2020 Bodegas Contador Benjamin Romeo Alma Rioja 6pk 6x750ml

In 1995, Benjamin Romeo secured a centuries-old cave beneath the Castle of San Vicente de la Sonsierra in Rioja and began a quiet revolution. By 1999 he'd launched Contador — a wine that would earn twin 100-point scores from Robert Parker for the 2004 and 2005 vintages. This is Alma, his inaugural release from old-vine Garnacha sourced at three different altitudes across Rioja Alta, a wine that delivers the depth and complexity of the flagship at a fraction of the price.

Rioja's Garnacha thrives in the cooler, higher-altitude parcels of the Alta subzone, where chalky soils and old head-trained vines produce fruit with concentration and aromatic lift. Romeo farms these sites with the same obsessive attention he reserves for Contador, then ages the wine in custom French oak barrels — the full cult-wine treatment applied to a varietal that rarely sees this level of focus.

The 2020 vintage delivered ripe, powerful fruit with structure to age. Wine Advocate scored it 97 points — a number that belongs on wines twice the price. This is understated Rioja in the glass: chopped black cherry, perfumed florals, aromatic herbs, a touch of balsam. Tight now, but silky underneath, with the kind of tension that promises a long evolution.

We secured this as a six-pack because single bottles of Benjamin Romeo's work disappear fast, and because anyone serious about modern Rioja should taste what he's doing with Garnacha.