Qué es el Tinto Fino (y en qué se diferencia del Tempranillo)

montelahorra — Wed, 08 Jul 2026 12:22:18 +0000

If you have ever read the back label of a Ribera del Duero, you will have seen the variety listed as “Tinto Fino” or “Tinta del País”. And if you know the wines of Rioja, you will know that there the queen grape is called Tempranillo. The question is inevitable: are they the same grape under different names, or different grapes?

The short answer: it is the same variety. The interesting answer: after centuries in the Ribera, it is no longer quite the same grape.

One variety, many names

Tempranillo is Spain’s great red grape and, like every travelling variety, it has received a different name in every land that adopted it: Tempranillo in Rioja, Cencibel in La Mancha, Ull de Llebre in Catalonia, Tinta de Toro in Toro… and Tinto Fino or Tinta del País in Ribera del Duero. The name “Tinta del País” is eloquent: it was, simply, the grape of this land, the one that had always been grown here.

Why Tinto Fino is no ordinary Tempranillo

When a variety spends hundreds of years reproducing in the same place, it adapts to it. The Tinto Fino of Ribera del Duero is the result of that adaptation to unique conditions: the altitude (our vineyard lies between 800 and 850 metres, with cold nights even in August), the extreme climate (harsh winters, dry summers and a day-night temperature range that can exceed 20 degrees during ripening) and the poor soils of limestone, clay and sand that force the vine to work hard.

The result is a Tempranillo with thicker skins and smaller, looser clusters than in other regions: more colour, more tannin, more concentration. That is why a Ribera and a Rioja, though sharing a variety, resemble each other so little.

How you can tell in the glass

A Tinto Fino from Ribera del Duero is recognised by its intense colour, between cherry and purple; by its ripe black fruit — blackberry, plum, blueberry — over a background that ageing dresses in spice, vanilla and balsamic notes; and by a powerful, structured palate, with firm yet ripe tannins and a final freshness that betrays the altitude. It is a wine with a backbone: that is why it ages so well, and why the Ribera is a land of crianzas, reservas and grandes reservas.

In our wines, moreover, the age of the vineyard adds another layer: old vines give less quantity and more depth, with that silky texture that only decades of roots can achieve.

A grape with a rulebook

The D.O. Ribera del Duero protects this heritage by requiring Tinto Fino to be the undisputed base of its reds, and in practice most Riberas — including all of ours — son Tinto Fino al cien por cien.

So the next time someone asks you whether Tinto Fino is Tempranillo, you know the answer: yes, it is Tempranillo… but a Tempranillo that has spent centuries becoming of the Ribera. And in the glass, it shows.

Viñas prefiloxéricas: el tesoro enterrado en la arena de La Horra

montelahorra — Wed, 08 Jul 2026 12:20:57 +0000

At the end of the 19th century, a tiny insect from America came close to wiping out European wine. Phylloxera — an aphid that attacks the vine’s roots — devastated millions of hectares of vineyard in France, and later in Spain, forcing almost all of the continent’s vines to be uprooted and replanted on American rootstock, resistant to the pest.

Almost all. Because there were corners phylloxera could not reach. And some of those corners are in La Horra.

The insect that couldn’t swim in sand

Phylloxera moves underground, from root to root, through the cracks that form in compact soils. But sandy soils have a providential property: sand does not crack, and it collapses around the insect, preventing it from advancing. In soils with a high sand content, the pest simply does not thrive.

In La Horra there are plots of loose, sandy soils where vines planted before the arrival of the plague went on living as if nothing had happened. While the whole of Europe replanted, here the vines kept bearing fruit on their own roots — ungrafted, as winegrowers say. These are the pre-phylloxera vines: survivors of more than a century.

What makes a century-old vine special

An old vine is not just a historical curiosity. It is another way of making wine. Its deep roots, after decades searching for water, explore layers of soil a young vine could only dream of reaching, which translates into consistency in dry years. Its yield is low — sometimes less than a kilo per vine — but each cluster concentrates what the plant no longer spends on growing. And bush-trained, without trellising, as has always been done in La Horra, it regulates itself with a wisdom that only the years can give.

Our ungrafted vines also preserve Tinto Fino as it was before phylloxera: a living library of the variety that no nursery can replicate.

Our heritage of old vines

At Dominio de Montelahorra, more than half the vineyard is over 50 years old, and we keep century-old vines and pre-phylloxera plots planted on those sandy soils that outwitted the plague, between 800 and 850 metres of altitude. From these plots come our top wines — such as Valezar o El Canto del Ángel — donde el Tinto Fino habla con su voz más antigua.

A legacy that cannot be replanted

You can build a new winery in two years. You can plant a vineyard in an afternoon. What you cannot do is manufacture a hundred-year-old vine: only time can give you that, and time, in La Horra, played in our favour. That is why we say our greatest asset is not in the winery, but buried in the sand.

Dominio de Montelahorra |