The Wine Fairy

Driven by curiosity (and captive to novelty), it’s time for us to uncork another strange little wine bottle: A white Tempranillo from Rioja.

White Tempranillo? Yeah, that’s right. Like Pinot Noir and Grenache before it, the premier black grape of Spain has lately spawned an albino cousin. (Yes, I know that productive vines can’t technically exhibit albinism–but cousins sure can, so don’t @ me.)

The story of Tempranillo Blanco dates back to 1988, when a farmer made a striking discovery: A cluster of pale-green Tempranillo grapes in a field that had otherwise begun to ripen to black. Reporting the oddity to Spain’s Center for Agricultural Research, he learned that Tempranillo can occasionally mutate and produce white grapes.

Had it happened before? Probably. But the most important white grape in Rioja has long been Viura. It’s possible that these stray bunches of white Tempranillo had simply gone unnamed and un-vinified when they appeared in Spanish fields in centuries past.

With the current renewed interest in reviving indigenous grape varieties, however, Tempranillo Blanco is finally getting its moment. It was cloned for commercial planting beginning in 1992 and has been legally permitted in white Rioja since 2007.

Plantings are increasing–but they’re still small, and to date the grape is found only in Rioja in any significant quantity. Tempranillo Blanco accounts for just over 1% of plantings in Rioja, or about 600 hectares as of 2022. (That’s slightly larger than my mom’s zucchini garden, and slightly smaller than one-third of one percent of the amount of the Earth’s surface that is currently devoted to Chardonnay.)

My experience of white Rioja was limited to a couple of traditionally oaked, Viura-based blends available at the local tapas bar. So I was excited to try this single-varietal Tempranillo Blanco by La General de Vinos.

The marketing sheet says this wine is for the 30- to 60-year-old “medium status” and “exigent” customer who wants to be surprised. Hmm.

I gotta own my middle-aged Millennial-ness and my medium status–just like I do every time I find myself eating avocado toast in an overcrowded airport lounge. And I did in fact buy this wine because it’s unusual. But am I exigent?

I Google it and see that it means picky. Oh dang–I guess that is my wine consumer profile, precisely. Nailed it, señores. Moving on.

The grapes for El Tuerto come from vineyards in the village of Hormilla, close to Nájera in the heart of the Rioja Alta region. The foothills of the Cantabrian mountains provide altitude of almost 700 meters, which requires these patches of Tempranillo Blanco to be manually harvested. The winemaking is also carried out in Hormilla in modern inert vessels.

That’s the background of this wine–now it’s time to taste.

It’s a medium lemon color in the glass with green highlights. The nose is medium in intensity and youthful, with the scent of hay and a vegetal funk. There’s a whiff of fuel hovering over the aromatics, which are a mix of unripe fruit, lettuces, and florals: Green pear, green orange rind, Belgian endive, cut greens, and squash blossom. It’s intriguing…which is not the same thing as inviting…but here we go.

Whoa, that’s salty! “Is it just because there’s a fish on the label?” my wife asks, sipping from her glass. “Am I really that suggestible?” Nope, I agree that the salinity of this wine is off the charts.

When I recover from the surprise of it, I taste green, delicate perfume of orange blossom and daffodil–more noticeable on the palate than on the nose. No detectable oak or aging notes. The main fruit is green apple, accented by some grassiness and white grapefruit pith. It’s dry, crisp, moderately light in body with a hint of bitterness. The long, tart finish expresses citrus (grapefruit), salt, and grass–sort of like a deconstructed Tequila Paloma.

“Tuerto” means “one-eyed” in Spanish–and while the salinity on this wine might make you squint involuntarily, that’s not why it’s called that. Production notes from the design team reveal that the wine takes its name from the River Tuerto which flows near the vineyard.

It’s hard to give a quality assessment of a wine from a rare variety, because you have nothing to compare it to. I have certainly never tasted Tempranillo Blanco before, and it will probably be a while before I encounter it again. According to wine writers who are following it closely, this newly cultivated grape is inspiring a diversity of winemaking approaches in Rioja: Oaked and unoaked, blended (often with Viura) or unblended, made with skin contact or only crystal-clear, free-run juice.

El Tuerto Tempranillo Blanco is just another reminder that you can’t (usually) judge a Rioja by its label. With so many different grapes and maturation styles, you gotta go ahead and taste it to find out!

I would serve this wine very well-chilled to people I trust to be tolerant of its pronounced minerality and herbaceous flavors. If you have any exigent wine lovers at your table, you could try it as a conversation-starting alternative to Loire Sauvignon Blanc, Grüner Veltliner or Txakolina.

Bottle: El Tuerto Tempranillo Blanco Rioja (2022)

Variety: Tempranillo Blanco (100%)

ABV: 13%

Suggested retail: $18.99

My rating: 7.9 (out of 10)

Further reading:

World of Fine Wine: White Rioja, Survive and Prosper

Cellar Tours: Tempranillo Blanco Grape Variety: Rioja’s Unique Gift

See other editions of What Is This Thing?, in which we open and taste the oddities of the wine world.

Review disclosure: I was not compensated or provided any free products for this review. Opinions expressed on The Wine Fairy blog are entirely my own.