Marques de Caceres Rioja Gaudium 2020 SF Chronicle Hand-harvested

Hand-harvested

A contemplative journey from bold fruit to dry heat

and honestly better with a few years in the cellar

with sweet tannins that frame rather than clobber

Marques de Caceres Rioja Gaudium 2020 SF Chronicle Hand-harvestedThis is the bottle Marques de Caceres makes when it wants to prove a point. Gaudium (Latin for joy) comes from tiny old vine plots scattered across Rioja Alta and the high terraces of Rioja Alavesa, some vines over seventy years old and a few pre phylloxera survivors past a century. Yields are brutal by design, under a kilo of fruit per plant, and the grapes are hand picked in small boxes and sorted cluster by cluster before native yeast fermentation