The leaves are changing, fall is in the air, yada yada yada. We’ve done this before, and by we, I mean anyone who writes about taste. No other season arrives and conjures appetites like autumn does, but it also creates a flood of clichés and predictable profiles on the usual habits. So, let’s assume we want to go a little bit deeper with our tastes this year and explore something that suits the mood of the season perfectly, while being a bit unpredictable and geeky. Let’s talk about autolytic white wine for a second.
No other season arrives and conjures appetites like autumn does, but it also creates a flood of clichés and predictable profiles on the usual habits. So, let’s talk about autolytic white wine for a second.
I usually don’t go down the rabbit hole of technical details too often, but in this case, we’re going to cover a winemaking process that imbues flavors akin to freshly baked bread, hazelnuts and even cheese rind: autolysis. Simply put, when sugar is converted into alcohol by yeast, those yeast cells don’t just disappear when their job is done. Known as lees, these dead cells settle into the solution, and if they’re given the right amount of time and the right environment — namely, certain white wines with some degree of neutrality to their flavors — they can impart these special, shape-shifting aromas and flavors. Once they’ve influenced the wine to the winemaker’s liking, they’re removed either by racking the wine to another vessel or disgorgement from a sealed bottle.
Now, more time is not always better with this process. Winemakers need to make sure that — as with the use of oak — these flavors don’t overwhelm and smother the natural beauty of their grapes and terroir. The right word here might be “seasoning” if it wasn’t so closely associated with salt, but that’s really what the process does: it heightens the best traits and unifies them while adding a dash of something extra.
The magic of autolysis is most associated with traditional-method sparkling wines like Champagne, Crémant, Cava and Franciacorta (you’ll hear about “months spent on the lees” as a key technical detail when those wines are being sold). But many still white wines offer varying degrees of autolysis, and to find them, its best to ask a geeky wine merchant or a sommelier “do you have any white wines that spent some time on the lees?” It is not everyday they get asked this question, but I guarantee you, they’ll light up with excitement and point you the right way to an autolytic white wine.
One such wine that I can recommend to you comes from winemaker Florentino Martínez Monje of the beloved Rioja Alvesa estate Luberri. I’ve always felt* like the Rioja white grape Viura needs something else to get it into gear: a blending partner, an interesting vessel to expand its horizons, or — as in this case — the oomph of autolysis. Martínez Monje espouses the virtue of directness in his wine, but also an embrace of tradition. He is perhaps best known for whole-cluster fermentation of Tempranillo in his red wines, and with the “Zuri” Rioja Blanco, he harkens back to the flavors of old by letting the wine mingle with the lees for two months. It lends the perfect balance of dimension to a fast-paced, direct and quenching white wine that wants to support a wide array of flavors at your table. It is also exceptionally well priced at the $25 range.
So what else do we have to look forward to in the fall? Thanksgiving. Flag a couple of bottles for the occasion: it’ll handle the array of flavors and it won’t sap your budget for the red wine.
2022 Luberri “Zuri” Rioja Blanco
Rioja DOC (La Rioja )
Grapes: Viura (80%) and Malvasia (20%)
Alcohol: 13.5%
Opinion: ★★★★ 3/4
Food friendliness: Versatile
Value: Exceptional
A beginner might like … knowing that the unique flavors of this wine (at times resembling hazelnuts to this taster) are coming from those two months of lees contact. Bright fruits resembling apricot and apple balance the equation out nicely.
A wine obsessive might like … exploring the category of Rioja Blanco wines a little more fully, by adding this wine to a lineup that includes López de Heredia, Remelurri, Mugo and other benchmark estates.
*I must caveat that I’ve never been a Rioja specialist and have not had the chance to taste several Viura side-by-side to deduce this, but a sizable smattering of tasting notes in my database suggest that they have often left me wanting.
Note: This wine was purchased with funds raised from our subscriptions, so thank you.
