Pioneer in labelling cosechero wines with its own brand in Rioja back in 1973, Teodoro Ruiz Monge is a winery with a long family tradition based in San Vicente de la Sonsierra since 1870. Now they're maintaining carbonic maceration as the hallmark of all their village and single plot wines because they want to banish the idea that carbonic maceration wines are only meant for quick consumption. 
 
The family own 10 hectares of vines around the village, and these grapes are used to make the house wines. In the vineyards they graft the vines with their own plants and do not use herbicides, but he admits that they do treat when necessary, although they always try to do so in the most sustainable way possible. Ruiz Monge's vineyards are aged around 50 years on average.
 
Zortún is a white Rioja. Here, Itu's father recovered an ancient variety, Turruntés. It comes from a plot in Peciña, near San Vicente, planted some 20 years ago. It fermented half in French oak barrels and half in concrete tanks. The key to this wine is the work with lees, almost playing with oxidation, to give volume to this rather light variety, but preserving its great natural acidity. Only a mere thousand bottles are made. Chalk, citrus peel, white stone fruit. Textural but not weighty, with a nice acid backbone which gives the wine a beautiful linearity.