The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Rioja’s best wines are still a work in progress
The wine was an extraordinary pleasure, a mellow red with a texture somewhere between silk and velvet that didn’t so much invite as demand a next sip.
The flavors were both sweet and tart, more cranberry than raspberry and fresh. The wine extended well into the complex territory of tobacco, smoke and leather, with a touch of vanilla from its long rest in old American oak vats. There was polish to the wine, the sort of sheen that comes only from the friction of age sanding away the rough edges of rambunctious youth.
This was a 1994 Viña Tondonia Rioja Gran Reserva from R. López de Heredia, a Rioja producer beloved not only for its steadfast adherence to the oldest traditions and techniques of the region, but also for the rigorous natural farming of its vineyards and its impeccable standards of quality.
Other Rioja producers make excellent gran reservas, like Muga, Faustino, CVNE, La Rioja Alta, Remelluri, Hermanos Peciña and Marqués de Murrieta. None are as devoted as López de Heredia to the notion that gran reservas ought to be aged by the winery until they are ready to drink.
The rules governing gran reservas require that the wines be aged at least two years in barrels and three years in bottles — five years in all — before they can be released. Most good producers of gran reservas go beyond the minimum.
The current release of Muga’s gran reserva, Prado Enea, is 2009, for example. Murrieta’s current gran reserva, Castillo Ygay, is 2007, while La Rioja Alta’s 904 is 2007 and its 890 is 2004. By contrast, the youngest gran reserva red from López de Heredia is 1995.
Defining a wine by aging seems out of step with the times. With the ascendance of Burgundy, with its emphasis on place and terroir over age, more regions have redefined themselves in Burgundian terms.
Over the last 30 years, there has been a rise in single-vineyard Barolos, even as a few ardent traditionalists like Bartolo Mascarello insist on the primacy of wines blended from different communes. Similarly, in Champagne, where blending has been portrayed and marketed as an art form, more producers emphasize the terroir and the vineyard.
The same debate is occurring in Rioja, as many people believe the aging requirements offer no assurances of style or quality. Exacerbating the debate, said Víctor de la Serna, who writes about wine for El Mundo and is a co-author of “The Finest Wines of Rioja and Northwest Spain,” is what he calls Rioja’s “headlong plunge into mass production of ever cheaper wine.”
The rise of cheap industrial
Rioja, de la Serna said, affects the entire market, including the gran reserva category.
“The problem is that anyone can get a gran reserva back label if they age the wine following the rule book, and even in that category, price differences can be huge,” he said, citing a 2010 gran reserva from Campo Viejo selling online in Spain for around $13 (in New York, the wine sells for around $20). Prices like that, he said, make it difficult for more quality-minded producers to sell their wines for the higher prices that they need to maintain their standards.
María José López de Heredia, who, with her sister, Mercedes, and brother, Julio César, runs the winery founded by her great-grandfather, said in an email that classifying a wine, whether by terroir, aging requirements or production methods, will not assure that it is good.
“You can pick the classification that you want, but at the end it is the honesty and the will to make a good wine that matters,” she said.
I do agree with López de Heredia that any classification depends on the integrity of producers to make the best possible wines. The gran reserva classification, she said, comes with the implication that producers are selecting their best wines for prolonged aging. She and other top producers take that underlying notion seriously. Not everybody does.
“For a winery that produces millions of bottles but has no brand reputation, gran reserva will mean nothing,” she said.
Bottom line: If you want to see what a good Rioja gran reserva is all about, avoid the $20 bottle. The ’95 Viña Tondonia will set you back $100, which for a great 22-year-old bottle is way below what a top wine would cost from Bordeaux, Napa Valley or Barolo. But if that’s too much, you can find a 2001 Faustino 1 for around $40, a 2004 La Rioja Alta 904 for around $60 and a 2006 Muga Prado Enea for around $65.