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Rioja is one of Spain’s best known and best-loved wine regions and is on a par with renowned wine-producing regions like Bordeaux and Burgundy in France, or Barolo in northern Italy.

Sitting in the north of Spain, Rioja runs about 100 km from West to East and 40 km North to South, centred around the city of Logroño. The Ebro river runs through it from West to East. Rioja has just over 66,000 hectares of vineyards, which is about 7% of the Spanish total. In that area you'll find about 14,800 farmers who grow grapes which they then sell on to about 574 actual wine producers.

Traditionally, winemaking in Rioja has put a big focus on blending – mixing together grapes grown in different zones of the region to achieve balanced wines. But in recent years, Riojan producers are lobbying for changes to the rules to allow wine labels to include more specific references to where within Rioja the wines actually come from. It’s a move towards the more terroir-focused approach, used in lots of the other great wine regions of the world.

Tempranillo is Spain’s most planted red grape variety, covering over 202,000 hectares - about one-fifth of all Spain’s vineyards. The name Tempranillo comes from the Spanish word temprano, which means "early". That’s because Tempranillo ripens early and has a shorter growing cycle than many other grapes.

Wines made from Tempranillo don’t tend to be too high in alcohol, which makes them relatively easy to drink and to pair with different foods. Tempranillo often have aromas like strawberries and other red fruits, and you can detect spice, leather and tobacco leaves. But the end result is as much down to the skill of the winemaker as it is to the grape variety itself.

Garnacha is one of the most widely grown wine grapes in the world and in Spain it's about the third most grown red grape behind Tempranillo and Bobal.

It's a late-ripening variety which enjoys hot, dry conditions, which makes it a reliably robust choice for winemakers. In the northeast of Spain, Garnacha tends to produce quite soft, easy-drinking red wines. It's low in tannins, so you don't get that woody, dry sensation in the mouth. But because it's late ripening it can also be quite high in alcohol as the fruit has more time to develop the sugars which then become alcohol in the wine.

In terms of fruit, in younger red and rosé wines you’ll pick up good bursts of red fruit like strawberry and raspberry. And in the varieties made with older vines that have been aged for a little you start to get sweeter, deeper fruit flavours reminiscent of figs. Occasionally you might also find a lick of white pepper just on top of the wine, which can add a nice touch of character.

Gómez Cruzado Crianza is made by Bodegas Gómez Cruzado, one of the six historic wineries that form the famous Barrio de la Estación neighbourhood in the town of Haro in La Rioja. The winery was founded in 1886, and today it produces 240,000 bottles of wine every year from 100 different plots spread across three distinct vineyard areas: Sierra Cantabria, Bajo Najerilla and Alto Najerilla. Across the full range, the focus at Gómez Cruzado is on elegant, balanced wines that are silky smooth to drink and packed with all the complexity and nuance that Rioja wines are famous for.

Made with 75% Tempranillo grapes from the lower reaches of the Sierra Cantabria, and 25% Garnacha grown on higher vineyards in the Alto Najerilla area around the village of Badaran.

Following a manual harvest, the grapes undergo a 3-day cold maceration before fermentation which helps bring out more of the colour and flavour from the grapes without extracting too much tannin. The must is then fermented in conical stainless steel tanks with daily pumping over to keep the cap moist and extract further colour and flavour. Once fermentation is complete, the wine is racked off into American and French oak, 225 litre barricas and aged for 12 months before bottling.