The thirtieth officially rated vintage was rated ‘good’ by the control board for the Rioja Designated of Origin (DOC) with quantities looking to be higher than the 2013 vintage.

The DOC produced a total of 312.89 millilitres of wine from the 2014 harvest. Prior to being able to use the Rioja DOC, all wines are subjected to testing to ensure quality benchmarks are met.

The control board of the Rioja DOC which is made of 140 tasters officially rates the wines of each vintage annually and this year sampled 4,383 wines. The samples are taken directly from the tanks by control board personnel and go through both laboratory and sensory tests. All 140 members that make up the tasting panel are professional tasters that must pass an examine as well as individual follow-ups to ensure uniformity in tasting across the group.

The board was set up to help protect the region and ensure that the wines being produced meet specific criterion including quality benchmarks, prior to being able to use the Rioja DOC. The process for the 2014 harvest began in November of last year.  According to a statement released by the Wines of Rioja the requirements of the certification are becoming increasingly more strict.

The statement said: “The requirements of the certification process have become stricter in recent years, with more demanding parameters seeking to maintain Rioja as a quality wine benchmark in all markets.”

The 2014 vintage was on track to be ‘great’, but poor weather during the late part of the harvest period did cause a few problems for some producers.

The control board unanimously found that the 2014 rosés and whites to be of exceptional quality.

Global sales of Rioja wine grew by five million bottles in 2014, hitting a record 281 million litres of wine sold last year.  Exports grew by 3.6% to 105 million litres and make up 37.6% of total sales.