Oxer Wines Suzzane 2021/2023

Oxer Wines Suzzane 2023 is an elite red made by Oxer Bastegieta in Rioja, Spain. It's a celebration of Garnacha from old vines, known for its elegant, seductive and complex profile.

Suzzane refers to Leonard Cohen's song Suzanne and is an ode to women. The back label quotes Eduardo Galeano: “I break this egg and a woman and a man are born. And together they will live and perish. But they were born again. They will be born and perish and be resurrected. And they will never stop being born, because death is a lie.”

The Wine Advocate
RP 93+

Reviewed by: Luis Gutiérrez

The young 2023 Suzzane Garnacha red, inspired by Leonard Cohen's song Suzanne, is ripe and creamy, showy and outgoing. It was made with grapes from Camprovín and Badarán, on red limestone and clay soils.

The grapes were foot-trodden with different proportions of stems — from whole bunches to fully destemmed — and fermented in stainless steel with indigenous yeasts. The wine aged in 600-litre barrels for 10 months. It has some toasty notes, but a very fine palate, with elegant tannins and a chalky feel I found in many wines from here. Like most of its “siblings”, it also needs a little more time in bottle. It has 14% alcohol, keeping a pH of 3.4. It was bottled in May 2024.

The extremely creative Oxer Bastegieta keeps releasing new labels and wines full of character — in this case, two new Riojas inspired by Dante Alighieri's Divine Comedy.

Besides his Rioja range, I also tasted one of his Txakolis and a red he makes in Toro. And there are more projects on the way: he has bought new vineyards and will plant Chardonnay and Pinot Noir.

In Rioja he has 11.3 hectares; 6.8 in Bizkaiko Txakolina; and 2.5 in Toro. Despite the total number of labels, volumes remain relatively small, around 65,000 bottles.

Published: 27 February 2025.