Meet the Makers

Wine · Samaniego, Basque Country

Bodegas Ostatu

A family Rioja Alavesa winery with vineyard roots back centuries.

Based in
Samaniego, Basque Country

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Their story

Bodegas Ostatu belongs to the Sáenz de Samaniego family in Samaniego, a village in Rioja Alavesa, the Basque part of Rioja. The family has records of owning vineyards there as far back as the 1500s.

Like many local growers, they once sold their wine in bulk to merchants in Bilbao and San Sebastián. After a crisis in the 1970s, Doroteo Sáenz de Samaniego began selling the family's wine directly to bars and gastronomic societies around the Basque Country. Today his children, including Mari Asun, Gonzalo, Ernesto and Iñigo, run the winery together, and Ostatu has exported since 2002.

How it's made

The family believes most of a wine's quality comes from the grapes, so the focus is on the vineyards around Samaniego. Much of the production is young red made by carbonic maceration, the traditional local style, with the rest aged in barrel.

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2 in stock

Why we carry them

We like Ostatu for its honest, village-level Rioja. The young reds are juicy and easy, a fun change from heavily oaked styles.

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