Rioja
Bodegas Muga Reserva 2004
Robert Parker (and Jay Miller) states that Muga is one of his favourite bodegas in Rioja in a couple of his tasting notes, and it’s one of the few things that I agree with him on. Not that there is anything wrong with that, the world would be a rather boring place if we all agreed. I’d love to sit down and go through a couple of bottles with the big fella, he seems like he’d be a laugh with a few in him.
Latente Crianza 2004
Here’s anther good Rioja Crianza in $20-30 bracket, this time from Ce Soir Imports. This is about the price where you get an interesting, wood aged Rioja in Australia. We are fortunate that we don’t have the same issue as the guys in the UK. There is truckloads of cheap and not so cheerful Rioja in the supermarkets and booze shops over there. Kind of like NZ sauv blanc here…
Bodegas Roda ‘Roda I’ 2005
While I thought the 2004 Roda Reserva was a touch better than the 05, it’s the opposite with Roda I. I did a fair bit of preparation with this bottle: decanted for 3 hours, then back in the bottle, off to La Luna for dinner, back into a decanter while we drank a handy half bottle of Ca del Bosco, then into the glass. Overall, the 05 is a more structured and complete wine at this stage, it has also eaten just about all the oak thrown at it. The 04 is obsessed with fruit, tannins and oak at the moment (in a very good way!) and needs time to integrate.
Roda Reserva 2005
I couldn’t help myself, I just needed to have another look at the 2005 Rodas. I find Roda to be quite closed at the moment, you need to have a quick look straight after opening the bottle or a big ol’ decant (or about 2 to 3 years in the cellar) to really show what its made of. But that’s not anything new, just about every vintage of Roda and Roda II has been the same. The trainspotters will notice the newRioja label on the back of the bottle too. This year’s blend is 81% Tempranillo, 9% Craciano and 9% Garnarcha, 1% rounding error…
Lanzaga mini vertical - 2002 to 2006
Earlier this year I was lucky enough to have a look at 5 vintages of one of the standout Rioja wines available in Australia, Lanzaga from Compania del Vinos de Telmo Rodríguez . I tend use the full name of the company these days, as when I visited in February it became very clear that partnership between Pablo Eguzkiza and Telmo Rodríguez has been a key ingredient to building this now very well known company. I still have a load of stuff to write up from my last trip, one of the highlights being a day looking the company’s many operations in Rioja…
Arnegui Joven 2007
Vintage generalisations are usually misleading. But 2007 is turning out to be one of those vintages where hard work in the vineyard and careful wine making will really show results. Yes, it was a wet vintage, but this wine looks positively sunny. So how does that happen? Well the weather isn’t everything in producing wine (it is a lot, granted) and the effects of poor weather can be very localised or broadly distributed over a whole region. Also, a ‘wet vintage’ is arelative term. In Ribera del Duero, the average rainfall is 650mm a year, they got 800mm in 2007. Compare that to the Yarra Valley with an average of 1200mm… As an aside, this is the 500th post on Tinto y Blanco…
Remelluri Reserva 2004
vOne of the most memorable wine experiences I’ve had over the years was a bottle of Remelluri Reserva 1991 with a slowly roasted leg of kid (yes, baby milk fed goat, cabrito asado in Spanish) at Asador Alameda. Now these two are a match made in heaven, I’ve been chasing a similar experience here in Australia but I’m yet to have the same ah-ha moment. The plans for the wood fired oven are well underway, now I just need a good goat supplier. This discovery was back on my first trip toRioja in 2005, its one of the many reasons I keep going back whenever I get a chance…
Senorio de San Vicente 2004
Out of the whole raft of wine that the Eguren guys make, I think this is my favourite. What gets me with this wine is the aromatic nose that only seems to get better as the wine ages. If you are drinking these wines young, make sure you decant, or at the very least open the bottle a couple of hours before drinking. I tried a couple of wines made from Tempranillo Pluedo (hairy Tempranillo) while in Rioja, and they all had this very aromatic quality. There are only 4 wines that I know of made with this clone, so who knows if this is typical or not…
Vinedos de Paganos ‘El Puntido’ 2004
I got straight to ordering some of this wine when I got back from Spain. I’d seen the 2005 a couple of times in Spain and had read great things at about the 2004 on El Mundo Vino, so I just had to have a look this vintage. Now there is lots of talk about which vintage is better, 2004 or 2005 (even 2006 is entering this argument now) and after talking to many of the wine makers and tasting the wines, I would advise that you need to look at each wine on it’s own merrits. They are both excellent vintages and it’s down your own judgement on which you prefer. In this case, it’s the 2004 for me.
Tasting with Eguren wines
It’s hard to know what to call these guys, they have a number of different brand, 3.5 bodegas (one is being built) and they are a huge family (there are Egurens making wine all over Rioja). But whatever they are called they make a diverse range of wines ine Rioja Alta and Alvesa. We kicked off our visits in Rioja with a look around Vinedos de Paganos where the vineyards and bodega for El Puntido and La Nieta are located, then a quick drive over San Vincente to have a look at the bodega for San Vicente followed by a tasting. One habit I could used to is tucking into some fine jamon y queso after a tasting…
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