Rioja Vintage Chart — Best Years to Buy
Rioja is Spain’s benchmark for age-worthy Tempranillo, and the last great value in cellar-ready red wine. This is a wine vintage chart by region, rated the way Rioja is actually sold: by aging tier, from young unoaked Joven up through five-years-in-the-making Gran Reserva. Here is how every vintage from 2015 to 2024 stands, tier by tier, and which bottles are worth your money right now.
Skip the chart for a second. Here are the Rioja bottles worth buying today.
Same data as the full grid below, read through one lens: which bottles are on shelves now, drinking now, and still priced for what they are. The smart money in Rioja is on mature Gran Reserva — wine held five years or more before it ever reaches you, and still underpriced for the patience it took.
- Gran Reserva 2015 — warm, generous, fully mature, and drinking now. It sits in the shadow of the more-hyped 2016 and 2019, which is exactly why it’s still at release price. A finished wine for the cost of a young one.
- Gran Reserva 2016 — the critics’ pick of the released Gran Reservas, and broadly available. Overlooked only because buyers assume the best years cost more. They don’t yet.
- Gran Reserva 2018 — officially a “Good” year, so it flies under the radar, but 2018 was cool and fresh in a way that suits the long-aged format. The newest widely released Gran Reserva, and value hiding behind a modest rating.
- Reserva 2021 — if you buy one thing off this page, buy this. 2021 is the best Rioja vintage in a generation, and its Reservas are landing on shelves right now, still fairly priced before the market catches up. Muga’s 2021 was just named Wine Spectator’s 2025 Value of the Year.
- White Rioja 2021 — barrel-aged Viura from the vintage of the decade, built to age for years and costing a fraction of white Burgundy. The connoisseur’s overlooked bottle.
Rioja’s aging tiers are also a price ladder. Joven and Crianza are the everyday end — sound, unfussy Tempranillo at everyday money. Reserva sits in the middle, and 2021 is the year to find there right now. Gran Reserva is the top of the range and, tellingly, still the tier where the wine is worth more than the price asks: five years of aging built into the bottle before it reaches the shelf, at numbers that haven’t caught up to the work. White Rioja is the quietly underpriced tier across the board, and the barrel-aged 2021 is the one to cellar.
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| Style | ’15 | ’16 | ’17 | ’18 | ’19 | ’20 | ’21 | ’22 | ’23 | ’24 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| JovenYoung, unoaked | ||||||||||
| Crianza2 yrs, 1 in oak | – | – | ||||||||
| Reserva3 yrs aging | ★ | – | – | – | ||||||
| Gran Reserva5+ yrs, top years | ★ | ★ | ★ | – | – | – | – | – | ||
| White RiojaViura | ★ |
How to read the spread. The single Rioja verdict you’ll see on the master chart blends all five tiers into one word, which can’t capture how differently a vintage plays out from Joven to Gran Reserva. The clearest reason is timing: a great vintage’s Gran Reserva won’t be buyable for years. 2019 is the case in point — an Exceptional year whose young wines have been drinking well since release, but whose Gran Reservas are only arriving on shelves now, in 2026. Read your tier’s row, not the regional average.
A note on the dashes. Where a cell shows a dash, the wine isn’t in shops yet. Rioja’s top tiers reach the shelf years after the harvest by law: a Reserva needs three years of aging, a Gran Reserva at least five. So the 2022 and 2023 Reservas and the 2020-and-later Gran Reservas are still in barrel or bottle, not on sale. Two are right at the front edge: the 2019 Gran Reservas are just beginning to arrive, and the 2021 Reservas are landing now. Everything past those dashes is a wine to wait for, not to hunt for.
Read by style
Joven (young, unoaked) — Rioja with no oak and nothing to hide, made to drink young. It tracks the vintage closely: 2019 and 2021 are the standout years, both Exceptional. The catch is that the best older Jóvenes are largely drunk by now, so this row reads as a quality guide, not a shopping list — for buying, look to the recent years.
Crianza (two years’ aging, one in oak) — The everyday classic: a year in oak, a year in bottle, then released. Very Good across the decade with 2019 and 2021 rising to Exceptional. The current release runs to about 2022; 2023 and 2024 are still to come.
Reserva (three years’ aging) — The sweet spot of the range. Steady at Very Good through the decade, with 2019 and 2021 both Exceptional. 2021 is the buy-now bottle — the best vintage in a generation, freshly on shelves, and still fairly priced. Our 2019 vintage report covers the other great recent year in depth.
Gran Reserva (five-plus years, top years only) — The long game, and Rioja’s best-kept value. The broadly released years run 2015 to 2018, all Very Good and all mature or nearly so; the 2015, 2016, and 2018 bottlings are the ones to buy now. 2017 is scarcer than its neighbors — spring frost cut that harvest hard, so some houses skipped a Gran Reserva entirely — but the wine that was made is worth finding. The 2019 Gran Reservas are only just arriving.
White Rioja (Viura) — The category most drinkers underestimate. Barrel-aged Viura ages for decades and costs a fraction of comparable white Burgundy. Reliably Very Good, with 2021 the standout: a concentrated, structured vintage built for the traditional barrel-aged style.
TERROIR’s read on a decade of Rioja vintages, as reported in The Yield. © TERROIR.
Take the whole chart with you.
This page covers Rioja. The full TERROIR Vintage Chart covers every region we track, every recent vintage, on one page you can actually print and fold into a coat pocket. It’s the one page to have open when you’re standing in front of the shelf, and it’s free.
We send it to everyone on The TERROIR Letter, our weekly read on the wines worth your time and the years worth your money.
Rioja vintages, answered
What’s the best Rioja vintage to buy right now?
For a bottle you can open soon, the smart buy is mature Gran Reserva from 2015, 2016, or 2018 — wine aged five years or more before release, drinking now, and still priced close to release. For the best recent vintage overall, buy a Reserva 2021: 2021 is the strongest Rioja vintage in a generation, and its Reservas are on shelves now before prices climb.
Reserva or Gran Reserva — which is worth it?
Both are worth it; they answer different questions. A Reserva (three years’ aging) is the sweet spot for drinking over the next several years, and Reserva 2021 is the standout to buy today. A Gran Reserva (five-plus years’ aging, made only in stronger years) is the long-aged classic, and right now it’s Rioja’s best value — the 2015, 2016, and 2018 bottlings carry decades of cellar work at prices that haven’t caught up.
Which Rioja vintages are worth cellaring, and how do I read this chart?
2019 and 2021 are the two great recent vintages to cellar; barrel-aged White Rioja from 2021 will also age for years. To read the chart, find your aging tier’s row first, not the regional average — the master chart blends all five tiers into one verdict, which hides how differently a year plays out from young Joven to Gran Reserva. The scale is Good, Very Good, Exceptional. A star marks the bottles that drink well now and still cost what they should; a dash means the wine isn’t released yet, because Rioja’s top tiers reach shelves years after harvest.