From the atlas
Bodegas D. Mateos
At A Glance
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| Location | Aldeanueva de Ebro, Rioja Oriental, DOCa Rioja, Spain |
| Founded | 1886 |
| Vineyards | 100 hectares across four parcels on Monte Yerga |
| Vine Age | Average 45 years |
| Elevation | 375 to 650 metres |
| Grapes | Tempranillo, Garnacha, Mazuelo, Graciano, Tempranillo Blanco |
| Key Wines | La Mateo Tempranillo Blanco, Letargo Crianza |
| Importer (US) | Weygandt-Metzler (NY, NJ, CA) |
The Producer
Bodegas D. Mateos sits at the eastern edge of Rioja, where the appellation meets the Navarra border and the Ebro plain gives way to the slopes of Monte Yerga. The estate was founded in 1886, and seven generations have farmed the same hillside since. The current owner and technical director, Mateo Ruiz Moreno, holds credentials as both an agronomist and an enologist. He took formal control in 1999 and has since added university research partnerships alongside the traditional range.
The four named vineyard parcels, El Salobral, El Bosquil, El Coscojar, and Los Quemaos, spread across Monte Yerga's slopes from 375 to 650 metres. The 100 hectares carry vines averaging 45 years old. More than half are goblet trained, the older Rioja form that keeps yields low and root systems deep. The rest are trellis trained.
Two wines define what the estate does differently: a white wine made from Tempranillo Blanco, a natural genetic mutation of the Tempranillo grape, and the Letargo Crianza, a red blend that draws on all four of the estate's red varieties, including the rarely seen Graciano. Both reflect Mateo Ruiz Moreno's inclination to treat the estate's minority varieties as assets rather than as background plantings.
Place
Rioja Oriental, formerly called Rioja Baja, is the warmest and easternmost of the three Rioja subzones. It runs along the Ebro river toward Navarra and Aragón, away from the Atlantic-influenced cooler west. Most of the subzone sits at low elevation on the valley floor and has historically been associated with Garnacha, a variety that tolerates heat and dry conditions. Tempranillo, which dominates Rioja Alta and Rioja Alavesa, behaves differently here: longer growing seasons, higher sugar accumulation, and wine that tends toward fuller body.
Monte Yerga changes the calculation. The massif rises sharply from the Ebro basin, and the estate's parcels run from 375 metres at the lower boundary to 650 metres near the summit. That 275-metre span creates meaningfully cooler air at night, slowing ripening and preserving acidity in a subzone where the flatlands can push grapes toward overripeness. The elevation is why the estate can make a convincing Tempranillo Blanco with fresh acidity and a long finish, and why the Letargo Crianza holds its shape through the warm growing season.
Soil And Site
The soils across the four parcels are clay loam with stone and gravel, typical of Monte Yerga's slopes rather than the alluvial deposits of the Ebro plain. Clay loam retains moisture through the dry summers of Rioja Oriental, while the stone and gravel component drains excess water and warms the root zone in spring. The goblet-trained vines, which account for more than half the vineyard, grow without vertical support and keep canopy low and exposed to airflow. On a warm hillside with long summer days, that airflow matters for disease pressure and for the aromatic character of the fruit at harvest.
Story
The estate has been farming Monte Yerga since 1886, long enough that the oldest goblet-trained vines predate the Spanish Civil War. For most of those generations, the work followed the pattern of the wider Rioja Oriental: grow Garnacha and Tempranillo, sell grapes or bulk wine, keep the family holding intact.
Mateo Ruiz Moreno changed the direction in 1999. Coming in with formal training in both agronomy and enology, he began estate-bottling wines under the family name and building a range with distinct labels and clear positioning. The four lines, La Mateo, Tío Martín, In, and Letargo, gave the winery four named lines beyond bulk supply.
The decision came with Tempranillo Blanco. Rioja vineyards had occasionally produced this natural mutation of Tempranillo, a white-berried version of the red-wine grape. Rather than graft over the affected vines or treat the mutation as an anomaly, Ruiz Moreno isolated the variety and built a vinification program around it: new French and American oak, six months on the lees with weekly stirring, and a release under the La Mateo label. At the same time, he opened research partnerships with CIDA, the regional agricultural institute, and the University of La Rioja, focusing specifically on Graciano and Tempranillo Blanco. For a 100-hectare family estate in the eastern subzone, that institutional connection was a signal about how seriously the winery intended to pursue its minority varieties.
Vineyards And Cellar
The vineyard's age matters in the glass. Vines averaging 45 years have developed root systems that reach well below the surface and produce smaller crops with more concentrated flavour. Combined with goblet training, which forces the vine to support its own weight and limits the amount of fruit each plant carries, the parcels at El Salobral, El Bosquil, El Coscojar, and Los Quemaos produce grapes with density rather than volume.
In the cellar, the two flagship wines have fully documented methods. La Mateo Tempranillo Blanco ferments in new 225-litre barrels from the Allier and Vosges forests in France and from Ohio in America. The wine then stays in those barrels on its lees for six months, with battonage every week throughout. The stirring integrates the lees into the wine, adding body, softening acidity's edge, and building the creamy texture that appears alongside the oak spice in the finished bottle.
