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Campeador Viura 2022, new vintage

Bodegas Martínez Lacuesta presenta la añada 2022 de Campeador Viura.

07 Jul 2024 |

Today we present the Vintage 2022 of Campeador Viura, the first white wine to be produced under the Campeador brand which, as you know, was created in 1916 to produce the first Rioja cavas. This is a limited edition in the style of the great historic white wines of Rioja. A wine that can be considered a wine for cellaring, so you can keep it in your private cellars for a few years or you can drink it immediately thanks to its harmony, intensity and subtlety.

Campeador Viura 2022 comes from an old Viura vineyard. Harvested by hand, the grapes were destemmed, destemmed and fermented in stainless steel tanks. At this point, the winemaking process is bifurcated. One part is vatted and treated as clean must, while the other part is kept with its skins in the style of a traditional Rioja red wine.

Fermentation takes place in wooden vats and ageing in French oak vats. As you can see, we wanted to recover from the annals of Rioja winemaking a very old-fashioned way of making wine, starting the process with the skins and finishing it off with a moderate ageing in barrels.

On the nose it has more oxidative Viura sensations, as if it were from an older vintage.
It is the palate that reminds us that we are talking about a young wine because of its hints of citrus and stone fruit.


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Javier Bañales:
Campeador Viura is a wine with the soul of a classic. It comes from a Viura planted some 60 years ago in the Haro and Anguciana area. Its first peculiarity is that it was harvested twice. On the first day, part of the grapes were harvested and the must was put into the vat clean, without skins or pips. The following day the other part was harvested and incorporated with skins.

Viura, like Albillo and especially when they are young, are not very expressive or opulent, aromatic or powerful varieties. It seems to me to be a resilient variety and I love that about it. Everything that can kill it is what makes it grow. It is a variety that grows and develops over time.

It is a Viura that in the end was left with 20% fermented with skins, pre-fermented in wooden vats, no malolactic fermentation and aged in 500 litre barrels of new French oak for only 8 months. We wanted the varietal to prevail. When the vats we use have received more wines, maybe we will age it a little bit more, but at this moment eight months seemed enough for us. We tasted it every day and that’s how we decided.

The nice thing was that on the nose we got sensations of more oxidative Viura with a feeling of older vintages. Aromatically, the more citric and fine idea of Viura can be observed.

This is Campeador’s first white wine in its history. Campeador will include its most Burgundian range and microvinifications, singular plots with a more vigneron concept. Tangentially different from Martínez Lacuesta.

It is a slightly disruptive Viura, but at heart it is a classic wine, like a vintage. It is always very floral and a little citric. The use of the skins was intended to provide a little bit of support, a little bit of nerve. You can see a halo of freshness that may indicate good ageing, but we will see if the wine itself achieves homogeneity”.