Rioja Report 2025: Notes on a tasting a century in the making
Earlier this year, Decanter's Spain editor Ines Salpico, and co-chair of the Decanter World Wine Awards, Beth Willard, sat down to a monumental tasting of wines from Rioja, in what just happens to be the centenary of the region's DOCa classification.
It was with great anticipation that we set out to organise Decanter’s first Rioja report, offering a comprehensive, dedicated assessment of wines released in the 12 months prior to the tasting in early March – an exercise that was long due and to which there was a sense almost of urgency, as a necessary companion to our annual Rioja guide.
The excitement with which our call for samples was received confirmed its timeliness and relevance, for producers and consumers alike.
This is indeed a particularly interesting – perhaps pivotal – moment in Rioja’s history.
Click here to see more articles on the tasting’s results
The celebration of the DOCa’s centenary serves as a neat opening for a new chapter that, while heavily referencing history and tradition, grapples with a completely new set of challenges (such as climate change, change in consumer demand and political instability – not least internally, within the region) paired with a new set of opportunities.
The selection in the pages that follow is split into four thematic sections, offering but a snapshot, a glimpse into the more than 700 Rioja wines – all released in the past 12 months – that we assessed for this report, after hectic weeks of logistical coordination and over intense days of dawn-to-dusk tasting with two tasting coordinators and five support staff.
It reflects some of the most important trends we identified as patterns emerged and conclusions started to come into focus.
Quality proposition
So what were the most important, higher- level, takeaways? First, baseline quality is at an all-time high, following a steady trajectory of improvement.
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Producers, big and small, continue to invest in better viticultural practices and become more purposeful in the cellar – this came across vividly during our tasting, with only 124 wines scoring below 89 points.
This factor, in turn, is bringing value, consistency and expressiveness in line with each other, with higher-priced wines elbowing out the lower-shelf labels that once, notoriously, took up a lot of space.
This without compromising – and in fact supporting – the outstanding value proposition that Rioja remains across styles and categories.
Herein lie some of Rioja’s most obvious opportunities as the denomination enters its second century.
By consolidating its quality proposition and moving away from the entry-level messaging, Rioja can position itself where some of its international counterparts now sit less comfortably, be it due to viticultural challenges (Tuscany, Bordeaux) or market adjustments (Burgundy, Bordeaux again).
How has this quality/higher-value/ commercial opportunity circle been squared? Through increasing confidence among producers and a readjustment of consumer expectations.
As my fellow taster Beth Willard explains, less than a quarter of the genérico category reds (wines that don’t fall under the ageing-defined crianza/ reserva/gran reserva categories) we tasted fall in the below-€15 price range (in the domestic market).
While putting their wines forward – both for this report and commercially – producers assert a new awareness of their technical ability and stylistic identity, without the need to apologise for a higher price-tag.
Hitting the right note
At some point throughout the days spent tasting for this report we had jazz classics playing in the background (as pretentious as that sounds, it works better, as analogies go, than the 1980s pop hits we also played at some point…).
They drew an interesting parallel with the best wines we tasted – and certainly with the selections shown here.
A mix of structural mastery and personal style, of referential nod to tradition and breakthrough interpretation, of creative freedom framed by technical expertise, a sense of place validated by objective, universal quality parameters.
The best way to summarise the conclusions of this report is to describe our feelings when we wrapped it up: there was an ease to the intensity of the long days
of tasting; comfort in seeing the classics perform at their best; renewed excitement in wines whose unpretentious purity made them simply delicious; surprise and intrigue in identifying wines of note in every single flight.
See more results from the Rioja Tasting 2025
Best reserva & gran reserva wines
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Ines is Decanter’s regional editor for Spain, Portugal and South America. Born and raised in Lisbon, Portugal, she grew up chasing her grandfather among his vines in Ribatejo and thus her love for all things wine began. After completing her Masters Degree in Architecture, Ines worked as a project manager while writing about wine and doing cellar consulting on the side. After moving to London in 2015, she decided to dedicate herself fully to the wine industry and joined the sommelier team at Michelin-starred Spring, Somerset House. Stints at Noble Rot and The Laughing Heart followed, while completing her WSET Diploma in Wines and Spirits. Her work as a judge and writer eventually became her full time commitment and she joined Decanter in 2019 as wine database editor.