in the middle of a stylistic argument. The international market had pushed many producers toward heavily extracted wines with new oak and ripe, forward fruit. A counter-current of smaller estates was working toward something different: careful farming, lower yields, longer maceration without over-extraction, and cellar work designed to preserve vineyard character rather than add winemaker character on top of it.
Baigorri's answer to that argument was architectural. The underground winery eliminated mechanical pump-overs by design, not by choice made vintage by vintage. The building committed the estate to gravity-flow before the first harvest. That commitment has shaped range decisions since: the Reserva draws on vines 45 years or older, hand-selected at harvest; the Maturana bottling recovers a grape that the regional trade had effectively abandoned as commercially unviable. Both choices run against the easiest path for a young Rioja estate and toward something harder to replicate.
Vineyards And Cellar
Finca Las Navas is harvested by hand. In the cellar, carbonic snow is applied to the incoming fruit before fermentation begins, dropping the temperature and encouraging intracellular maceration inside whole berries. A mix of destemmed and whole berries then goes into 5,000-litre French oak vats, larger than the barriques that dominate most Rioja cellars and gentler on the fruit. Fermentation runs for 30 days. Remontage happens by gravity rather than pump.
After alcoholic fermentation, malolactic conversion takes place in the same vats. The wine then rests on its lees for four to eight months before bottling. Lees contact adds texture and a subtle roundness to the finish without adding oak or toasty character. The absence of new small barrique ageing is deliberate: the wine is meant to carry Tempranillo fruit, clay-limestone mineral character, and the freshness that Rioja Alavesa altitude and soil give, rather than wood flavour laid over the top.
The Reserva follows a different path. Vines are 45 years or older, hand-harvested. Age of vine concentrates flavour and tends toward smaller berries with higher skin-to-juice ratios, which deepens colour, increases tannin grip, and extends the finish.
Wines
The Baigorri range has three distinct pillars.
Baigorri Finca Las Navas is the single-vineyard wine and the estate's central argument. Masal-selected Tempranillo, nearly four hectares, clay-limestone soil, fermented in large French oak vats with a blend of whole and destemmed fruit, 30-day fermentation, and lees ageing. The wine is fresh and red-fruited, with dried herbs on the nose, a round mid-palate, and a finish that carries tobacco, smoke, and a liquorice note. It is approachable at release but has the acidity and tannin to hold for several years.
Baigorri Reserva draws on old vines, 45 years or older, selected by hand. Where Finca Las Navas is about site and method, the Reserva is about age of vine: deeper concentration, firmer tannin, and a need for time in the bottle. It sits within the Rioja Reserva category, which requires a minimum of three years ageing including at least one in oak.
Baigorri Maturana is made from a near-extinct indigenous grape of Rioja Alavesa. Production is small. The variety produces dark, tannic wines with high natural acidity, quite different in character from Tempranillo and positioned at the specialist end of the range.
In The Glass
Finca Las Navas opens with fresh red fruit, cherry and plum, then dried herbs, tobacco, and a thread of smoke and liquorice. The nose is clean rather than heavy, Rioja in type but without the obvious vanilla and coconut character of wines aged in new American oak. In the mouth the fruit is round and soft-edged, the acidity firm enough to keep the wine lifted, and the tannins present but not grippy. The finish is long and carries the tobacco and liquorice notes from the nose through to a mineral close. Four to eight months on lees adds a slight creamy texture to the palate without blurring the fruit.
The Reserva reads differently: darker fruit, more grip, more compressed at youth, and needing more time before the tannins open and the mid-palate fills in. The old-vine concentration is present on the nose as well as the palate, with more dried fruit and less fresh cherry than the Finca Las Navas.
A Bottle To Understand It
Baigorri Finca Las Navas is a nearly four-hectare masal-selected Tempranillo plot, fermented in large French oak vats with a mix of whole and destemmed fruit, 30 days of fermentation with gravity remontage, then malolactic in vat and four to eight months on lees. No new barrique, no heavy oak. The wine is fresh, round, and mineral, with red fruit, dried herbs, tobacco, and liquorice on a persistent finish. It sits clearly between the old-guard Rioja Reserva style and the lighter, more modern approach. Start here to understand both the clay-limestone soils of Rioja Alavesa and what the gravity-flow cellar delivers.
Anecdote
When architect Iñaki Aspiazu drew up the plans for the Baigorri winery in the years before the 2002 founding, he buried the building. The facility descends 35 metres underground, with the receiving platform at the top and every subsequent stage of production below it: crush, fermentation, ageing, and bottling arranged vertically so that fruit moves downward by gravity at every transition. No pump touches the must or the wine from the moment the grapes arrive. It was an expensive commitment for a new estate, and it meant the production philosophy was locked in concrete before a single vintage had been made. Thirty-five metres of stacked underground chambers meant gravity-flow was not an option to revisit each year but a permanent condition of every wine Baigorri would ever produce.
Final Word
Baigorri built its winery underground before it made its first wine, and that sequence matters. The gravity-flow principle is not a technique applied vintage by vintage but an architectural fact that shapes every bottle in the range. Finca Las Navas is the clearest result: single-vineyard Tempranillo from clay-limestone Rioja Alavesa, fermented without pump stress, rested on lees, and bottled with the freshness and mineral thread the sub-zone produces.
Sources
- https://www.bkwine.com/features/wine-producer-profiles/time-for-a-comeback-in-rioja-with-bodegas-baigorri-britt-on-forbes/
- https://bodegasbaigorri.com/en/producto/baigorri-finca-las-navas/
- https://riojawine.com/en-us/vinos-rioja/finca-las-navas-tempranillo/