The Letargo Crianza blends Tempranillo, Garnacha, Graciano, and Mazuelo, then spends twelve months in barrel, split between French oak at seventy percent and American oak at thirty. Twelve further months in bottle follow before release, giving the tannins time to integrate and allowing the dried-fruit character from the barrel phase to settle into the wine.
Wines
The estate runs four labels. La Mateo is the flagship, carrying both the Tempranillo Blanco white and other wines from the estate's best parcels. Tío Martín and In are separate ranges whose positioning and varieties are not fully detailed in available sources. Letargo is the Crianza-level red, built on the blend of all four red varieties.
La Mateo Tempranillo Blanco is a white wine from a red-wine grape, made with the attention normally given to serious white Burgundy: new oak from two countries, extended lees contact, weekly battonage, and a vinification program designed to build body and aromatic complexity simultaneously. The result sits in the fuller end of white Rioja, with stonefruit and citrus on the nose alongside white chocolate and butter from the oak work, and a palate that adds yellow apple, cardamom, brown butter, and vanilla. Acidity runs well through the mid-palate, holding the oak richness in check.
Letargo Crianza comes from a blend that few estates in Rioja Oriental can make, combining Tempranillo's structural grip, Garnacha's fruit weight, Graciano's aromatic lift and acidity, and Mazuelo's tannin frame. The twelve-month barrel phase produces vanilla, spice, and toasted bread on the nose, with licorice and dried fruit underneath. The twelve months in bottle before release smooth the transition between oak and fruit, so the wine arrives with all the barrel character integrated rather than dominant.
In The Glass
La Mateo Tempranillo Blanco opens with peach, nectarine, and grapefruit alongside orange blossom and jasmine, then adds white chocolate and butter from the new oak. In the mouth it is generous and round, the battonage-built texture giving it presence across the mid-palate. The acidity is well balanced rather than sharp, which makes the finish long without feeling heavy. The 2023 vintage adds yellow apple, spices, brown butter, cardamom, and nuts to the aromatic register.
Letargo Crianza 2021 pours bright ruby with a violet edge. The nose leads with licorice and stewed dried fruit, dried apricot, plum, and sour cherry, wrapped in vanilla, spice, and toasted bread from the twelve months in barrel. On the palate it is full and long, with a firm acidity backbone that keeps the ripe fruit from becoming soft. The finish runs through dried plum and vanilla and ends on a savory, mineral note, the Graciano's contribution visible in the way the wine keeps its freshness despite its weight.
A Bottle To Understand It
La Mateo Tempranillo Blanco is the right first bottle. It comes from a grape that grows nowhere else in the world at any significant scale, a natural mutation found in Rioja's own vineyards, and the winery has built a program around it that treats the variety as seriously as any serious white wine producer would treat Chardonnay or Viognier. New French and American oak, six months on the lees, weekly battonage: the method is deliberate and the results are traceable in the glass. Peach, nectarine, and grapefruit on the nose, a lush and rounded mid-palate, a long finish with cardamom, butter, and vanilla, and acidity that holds the whole thing upright. It tells you what elevation on Monte Yerga can do with a white grape, and it explains why Mateo Ruiz Moreno thought the mutation was worth keeping.
Anecdote
At some point in the vineyard work on Monte Yerga, a row of Tempranillo vines started producing white berries. Not diseased, not crossed with anything, simply a spontaneous genetic shift in a red-wine grape. Most growers in Rioja Oriental would have grafted over the affected plants and returned the parcel to normal. Mateo Ruiz Moreno did the opposite. He separated the mutated vines, propagated the variety, and built a full vinification program around it: new French oak from Allier and Vosges, new American oak from Ohio, six months on the lees with the barrels stirred every week. He called it La Mateo Tempranillo Blanco and released it as the estate's flagship white. The grape still carries the Tempranillo name, and the wine still surprises people who assumed the name only came in red.
Final Word
Bodegas D. Mateos sits in the part of Rioja that wine buyers tend to skip on their way to the Alta or the Alavesa. Monte Yerga's elevation makes that a mistake worth correcting. The Tempranillo Blanco alone, a white wine from a red grape's spontaneous mutation, grown at altitude, aged in new French and American oak with six months of weekly lees-stirring, is the kind of bottle that needs no prestige context to justify itself. The Letargo Crianza adds the full picture of what the estate grows: four red varieties, twelve months in barrel, twelve months in bottle, and a savory mineral finish that comes from the hillside rather than from a winemaking formula.
Sources
- https://www.bodegaslamateo.com/en/
- https://riojawine.com/en-us/bodegas-rioja/bodegas-d-mateos/
- https://www.weygandtmetzler.com/prod-focus-v201.php?producer=d-mateos&x=74&y=81
- https://todowine.com/bodegas/bodegas-d-mateos/
- https://www.vinoseleccion.com/bodegueros/mateo-ruiz-moreno
- https://en.spainflavor.com/wine/la-mateo-tempranillo-blanco-white-wine/
- https://www.systembolaget.se/produkt/vin/9600501/
- https://winetherapynyc.com/products/bodegas-d-mateos-letargo-crianza-2021