La Carbonera, the Rioja Alavesa wine project of Familia Torres, has seen the quality and consistency of its wines firmly endorsed in Decanter’s Rioja Report 2026, published by one of the world’s leading wine magazines. In the report, three of its wines achieved particularly strong ratings: Las Pisadas 2022, a Vino de Municipio from Labastida, was awarded 94 points, while Malpastor Crianza 2022 and Malpastor Reserva 2020 received 92 and 93 points respectively. Together, these scores confirm La Carbonera as one of the solid and reliable projects within the contemporary Rioja landscape described by Decanter –a region characterised by a diverse, precise and constantly evolving identity.

The categories Vino de Municipio (village wine) and Viñedo Singular (single vineyard), introduced in 2017, are presented in the report as key tools for understanding Rioja’s internal diversity and for strengthening the “Brand Rioja” identity through the specific origin of each wine – in a way that recalls the classic hierarchies of regions such as Burgundy.

Within this framework, Las Pisadas 2022 stands out among the leading references with 94 points, underlining its ability to capture the character of Labastida in a village wine with a clear and distinctive personality.

“This recognition from Decanter is particularly meaningful because it highlights almost 20 years of continuous work by Familia Torres in Rioja. Since 2006, we have been deepening our understanding of Rioja Alavesa and, in particular, of Labastida, identifying terroirs, selecting plots and refining every decision in the vineyard and the cellar,” says Julio Carreter, winemaker and head of Familia Torres’ wine project in Rioja.

Alongside Las Pisadas, the report also assigns very strong scores to Malpastor Crianza 2022 and Malpastor Reserva 2020, underlining the consistency of the project in Rioja’s traditional categories. On the one hand, Malpastor Crianza 2022, with 92 points, embodies the classic yet approachable style of Rioja’s Crianza wines, bringing together freshness, structure and carefully judged barrel ageing.

Malpastor Reserva 2020, with 93 points, offers greater complexity and depth, with a refined style that reflects the ageing potential and overall capacity of the region’s Reserva wines.

These results place La Carbonera’s wines among the group of references which, according to Decanter, represent the renewal of the Crianza and Reserva categories, maintaining their traditional identity while incorporating greater precision, elegance and stylistic definition.

The Rioja Report 2026 has been produced on the basis of an extensive blind tasting of wines from across the region held at the headquarters of the DOCa Rioja. Spain’s lead editor, Inés Salpico, tasted more than 540 wines, with the collaboration of Beth Willard, co‑chair of the Decanter World Wine Awards (DWWA), both recognised specialists in Spanish wine.