Bodega Casa Juan is located in Rioja Alavesea, the Basque area of Rioja.  The winery is a converted flour mill, featuring concrete tanks for fermenting and blending the wine and barrels for ageing that are used for up to seven years. These are traditional Riojas in winemaking and spirit, though the site-specificity of their Laguardia and Villabuena vineyards confers a fruit character all its own to these wines. The reserva especial is a special blend of 50% Tempranillo and 50% Mazuelo, that is aged in a different selection of barrels than usual. Some more new oak comes into play, but that is only relative to Angel’s very conservative, light toast, high proportion of older barrels aging regimen. This is the rarest and smallest production of the Lesmos wines, and possibly their very best.