Sierre de Toloño Rosado
August 26nd, 2026
Some rosés are made for sipping in the sun. Others make you stop and reconsider what rosé can be. Sierra de Toloño’s Rosado is firmly in the second camp.
Made by Sandra Bravo in Rioja Alavesa, this is a rosé built around altitude, old vines, and mineral-driven freshness. A blend of 60% Tempranillo and 40% Garnacha from up to 100-year-old vines, it brings together wild strawberry, tart raspberry, red currant, and citrus with a distinctly salty, chalky finish. It’s floral, vibrant, concentrated, and refreshing, with the structure and texture to make it much more than a warm-weather pour.
High in the foothills of the Sierra de Toloño, Sandra farms some of Rioja’s oldest and highest-elevation vineyards, working by hand and letting the mountain dictate the style of the wine. A combination of direct press and saignée gives the Rosado both delicacy and depth, while a short élevage on lees adds texture without sacrificing its energy. The altitude and cool mountain sites preserve a striking line of acidity, while the calcareous soils lend the wine its signature mineral character.
Sandra is a Rioja native, but her winemaking education took her from Bordeaux and Tuscany to New Zealand and California, with a formative stint in Priorat teaching her just how important exposition, altitude, and vineyard vitality are to freshness and terroir expression. When she returned to Rioja in 2012, she knew exactly where she wanted to work.
“I decided to make wines respecting what the vineyard gives and always looking for freshness,” she says. Drawn to the calcareous soils, mountain herbs, high elevation, and constant north wind of Rioja Alavesa, Sandra set out to make wines that were unmistakably of the place. The result is a Rosado that feels almost mountain-like: cool, lifted, salty, and remarkably precise.
Critic Tim Atkin named Sandra Bravo Rioja’s Best Young Winemaker in 2019, and tasting this wine makes it easy to understand why. This is the kind of rosé that has enough structure to sit comfortably at the dinner table, but enough freshness to make you want another glass before the food even arrives.
For rosé drinkers looking beyond the obvious, this is one worth seeking out. See what happens when altitude, old vines, and limestone take the style somewhere entirely unexpected.
