1996 El Pison Riserva Rioja

Owner Juan Carlos Lopez de Lacalle was about to open a bottle of the 1994 Grandes Anades, one of the legendary modern-style Riojas produced in recent years, but your intrepid reporter was late for his next appointment (a disappointment, as it turned out) and had to take a rain check. But the '98 I tasted from barrel was, along with Pingus, the most exciting young '98 I saw on my September visit to north-central Spain. Artadi, previously a small co-op, introduced its own wines with the '89 vintage. The bodega owns 25 hectares of vines, and supplements its holdings by purchasing from local growers, sending its own team in to harvest. There a strict selection at the outset ("and therefore no saignee " says Lopez); most of the wine is fermented in stainless steel tanks, but the vins de reserve are done in large wood vats. Artadi is currently doubling its inventory of wood cuves and its barrel space. Extraction is not especially energetic; Lopez and his new winery manager Jean-Francois Gadeau look for finesse and freshness. These are some of the most exciting of Rioja's new-wave wines.