Rioja Vintage Chart: Every Year 2000 to 2024
Rioja vintage chart with a rating, a drink or hold verdict, and a drinking window for all 25 vintages from 2000 to 2024. Free and no sign-up needed.
Grapes
Tempranillo, Garnacha, Graciano, Mazuelo
Typical window
5 to 25 years from vintage, considerably longer for the best Gran Reserva bottlings
Ready now
17 of 25 vintages
Still holding
3 vintages
Rioja vintage chart
Sommo drinking-window engine · updated July 2026| Vintage | Rating | Verdict | Drinking window | What happened |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2024 | ★★★☆☆ | hold | 2028 to 2036 | A cooler, wetter season with real disease pressure suggests lighter, fresher wines, though it is too early to call the vintage. |
| 2023 | ★★★☆☆ | hold | 2027 to 2035 | A hot summer punctuated by storms produced mixed results and wines that need to be judged bottle by bottle. |
| 2022 | ★★★☆☆ | hold | 2027 to 2036 | Extreme heat and drought made ripe, dark, high-alcohol wines whose freshness depends heavily on altitude and picking date. |
| 2021 | ★★★★☆ | drink | 2026 to 2038 | A cool, even season with a dry finish produced fresh, well-balanced wines with fine tannins and classic proportions. |
| 2020 | ★★★☆☆ | drink | 2024 to 2034 | Rain and disease pressure near harvest forced hard sorting, and the wines are fresh and medium-bodied but variable. |
| 2019 | ★★★★★ | drink | 2024 to 2042 | A dry summer with cool nights gave concentrated, firmly structured, aromatic wines that stand with the best of the century here. |
| 2018 | ★★☆☆☆ | drink | 2022 to 2030 | A cool, wet year with heavy mildew pressure and a big crop made light, tart wines best enjoyed young. |
| 2017 | ★★☆☆☆ | drink | 2021 to 2030 | A severe late-April frost destroyed a large share of the crop and drought pushed a very early harvest, leaving small volumes of ripe but simple wine. |
| 2016 | ★★★★☆ | drink | 2021 to 2036 | A wet spring gave way to a fine, warm autumn, and the wines are fragrant and fresh with medium weight and good balance. |
| 2015 | ★★★★☆ | drink | 2020 to 2036 | A hot, dry summer produced ripe, rounded, fruit-forward wines with soft tannins that were approachable from release. |
| 2014 | ★★★★☆ | drink | 2019 to 2034 | A warm, dry autumn rescued a slow start and gave fresh, balanced, classically proportioned wines that are drinking beautifully. |
| 2013 | ★☆☆☆☆ | past | 2017 to 2024 | A cold, wet season with a very late harvest left thin, green, underripe wines and many bottlings were downgraded outright. |
| 2012 | ★★★☆☆ | drink | 2017 to 2030 | Drought reduced the crop and made concentrated but sometimes tough wines that are at their peak today. |
| 2011 | ★★★★☆ | drink | 2017 to 2034 | An unusually hot, early season gave dense, high-alcohol, powerful wines with sweet fruit and softer acidity. |
| 2010 | ★★★★★ | drink | 2016 to 2040 | A cool, late-ripening season with a dry harvest produced firm, aromatic, tightly built wines that are only now fully open. |
| 2009 | ★★★★☆ | drink | 2014 to 2032 | A warm, dry summer made ripe, plush, generously fruited wines with real depth that are showing very well. |
| 2008 | ★★★☆☆ | drink | 2013 to 2028 | A cool, late season gave medium-bodied, fresh, classically styled wines that reward drinking now rather than waiting. |
| 2007 | ★★☆☆☆ | past | 2011 to 2023 | A cold, damp year produced pale, tart, herbal wines that were pleasant early and have now lost their fruit. |
| 2006 | ★★★☆☆ | drink | 2011 to 2027 | A hot August followed by harvest rain gave uneven, softer, earlier-maturing wines that should be opened without further delay. |
| 2005 | ★★★★☆ | drink | 2011 to 2032 | A dry, warm season made deeply colored, powerful wines with plenty of extract that are drinking richly right now. |
| 2004 | ★★★★★ | drink | 2010 to 2032 | A cool summer with a warm, dry September produced beautifully balanced, savory wines with the acid and tannin to age for decades. |
| 2003 | ★★☆☆☆ | past | 2007 to 2020 | The heatwave gave overripe, low-acid wines with cooked fruit and hard edges, and they aged much faster than expected. |
| 2002 | ★★☆☆☆ | past | 2006 to 2014 | Rain through the ripening period left thin, green, hollow wines that were never intended for the cellar. |
| 2001 | ★★★★★ | drink | 2008 to 2032 | A warm, dry season with a long healthy harvest gave concentrated, firmly structured wines that are still fresh and complete. |
| 2000 | ★★★☆☆ | past | 2005 to 2020 | A wet, cool autumn diluted the crop and made light, quick-maturing wines that had faded well before their twentieth year. |
Ratings are Sommo's own reading of the vintage, on a five-point scale. Verdicts come from the same drinking-window engine the app runs on a bottle you scan, so a chart here and a bottle in your cellar are judged the same way. 5 of these vintages are past their best by our reckoning, which is the column most charts quietly leave out.
Rioja is the one classic region where the label already tells you something a vintage chart cannot. Crianza, Reserva, and Gran Reserva are aging categories with legal minimums, so a Gran Reserva has already spent years in cask and bottle before it reaches you, and it arrives closer to ready than almost any other traditional red.
That shifts what a chart is for here. The rating still tells you how good the raw material was. The window is doing more work than usual, because a Joven and a Gran Reserva from the same harvest are on completely different clocks.
Common questions
They are minimum aging requirements before release, not quality grades. Crianza requires the least time in cask and bottle, Reserva more, and Gran Reserva the most, and Gran Reserva is normally only made in years a producer rates highly. A good Crianza from a strong vintage can outdrink a weak Gran Reserva.
Usually, yes, which is a large part of its appeal. Spanish law keeps the wine at the bodega until it has had significant cask and bottle age, so a Reserva or Gran Reserva arrives already softened. Most still improve for several more years, but few need the wait that Barolo or classed-growth Bordeaux does.
From a strong vintage, twenty to thirty years is realistic, and traditional houses have bottles going far longer. The style's long oxidative cask aging means these wines rarely fall off a cliff: they fade gently, losing fruit and gaining dried leaf and leather.
No. Ribera sits higher and more continental, with a shorter growing season and greater frost risk, so its vintages do not track Rioja's. It also uses a different clonal expression of Tempranillo, giving a darker, more powerful wine with its own aging curve.
They are Sommo's own reading of each vintage, on a five-point scale, and the verdicts come from the same drinking-window logic the app applies to a bottle you scan. They are not aggregated critic scores.