2016 Federico Paternina Banda Azul Crianza Rioja 750 ml

1956. Logroño, Spain.

White dust rises from the bullring, settling on the red muleta cape of the toreador Antonio Ordóñez. The women in the stands wear roses. They wave their fans slowly in the September heat.

The stillness is broken by a commotion from the crowd. The cause is a tall man in a checked shirt, with a familiar shock of white beard. With theatrical flair, he stands from his seat to welcome a stream of red wine from a giant bota bag.

That man was Ernest Hemingway. Not long after the bullfight, he and his friend Ordóñez would visit Bodega Federico Paternina in Ollauri, sparking a genuine, multigenerational family love affair with the winery.

There’s just one 16th-century cellar in Rioja that kept Ernest Hemingway coming back for more, and we have their 2016 Banda Azul Crianza. From a vintage that both Wine Enthusiast and Wine Advocate rated 95 points, it’s an old-school, spicy classic boasting five years’ worth of beautiful bottle bouquet.

“He was always looking for what was good,” Hemingway’s daughter-in-law Valerie once said. “He didn’t follow trends.” The legendary writer would visit the bodega several times, and in the 1980s, his granddaughter Margaux joined an ad campaign for the winery.

The 2016 vintage was rated Very Good by the Rioja Regulatory Council, who said “The most outstanding qualities of this vintage are the great balance between acidity and alcohol, the wines’ aromatic quality and their excellent phenolic ripeness, which provides them with great depth and persistence.” 

Fire up that giant paella pan, find that box of Cohibas you’ve been stowing away, and get your friends in on the action. Papa would approve.