El Regalo, best white wine for Verema Awards

This Verema Award, which comes to El Regalo in its second vintage, reaffirms Izadi’s commitment to Rioja white wines. Since its beginnings in the late 1980s, Izadi has been producing white wines, and thanks to that experience and its understanding of Rioja’s white varieties, it has developed an extensive project that goes beyond its well‑known reds. For Lalo Antón, owner of Bodegas Izadi, “this award means a great deal to us, because it recognizes the work carried out both in the vineyard and in the winery to create a unique single‑vineyard white wine.”

El Regalo Blanco Viñedo Singular comes from a vineyard planted in 1936 (registered in 1940), characterized by the presence of Viura and old Malvasía in its headlands, a legacy of how vineyards were traditionally planted. “We evaluated the potential of this white grape to isolate it and produce a great white wine, and the result has been magnificent,” says Roberto Vicente, the winery’s technical director.

El Regalo is a vineyard with a rich varietal ecosystem, something that makes it unique. Through traditional vineyard work and organic viticulture, Bodegas Izadi seeks to ensure the survival of its nearly century‑old vines, which in some cases produce only a couple of clusters per plant.

El Regalo Blanco Viñedo Singular was created with the sole but significant intention of expressing the white identity of a vineyard, two varieties, and a moment in time. “We have always maintained a strong focus on native white varieties, but we still needed to create a great Rioja white wine made from very old Viura and Malvasía vines (planted in 1936),” Antón explains.

The low yields and careful cluster selection allowed for the production of only 2,184 bottles of the 2022 vintage. For its elaboration, Izadi El Regalo was fermented in new French oak barrels and aged for eight months on its lees in foudre and concrete before being bottled in October 2023.