'Pushing the Riojan envelope' - Neal Martin

We haven't found anything in Rioja as spine-tingingly exciting as this before. Ever. And when you have such a brilliant range of terroir wines coming from a producer few have heard of - but who is constantly referenced in the region - it's a cause for real celebration. Husband and wife Abel and Maite Mendoza make tiny quantities of their white varieties vinified separately, but they've nothing against blends: the V5 is a complex wine, intense and richly flavoured yet mineral, and blended from Garnacha Blanca, Tempranillo Blanco, Viura, Malvasia and Turruntes. Production is severely limited, partly because the vines are so old - some are pre-phylloxera, while younger ones are propagated on the estate (they don't trust nurserymen and avoid them at all costs).

Equally rare, equally brilliant and equally limited are the four reds of varying level. These all major on Tempranillo and are again superb, terroir Riojas. This is really unusual for the region since so much Rioja is caked with American oak as a kind of heavy make-up. These wines are pure and show minerality by comparison. Fine tannins and structure complete a superb set of reds.

Forget the famous names and the veneer of heritage that even the youngest estates in the region attach to themselves: these are idiomatic wines crafted by individual and sturdily independent people, not by a multinational marketing department. /CW