Warren - you need to do a search of this forum. All those questions have been answered many times.
Crianza, Reserva, and Gran Reserva are categories that apply throughout Spain. Crianza is usually released in the third year, having spent at least six months in cask, although in places like Rioja and Navarra, it spends at least a year in cask. Reserva has been in cask for a year and bottle for two, and Gran Reserva in cask for at least 2 years and bottle for at least three. But those are minimums and the wines can spend more time - most GRs for example, spend a lot more time in cask and in bottle. Usually the bodega uses the better grapes for the Reserva and GR as well.
Those categories are increasingly discarded however, and eventually may go away entirely. The crianza category is desired in Spain because it’s a popular category for restaurants in Spain, but it’s really a stupid category and some of the better bodegas simply do Reserva and GR and don’t bother with crianza. In America, it’s pretty much a useless category and a lot of producers don’t even put the word on the label because consumers don’t know what it means anyway. However, if you look for old vintages, you can find some crianzas that are quite good even after 20 years, even though that’s not really the rule.
Grapes are Tempranillo. Sometimes 100%, sometimes blended with Mazuelo, Graciano, or Garnacha and sometimes even with Cab in the old days, but Tempranillo is always the main grape, if not the only grape. Graciano was almost extinct but for Jesus Madrazo and LdH, and certain MWs announced authoritatively that it’s at best a minor blending grape. But then, hardly anyone was making it on its own. More recently, more people are growing it and it can be interesting - very acidic but I suppose if they were to do more with it in the south of the country or in parts of Australia it could become extremely interesting.
Tradition vs modern is mostly a bullshit distinction. Some people have discovered the wines and decided that they’re all supposed to be like Tondonia, but that’s a typical oversimplification. What most people consider “traditional” is what was introduced by the Marques de Riscal and Marques de Murrieta in the 1850s. Prior to that, most of the wine was more or less like young Beaujolais. Those guys introduced the idea of holding the wine in barrels like they did in Bordeaux. In Bordeaux they did it because they were waiting for the British ships to pick it up; in Rioja they did it because they saw it happen in Bordeaux. And then Spain had phylloxera and civil war and Franco and the wine industry just kind of stayed in Spain so today people think that’s all traditional and intentional, but it’s mostly an accident of history.
That said, turns out that there’s no red grape that can age as well or as long as Tempranillo, so it kind of worked out.
The main dif with the “modern” wines is that they’re released earlier than they might have been in the past - just like they are in Bordeaux, so the bodegas let the customer age the wines themselves, and they often have spent time in French barriques rather than American casks. That gives some people hives because it’s not what’s “supposed” to happen, but the wines can be really good so it 's kind of silly to reflexively complain about French oak.
The reason for the different bottle shape is that many of the older wineries would put out a more aromatic and powerful style, which came in the Rhone bottle, and and elegant style, which went into the Bordeaux bottle. Partly that has to do with the blend and with the source of the grapes - Rioja is roughly divided into three large regions and CVNE for example, would use the Rhone bottles for grapes from Rioja Alavesa while the Bordeaux bottles would get the grapes from Rioja Alta. For Tondonia and Bosconia, they come from different vineyards, have different amounts of non-Tempranillo grapes, and sometimes are aged differently. If a bodega does both styles, they’re usually both pretty good.
If you’re interested, you should look for the centenary wineries. A few were built in Haro to be near the trains, so those all count, but there are others as well and there are new producers who are making wines that are “traditional” even though those producers are pretty much brand new. I’ll let someone else give you lists of bodegas - I think I may have posted something about them at one point in the past though.