DOCa Rioja New Regulations update
Rioja
Vinos "de Pueblo" and "de Zona" to complete Rioja Wine renovation process
Main Points
1
Rioja continues to diversify its offer by providing more information on wine labels
2
DOCa RIOJA enhances the visibility of smaller geographical units
3
“Rioja, the flagship of Spanish quality wines, culminates a strategy targeted at the trade, opinion leaders and final consumers who demand more information. The debate has been long and challenging, but the importance of the project made it necessary”, stated President of DOCa RIOJA, Fernando Salamero.
The Control Board Plenary today approved an update of regulations on indications of zone (formerly sub-regions) and municipality or town, giving them greater visibility.
After regulating a traceability procedure in 1998 that allowed the names of either municipalities or sub-region (Rioja Alta, Rioja Alavesa, Rioja Baja) to appear on labels, the Control Board has taken a further step by contemplating situations in which winemakers grow vines in bordering locations, from which up to 15% of the total grape volume will be allowed. The requirement will be a long-standing link to the vineyard, which will have to be a permanent project in order to prevent speculation. This margin of tolerance is part of the possibilities offered by EU regulations.
Another new feature is the larger size on the label for the names of towns or zones. From now on, they can be as large as the DOCa Rioja name, the only requirement being that they cannot stand out more than the name of the wine region.
Finally, those making Vinos de Pueblo will have to use different brand names for those wines.
The first milestone of this new dynamic era was the review of the traditional Reserva and Gran Reserva categories, which will come into effect on January 1st, 2019.
The second one was allowing the elaboration of white mono-varietal wines with any of the permitted grape varieties. This was followed by the approval of the new indication for Viñedos Singulares (Singular vineyard) wines coming from a single vineyard of exceptional quality and the production of Quality Sparkling Wines, and is now completed with Village and Zone Wines.