2014 Rioja & Spain Vintage

The growing cycle had very favourable weather, and by the end of veraison Rioja's vineyards showed excellent canopy development and plant health, pointing to a large, high-quality crop. The year started well, after the rainy and cold 2013, with plenty of water in the soils. Across Spain, a wet winter and warm temperatures in March triggered an early bud break in many regions. The summer was unusually cool and cloudy, with temperatures dropping at the end of spring and staying down until late August, and heavy rain forced growers to pull leaves and cut off bad fruit to keep mildew from spreading. "Rioja was particularly wet, making trouble for Tempranillo," Wine Spectator wrote. The Rioja harvest began on 30 August in Alfaro, the easternmost town of the DOCa, and built gradually to the first week of October, traditionally the peak of picking in Rioja. By then more than 300 million kg of grapes had reached the wineries in excellent condition. The last third of the harvest was hit by bad weather: rain and localized botrytis in the weeks before picking split hillside vineyards, which ripened fully, from those on riverside soils, where the fungus slowed ripening. Growers picked selectively, and the damage was minimised in most vineyards that had received treatments such as cluster thinning and leaf plucking. The harvest ended officially on 21 October. The crop came in at 434 million kg of grapes, more than in 2013 and in line with the DOCa's potential under that year's maximum permitted yields, at 47.88 hl/ha against 40.98 hl/ha in 2013.

The official rating for 2014 was "Buena" (Good), with more quantity and better quality than the previous year. The rating reflects the wide heterogeneity of the wines, alongside a significant share of top-quality wines to supply the aged categories, and wines destined for Reserva and Gran Reserva found their structure in the hillside plots. The standout was the whites and rosados, whose excellent quality all 140 members of the Consejo's Tasting Panel agreed on unanimously. Certified production came to 293.52 million litres: 258.15 million of red, 20.37 million of white and 14.99 million of rose. The productive vineyard area was 61,645 hectares, 200 fewer than the year before, and maximum yields were set at 6,825 kg per hectare for red varieties and 9,900 kg for whites.

Across the country, a warm, dry September produced some excellent fruit, while some regions had October rains mar the harvest. Wine Spectator named Priorat, Montsant and Toro as promising and said good producers could make good wine in Rioja, "but only with a lot of work." Priorat and Montsant had no rain in June and July but stayed cool; temperatures rose in August and picking began at the end of that month, while other regions waited for the sun in late September. Rueda appeared to be the one dry region, with water scarce all year. In Toro, the vines started growing three weeks early, raising frost concerns, but temperatures stayed warm. Picking started as early as 11 August in Malaga, and Alto Moncayo in Campo de Borja did not finish picking its Garnacha until 16 November.

"2014 was a heterogeneous vintage, but hard work in the vineyards paid off spectacularly," Pablo Franco, technical director of the Consejo Regulador, told Decanter. In Decanter's 2024 blind tasting of 2014 against 2004, Pedro Ballesteros Torres MW found that growers who managed old vines, green harvested and worked their vineyards on time picked healthy, ripe grapes, while those with high yields and less careful viticulture suffered and had to make corrections in the winery. He called 2014 the last vintage for overripe Rioja, with the late rains a catalyst for the move to earlier picking. Practically every producer showed a better 2004 than 2014, and he recommends keeping top 2004s longer, but his selected 2014s included Marques de Murrieta Capellania Reserva, Roda I Reserva, Marques de Riscal Gran Reserva, Pujanza Valdepoleo, Bodegas Lan's Lan a Mano and Carlos Serres 1896 Finca el Estanque Reserva, probably the only wine in the series whose 2004 was not better than its 2014. The Consejo describes hillside reds with good polyphenolic load, vivid color and tannins suited to barrel and bottle ageing, and whites marked by freshness and aromatic expression.