From the atlas
Bodegas Izadi
At A Glance
Producer: Bodegas Izadi Type: Estate winery Location: Villabuena de Álava, Rioja Alavesa, DOCa Rioja, Spain Grapes: Tempranillo, Garnacha Tinta, Garnacha Blanca Founded: 1987 Group: Artevino Family Wineries
The Producer
Gonzalo Antón ran one of the Basque Country's most respected restaurants before he ever made wine. As owner of the Zaldiaran Restaurant in Vitoria, he had spent years thinking about what ended up in a glass. At 37, alongside business partners from Vitoria, he decided to make it himself. His family had grown grapes in Villabuena de Álava for generations; he chose the same hillside as the site and built a winery there in 1987.
The name Izadi is the Basque word for nature. It is a short declaration of intent: the estate would be grounded in its physical surroundings, not borrowed prestige. That philosophy showed early. In 1993, six years after founding, Izadi opened a restaurant and hotel on the winery site and began receiving visitors with guided tours. Wine tourism in Rioja is now standard practice; in 1993, it meant converting a production facility into a hospitality space before most producers had thought to do it.
The winery now belongs to the Artevino Family Wineries group, which Gonzalo and his son Lalo built through a sequence of acquisitions: Finca Villacreces in Ribera del Duero in 2003, Vetus in Toro in 2004, and Orben in Rioja in 2005. Lalo joined the company in 2000 and led the international expansion.
Place
Rioja Alavesa is the northernmost of Rioja's three sub-zones, pressed against the Sierra de Cantabria mountain range with the Ebro River to the south. The Basque Country border is close, and the sub-zone's wines carry that proximity: Tempranillo grown here tends toward lighter body and firmer acidity than the same grape grown in Rioja Alta or Rioja Oriental. Altitude and the mountain influence keep temperatures lower, slow ripening, and hold freshness in the fruit.
Villabuena de Álava sits at the foot of the Sierra de Cantabria. Izadi's vineyard parcels are clustered in a triangle between Villabuena, Samaniego, and Ábalos, all on the Sierra's foothills, with an average parcel size below 1.5 hectares. Small plots mean separate harvesting and separate handling, which is why the cellar matters as much as the map.
Soil And Site
The Sierra de Cantabria foothills supply the physical backdrop: rocky slopes, elevation, and the wind shelter that allows Garnacha to ripen fully at altitude while keeping acidity intact. Izadi has been farming organically since approximately 2019. The Larrosa Garnacha parcels sit at the upper end of the altitude range, where cooler temperatures slow ripening and produce a rosé with more freshness than warmth. No soil type has been confirmed from primary sources in this packet; the topography and altitude are the documented site factors.
Story
Gonzalo Antón's decision in 1987 was not a pivot away from hospitality; it was an extension of it. He brought the same attention to sourcing that had built Zaldiaran's reputation and turned it toward the hillside his family already knew. The gravity-flow winery he built on that slope was engineered to handle grapes the way a kitchen handles good produce: with care and without unnecessary intervention.
The 1993 public opening was the first visible signal that Izadi saw wine and food as inseparable. A working winery became a destination, with a restaurant, hotel, and tasting rooms alongside the cellar. The hospitality logic ran through every decision: the gastronomy heritage shaped both the range and how it was presented to visitors.
When Lalo Antón joined in 2000, the estate's ambitions expanded outward. International markets opened. The Artevino acquisitions followed, adding Finca Villacreces, Vetus, and Orben to the group over three years. Izadi remained the founding address and the clearest statement of what the family had started: a Basque hotelier's conviction that the grapes on his family's land deserved a label.
Vineyards And Cellar
Izadi has access to 178 hectares of vines, 70 of which it owns, with the balance contracted from growers in the same triangle between Villabuena, Samaniego, and Ábalos. The small average parcel size gives the team flexibility to harvest plot by plot rather than zone by zone.
The winery was built into the hillside specifically to run on gravity. Grapes enter at the top level and descend through five production floors across 50 metres of elevation change, without pumps. The absence of pump pressure means skins and seeds are handled more gently, which has direct consequences for tannin extraction and fruit clarity in the finished wines.
Cellar practice varies by bottle. La Gran Rosa undergoes alcoholic fermentation in stainless steel tanks, then ages briefly on lees in barrel, keeping the wine fresh while adding a layer of texture. Malpuesto, the single-vineyard Tempranillo from the estate's oldest parcels, spends 15 months in French oak, with manual stirring during malolactic fermentation to integrate the oak and build a rounder palate.
Wines
The range runs from a Garnacha rosé entry point through a Tempranillo Reserva to two elevated expressions: a single-vineyard red and a prestige rosé in magnum.
