Try this wine before you die! Why?
The wines are already bottle aged to perfection on release. You get oodles of bottle age complexity without having to wait!
Grand Reserva Rioja are not only great value but also great wines. Typically spending several years aging in barrel and then several more in bottle before being released to the market. These wines have complexity in spade fulls and are immediately drinkable. Unlike a lot of high end New World reds, the bodegas have kindly done the bottle aging for you. And you don’t have to pay through the nose. Muchas Gracias.
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Harvesting tempranillo at La Rioja Alta SA | © riojalta.com |
Rioja came to prominence in the late 1800s when phylloxera (a destructive grapevine pest from America) devastated the vineyards of Bordeaux, and the rest of France. Wine merchants headed south of the Pyrenees to find a substitute for the dwindling stocks of Bordeaux wine. Rioja came to the rescue.
If you read writings of commentators of Bordeaux wines around the turn of the 20th Century, this is the style of wine they used to produced (albeit in French oak rather than American). And not surprisingly, towards the end of the 19th Century the bodegas in Rioja started using the same winemaking techniques as the counterparts over the Pyrenees in Bordeaux.
This is a style of wine—with extended barrel and bottle aging—you don’t see being produced much these days and it’s delicious. Make sure you try a bottle before you die!
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| Bottles of Gran Reserva Rioja patiently maturing in the 'bottle tunnel' at La Rioja Alta SA winery | © riojalta.com |
Five Gran Reserva Riojas for your bucket list
There's lots of Gran Reserva Riojas that are bucket list worthy. Below are five of the best. Find one near you, now!
1. Marques de Murrieta, Castill Ygay – established in 1852, one of the most famous, and more traditional, estates in Rioja, with its unmissable flamboyant label, this pioneering producer helped put the region on the international wine map. The Castillo Ygay is aged for 30 months in American oak barriques.
2. Bodegas Muga Prado Enea – set up in 1932, renowned for its traditional style Reserva wines that it only produces in exceptional years. The Prado Enea Gran Reserva is its flagship. A blend of Tempranillo, Grenache, Mazuelo and Graciano aged for 36 months in barrel.
3. La Rioja Alta, Gran Reserva 890 – the flagship wine of one of the region’s foremost producers, which is aged for around six years in brand new oak barrels. Establish in 1890, La Rioja Alta is especially known for its classically-styled, spicy Gran Reserva reds than can age gracefully for decades. The Gran Reserva 904 is the winery’s “second tier” wine and only aged for 4 years in oak.
4. CVNE, Imperial Gran Reserva – the winery was established in 1879 and began exporting the Imperial range to the UK in 1920. The 2004 vintage of this traditionally-styled Rioja was named top wine in the 2013 edition of the Wine Spectator’s Top 100.
5. R Lopez de Heredia, Vina Tondonia – often regarded one of the world’s greatest wine estates, founded in 1877 and well known for its traditional winemaking approach. The flagship Gran Reserva sees 10 years, yes a full decade, aging in barrel before release. The wine is mostly Tempranillo with small amounts of Garnacha and Mazuelo. The Reserva, by comparison, spends a mere six years in barrel.