MUGA, FLOR DE MUGA ROSADO 2020

A NEW WAVE OF ELEGANT ROSE

As well as their work with winemaking vessels and their use of high-altitude vines, the otherwise very different Lalomba and Sierra de Toloño projects (see p45) also share another distinction. They both produce excellent – albeit very different – examples of a style taken increasingly seriously in Rioja: rosado.

Of course, pink wines have always been made in Rioja. But they traditionally came in a robust, dark, more full-bodied and – in many cases – oxidative (oakaged) style that had largely fallen from favour (and dropped significantly in production) by the time the global rosé boom kicked off in the 2000s. More recently, however – notably in the three years since the Rioja consejo regulador changed its regulations to allow wines with a paler pigment, in order to suit the requirements of consumers weaned on the pastels of Provence – an elegant new chapter in Rioja’s rosé history has begun.

Rosé still only represents about 14 million litres of Rioja’s total annual production of 296m litres (in 2020): red, unsurprisingly, has the lion’s share at 257m litres; white has 25m litres. Much of those 14m litres is rather ordinary; but the best rosé producers have carved out a distinct stylistic niche, one based on freshness (often from high-altitude vines), vibrant, almost-mineral acidity and a hazy softness of red fruit.

Bodegas Muga, whose estate rosado has been a tapas-restaurant staple worldwide for years, helped set the tone for the upmarket shift in Rioja rosé with its launch of Flor de Muga in 2017 (the 2016 vintage). This was rosé taken as seriously as a fine red or white, produced from 12 plots of Garnacha aged between 70 and 90 years old, planted at 600m-750m in Alto Najerilla in Rioja Alta. Using only free-run juice after a brief maceration on skins, it is aged on lees in stainless steel for four months with regular batonnage.