Review: 2025 Bodegas Lan Verdejo

The website copy on Bodegas Lan’s website reads less like a promotional vehicle for Spanish wine and more like a commercial break in between acts of a wellness podcast. It is earnest and certain you are capable of more than you’ve been settling for, and we all could use this sort of cheerleader from time to time. The navigation contains sections called “Say Yes To Yourself” and “Between You And Me.” There are pleas for you, gentle reader, to “focus on what you truly want,” to “smile at yourself,” and, most ambitiously, “allow every drop to tell its own story”. This is a curveball from the usual narratives. Wine internet is a rush-hour freeway crowded with swaths of multigenerational family stories, fervent invocations of passion, and photographs of impossibly good-looking models (possibly replicants) cradling grapes at golden hour. If Bodegas Lan has decided instead to operate as a motivational speaker with a Rioja license, the industry is all the better for it. We are, in the spirit of the occasion, saying yes.

What we are saying “yes” to specifically is this 100% Verdejo: carrying aromas of peach and lemon with a touch of rosemary as it warms in the glass. On the palate, pineapple and bergamot and a slight mineral thread of slate appear first, all organized around vibrant acidity. Grapefruit eventually appears and lingers softly, and the peach note returns on the clean and direct finish, taking things full circle.

The website recommends pairing this with “moments of fun and laughter outside in the sunshine,” which is the kind of serving suggestion that hits the bullseye or is entirely useless, depending on one’s current disposition. Sushi, it turns out, works equally well, with considerably less logistical coordination, similar levels of mirth and zero sunscreen.

B+ / $14

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