2019 Nivarius Valdesabril Viura Rioja

Everyone knows Rioja red. Almost no one knows what Rioja can do in white, and that's the secret hiding in this bottle. Nivarius is that rare, fiercely dedicated Rioja house obsessed entirely with white wine, founded to hunt down forgotten old vines high in the region's cool hills. Valdesabril is their crown jewel: a single plot of Viura vines more than sixty years old, at 630 meters, on poor sandy soil laced with limestone.

What they coax out of it is white wine of profound depth and tension. Fermented and aged on its fine lees in large, neutral French oak, it keeps its freshness intact without a trace of heavy wood, showing golden apple, quince, dried peach, and citrus blossom over a saline, stony minerality, with a texture and earthiness closer to fine white Burgundy than to anything Spain offers at this price.

Six years on, the 2019 is drinking beautifully right now, that rare white you can pour tonight rather than wait on. This is the wine that made critics take Nivarius seriously: Tim Atkin, the Master of Wine who is the definitive voice on Rioja, has crowned the estate's Valdesabril his best white in the region.

There's very little of it, and even less reaches the United States. Whites like this don't stay secret forever.