May 2025 Blanco y Tinto Club

Sierra Cantabria 2022 Organza Blanco Regular Price: $39.99 Club Price: $33.99 Buy Now

There are white wines that whisper. Organza doesn’t whisper. It glides in wearing silk gloves and a stare that says don’t underestimate me. This is the 2022 vintage of Organza, from Sierra Cantabria—a white Rioja with the architecture of great white Burgundy and the soul of a seasoned aristocrat who’s seen some things.  And had yours truly, owner of the Spanish Table not discovered it at a roundtable at the Eguren's during a trip in September of 2024 and bought it immediately, it wouldn't have found its way to your May club.  Thank me later!

The wine comes from the Eguren family, and if you’re even halfway familiar with Rioja, you already know that name rings out. For five generations, the Egurens have been shaping some of the most compelling wines in Spain. While over here in the US they may be considered more a "cult" winery, they are are oenological royalty in San Vicente de la Sonsierra.  Many consider San Vicente to be the heart of Rioja Alta—a place where high elevation, limestone soils, and generational stubbornness combine to produce wines of staggering depth and longevity. These aren’t corporate conglomerates with hired guns in the cellar; these are people who’ve walked the same vineyards for decades (and who let me walk the vineyards with them), who know which parcel gets the wind first and which row the hawks perch above.

Organza is their white wine statement piece—proof that Rioja Blanco isn’t just about quaint old Viura or dusty oxidized bottles. It’s a blend of Viura, Malvasía, and Garnacha Blanca, sourced from some of the family’s best plots, all fermented and aged in new French oak barrels. It’s not here to play the supporting role. This wine is front and center, draped in lees contact and shot through with smoke, spice, and the kind of texture that makes you rethink everything you thought you knew about white wine.

The mouthfeel is the first thing that hits: thick, almost oily, but kept in line by firm acidity and well-integrated oak. You get baked pear, grilled lemon, toasted hazelnut, beeswax, a flicker of chamomile and wet stones. It’s rich but never flabby—like a heavyweight who moves like a dancer (is the Malvasia the magic dance slipper?). If you’re looking for a patio sipper, keep walking. If you want a white wine that demands a big filet of the daily fresh catch grilled over a wood fire, or a long conversation, or a second bottle opened before dinner’s even plated—this is your move.  Or, if your mom is powerful, accomplished woman who loves Chardonnay, treat her to this bottle as a combination of honoring her and challenging her to see if she can "figure it out".

The 2023 vintage gave a bit of everything: a mild spring, a warm dry summer, and clean fruit at harvest. In the hands of a lesser team, that’s a recipe for mediocrity. But the Egurens don’t do mediocrity. They do ambition, precision, and wines that age like legends. Organza may be young now, but it’s already humming with intent.

In a lineup full of reds, this is the white that shows up and flips the table. Decant it. Drink it out of your biggest glass. Don’t apologize. This wine doesn’t. 

PS:  Get more of this while you can.  The only other Rioja white that comes even close to this is Marques De Murrieta's Capellania.  It used to cost twice as much and now sells for $130 a bottle.  Organza is right on par with it.  Power and grace at this price won't last long.  We only have 5 more cases.

Calados 2019 del Puntido Regular Price: $39.99 Club Price: $33.94 Buy Now

Bear with us, this month we are getting into a few nerdy cult wine labels, so if we sound like we are getting a little obsessive it's because cool, labor-of-love wine projects really get us excited. And you should too!

The story of Viñedos de Páganos needs a little context to truly appreciate. Historically, the winemaking culture of Rioja was to produce wines that were blended from vineyard sites all across the region. However in the 1980s premier producers such as Bodegas Contina, Remelluri, and Muga began to shift their focus to single vineyard, terroir-driven styles of wine making, and the rest of the industry gradually began to follow suit. While most producers opted to simply purchase large estates with hundreds of hectares, a few decided to really focus on single-site expressions. 

Enter cult wine producer Sierra Cantabria, the founder of the Viñedos de Páganos label. While they are not the largest or most famous producer in the region, they are legendary among Rioja connoisseurs. If you ask them what they do, they will tell you they are farmers first. Their winemaking style deeply focuses on quality and purity of fruit, especially with regard to terroir. Even their Reserva and Grand Reserva wines tend to rely on used oak barrels in order to minimize the impact of the wood in order to let the personality of the fruit character to though.

Noticing this the shift in Rioja towards single origin expressions of tempranillo, Sierra Cantabria founded the Viñedos de Páganos in 2001 to celebrate two particularly excellent sites just adjacent the town of Páganos. Vineyards Nieta and Puntido are located between the Ebro river and the Sierra Cantabria Mountains, and rest atop the benchlands carved out by said river long ago. La Nieta, a single 0.25 hectare plot, has gained legendary status internationally and usually rides around $200 a bottle. To this day it remains a must-have for serious Rioja collectors. This month, we were fortunate enough to book one of its sister labels, Calados del Puntido, exclusively for us. 

The El Puntido Vineyard is located on the benchlands, but is a few kilometers closer to Laguardia. The soil is typical of the area, limestone and clay rich, sandwiched between layers of blended limestone and sandstone. The grapes that go into the Calados come from lower, more clay dominant blocks, but also receives declassified barrels from the El Puntido and El Puntido Gran Reserva labels, which are the Reserva and Gran Reserva from the same vineyard, respectively. The entire plot is organically dry farmed, with some biodynamic practices exercised. Planted in 1975.

Akin to the spirit of Sierra Cantabria, the Calados del Puntido is a celebration of fruit, and is entirely Tempranillo. The wine is completely destemmed, and is allowed to macerate with indigenous yeasts for four days before being crushed. After full fermentation, the wine is set down in an assortment of used oak barrels for 16 months before bottling. It pours a deep cherry red. Ripe and juicy red fruits greet the nose while notes of wood, licorice and balsamic round out the aroma. The palate shows a well-integrated swath of the aforementioned, plus a sort of creamy texture and aroma. Hints of dark cacao and dusty earth accent the finish. Enjoy with prime rib or let age for decades to come.