93pts Wilfred Wong

The 2022 El Pacto de Cardenas Oro Gallo is a stylish and distinctive Rioja. This light red offers aromas and flavors of rustic earth, garden herbs, suggestions of flowers, and faint licorice. Enjoy it with tuna tartare in a light soy, roasted sesame sauce. (Tasted: May 17, 2025, San Francisco, CA)

91pts Vinous

The 2022 El Pacto de Cárdenas Ojo Gallo is a blend of 70% Garnacha Tinta and 30% Viura from the Alto Najerilla area in Rioja. Fermented with 10% stems and aged for 10 months in foudres, this light cherry-colored wine offers raspberry and herbal aromas, accompanied by peach and dried flower notes. Dry, lean and refreshing, the vibrant acid core leads to a cleansing and flavorful finish.

91pts Decanter

Clarete. Youthful red wine vibes, fresh black cherry, currants, and a hint of white chocolate. Very drinkable and refreshing with fine sappy tannins. Blackberries, blueberries, cherries, and violets. Balanced acidity, warm finish, and plenty of personality.

Tasting Notes

A wine that revives the most authentic local tradition, a red with a white soul. 

A red with very little depth of color, hence its name. It shows great vivacity and preserves its red tones intact, so typical of the Garnacha variety, which denotes energy andyouth. It has a great shine which, together with the great intensity of the red tones, gives the glass superb luminosity.

Intensely aromatic, it retains its primary aromas, despite being an aged wine. The influence of Garnacha stands out fundamentally with notes of red fruits, strawberry yogurt and light touches of lollipop. Certain fresh tones are also perceived, with balsamic, floral and citrus notes, more typical of white varieties. And in the background, creamier and more enveloping nuances appear, the result of its aging in oak vats. A crystal-clear wine that denotes freshness and a great fruity character.

It is a “long drink” wine, with great fluidity throughout its entire journey in the mouth. It is accompanied by a notable acidity, yet this acidity is well incorporated into the smooth sensations and delicate texture that it offers. It forgoes the structure of red wines to reveal its entire delicateness, with a pleasant, smooth touch, mirroring a white wine. Its aftertaste is highly complex, intertwining the sensations of fruit with spicy nuances and enveloping notes provided by oak-vat aging. Pure elegance within a harmony of varieties.

About the Wine

Viñedos El Pacto is a tribute to our forefathers, with a generation dedicated to preserving the precious wine history of Alto Najerilla and La Sonsierra, two Rioja regions with strong ties to our roots.

Historically, these regions have been almost entirely dedicated to vine cultivation. El Pacto means returning to that throwback viticulture, which takes care of the environment, with the minimum possible intervention, which does not seek the highest production, but allows nature to follow its vital course. Craftsmanship is a natural stage in the development of this raw material: manual harvesting, spontaneous fermentation, and respectful aging to highlight the results of diligent labor in unique vineyards that express themselves through the wine.

This effort to resurrect ancestral traditions resulted in the creation of “Ojo Gallo,” a wine renowned in the Alto Najerilla region during the coldest decades of the 20th century and named for its color. Just as in other areas the Ojo Gallo is an intense claret, in Cárdenas it has always been a red with little color. We are proud to have saved this virtually extinct wine in order to preserve these enological and, why not, ethnological gems of our culture.

Grape Varietals: Garnacha Tinta and Viura, although there are also loose strains of Tempranillo, Malvasía, Graciano, Mazuelo and some unknown varieties. In all the plots, white and red varieties coexist, with reds being the majority.