Áster

Aster is La Rioja Alta's Ribera del Duero estate, established in 2000 when the Haro house decided to extend beyond its home region for the first time in over a century.

Ribera del Duero is a severe place to grow grapes: vineyards at 750 to 900 metres on the Castilian meseta, forty-degree summer days, nights that fall away sharply, and frost a genuine risk into spring. That extreme diurnal range is what makes the wines, giving deep colour and ripe fruit alongside firm acidity. Tempranillo here is called Tinto Fino or Tinta del Pais, a local strain with smaller berries and thicker skins than the Rioja version.

The estate farms around 115 hectares near Anguix and the wines are made with the same insistence on long ageing and hand racking that characterises the parent house, though the raw material is considerably more powerful.