Olivier Rivière Mirando Al Sur 2020
£76.75 (Inc. VAT bot. 75 cl.) / North Ireland
5 for immediate shipment. More, available on 17/10/2025
Robert Parker's Wine Advocate
I'd say that the white 2020 Mirando al Sur is more Rioja and less Sherry every vintage. It has a pale golden color; after all, it's older than the La Bastid that I tasted next to it, and there are some subtle notes of nuts and smoke, but overall, there are no aromas of flor or curry, and the profile is getting closer to some traditional oak-aged whites from Rioja. I guess the Sherry butts used for the wine are older, and their influence on the wine is softer. It fermented and matured in 600-liter barrels for six months, followed by another 22 months in Sherry barrels. It's ripe without excess at 14% alcohol, with a round palate and soft texture and with the characteristic chalky finish.
Features
Type of wine
Pairings
Style
Occasions
Winery
Size
Appellation
Alcohol
14.0%
Grapes
Serving
Between 8ºC and 10ºC
Winemaking
Fermented with indigenous yeasts in stainless steel tanks and aged on the lees for 12 months. Aged for 18 months in sherry casks.
Description
Olivier Rivière Mirando al Sur arrived in Rioja in 2004 from his native France, invited by Telmo Rodríguez to apply biodynamic techniques. What was to be a one-off collaboration turned into a life-long commitment: in 2006 he founded his own project, without his own vineyards, but with an unerring nose for locating unique plots of land. Thus was born Mirando al Sur, a white wine made from very old Viura vines -more than 75 years old- grown at an altitude of 500 metres above sea level, in calcareous clay soils on the slopes of Labastida, in Rioja Alavesa. There, Olivier works with a Burgundian sensibility: each wine is built from the vineyard, not from the label.
Winemaking
Olivier Rivière Looking South is probably his most unusual wine. After manual harvesting, the Viura is whole-cluster pressed and fermented with indigenous yeasts in large-capacity vats. It is then transferred to two 600-litre Jerez butts -one for Fino and one for Amontillado-where it ages for 12 months under partial biological ageing. The result is a white wine with the soul of Jerez, the structure of Jura and the heart of Rioja.
Taste
Olivier Rivière Mirando Al Sur breaks the mould from the first contact. On the nose it displays saline notes, dried lemon peel, raw almond and a whisper of old manzanilla. No lush fruit, but tension, controlled oxidation and purity. The palate is austere and electric, with cutting acidity that cuts through the palate and a background of dried fruit, beeswax and wilted flower. The finish is long, dry, with echoes of walnut, hay and chalky minerality.
Olivier Rivière Mirando al Sur does not seek to please easily, but to provoke, to make you think. It is a wine without concessions, which draws from the Andalusian past and grafts it with precision on a deep, silent and radical Rioja. For lovers of wines with character.
Shipping to North Ireland
50% discount on orders over £351.74Estimated transit time: 4-5 working days.
| Bottles | Price | Over £351.74 |
|---|---|---|
| 1-6 | £11.34 | £5.67 (-£5.67) |
| 7-12 | £15.39 | £7.69 (-£7.69) |
| 13-18 | £21.54 | £10.77 (-£10.77) |
| 19-24 | £29.46 | £14.73 (-£14.73) |
| 25-30 | £34.21 | £17.10 (-£17.10) |
| 31-36 | £38.25 | £19.13 (-£19.13) |
| 37-42 | £46.17 | £23.08 (-£23.08) |
| 43-48 | £50.56 | £25.28 (-£25.28) |
| 49-54 | £57.11 | £28.56 (-£28.56) |
| 55-60 | £61.38 | £30.69 (-£30.69) |
| VAT included | ||