Larrosa Rosé is built entirely from Garnacha grown on high-altitude, old-vine parcels. The altitude slows ripening and sharpens acidity, producing a rosé with more energy than warmth, pale in colour, and driven by fresh red fruit rather than the richer, fuller character of lower-altitude Garnacha.
Izadi Reserva is 100% Tempranillo carrying the DOCa Rioja Reserva classification, which requires minimum ageing in oak and bottle before release. The 2020 vintage shows a structured red fruit nose, medium body, and the firm, drying tannin that Tempranillo from Rioja Alavesa delivers when grown at altitude and given time in barrel.
Malpuesto is a single-vineyard Tempranillo from the oldest estate parcels. Fifteen months in French oak and manual stirring during malolactic fermentation build a wine with deeper fruit concentration, integrated oak, and a longer, more layered finish than the Reserva.
La Gran Rosa is the most original wine in the range. It co-ferments 70% Garnacha Tinta with 30% Garnacha Blanca, a combination rare enough in Rioja to mark a deliberate commitment. The Garnacha Blanca component adds a citrus-edged freshness and a faint floral lift that shifts the wine's character away from a conventional red-fruit rosé. Light barrel ageing on lees adds texture without weight. The wine arrives in magnum.
In The Glass
Larrosa opens with pale colour and a fresh nose of strawberry and light citrus, the altitude keeping the fruit taut. On the palate it is light-bodied and clean, with acidity driving the finish more than fruit weight.
The Izadi Reserva has a deeper ruby colour and a nose of dark cherry, dried herbs, and a touch of vanilla from the barrel time. The mouth is medium-weighted with the kind of firm, grippy tannin that Tempranillo from this sub-zone typically produces, and a finish that needs food or a few more years in the bottle to fully open.
Malpuesto is darker and more concentrated. Old-vine Tempranillo with 15 months of French oak gives a wine with blackberry fruit, cedar, and a smooth but present tannin grip. The manual stirring during malolactic fermentation shows in the palate's rounded, creamy mid-section, even as the finish stays long and structured.
La Gran Rosa pours salmon-pink with a lemony rim. The nose is immediate: strawberry, currant, cherry blossom, and rose, with a streak of lemon zest and lime underneath the red fruit. On the palate it is unctuous but keeps its freshness, the Garnacha Blanca's citrus character holding the wine from becoming heavy. The finish is bright, with lemon zest carrying through after the strawberry fades.
A Bottle To Understand It
La Gran Rosa is the right first bottle. It demonstrates what Izadi does that other Rioja estates do not: co-fermenting Garnacha Tinta and Garnacha Blanca, in magnum, from small hillside parcels, with the result aged on lees in barrel for texture. Salmon-pink in the glass, it opens with strawberry, currant, cherry blossom, and a sharp seam of citrus from the Garnacha Blanca. The palate is full without being heavy, refreshing without being light, and the lemon zest finish is long and clean. It is a rosé that takes an argument seriously.
Anecdote
Gonzalo Antón was running one of the most talked-about tables in the Basque Country when he decided he also wanted to make the wine. His family had farmed grapes in Villabuena de Álava for generations; the land was already familiar. At 37, alongside a group of business partners from nearby Vitoria, he founded Izadi on that same hillside in 1987. He built the winery into the slope to let gravity do the work that pumps usually do, a choice that was unusual for Rioja at the time and that still defines how the cellar handles fruit today. Six years later, in 1993, he opened the winery's doors to the public with a restaurant, a hotel, and guided tours running alongside production. Most of his neighbours had not considered the idea. Antón had simply extended the same logic he had always applied at Zaldiaran: food, wine, and the place that produced both should be experienced together.
Final Word
Izadi is a Rioja Alavesa estate with a clear founding premise: that wine and gastronomy belong together and that both should be grounded in the physical place that produces them. The gravity-flow cellar, the early bet on wine tourism, and La Gran Rosa's Garnacha Blanca co-ferment are all expressions of the same instinct. The range runs from an accessible Tempranillo Reserva to wines that reward more attention, and the sub-zone's altitude and acidity run through all of them.
Sources
- https://izadi.com/en/winery-vineyards
- https://riojawine.com/en-us/bodegas-rioja/bodegas-izadi/
- https://artevino.es/en/history
- https://izadi.com/en/winery-history
- https://spanishwinelover.com/winerie/izadi
- https://izadi.com/en/wines-doca-rioja/izad-la-gran-rosa
- https://izadi.com/en/wines-doca-rioja/larrosa-rose
- https://izadi.com/en/wines-doca-rioja/malpuesto
- https://www.saq.com/en/12604098