Evolution of Rioja Gran Reserva Seminar: The Wines
Last Tuesday’s Rioja seminar, “Evolution of Rioja Gran Reserva,” which kicked off Vibrant Rioja’s First Annual Rioja Grand Tasting at City Winery in Manhattan, was a Riojaphile’s dream and an eye-opener, I think, for just about everyone who attended.
Here’s what we tasted:
1. Campo Viejo Gran Reserva 2002
2. Marqués de Murrieta Castillo Ygay Gran Reserva 2001
3. Sierra Cantabria Gran Reserva 2001
4. Marqués de Cáceres Gran Reserva 2000
5. Baron de Ley Gran Reserva 1998
6. Bodegas Riojanas Monte Real Gran Reserva 1998
7. CVNE Contino Gran Reserva 1996
8. Marqués de Tomares Gran Reserva 1995
9. Bodegas Muga Prado Enea Gran Reserva 1994
10. La Rioja Alta 904 Gran Reserva 1982
11. R. López de Heredia Viña Bosconia Gran Reserva 1981
12. Montecillo Gran Reserva 1981
13. CVNE Imperial Gran Reserva 1976
14. Faustino I Gran Reserva 1964
15. Marqués de Riscal Gran Reserva 1964
A very instructive tasting, as it became abundantly clear that morning that the greatness found in so many of these wines owed a staggering debt to a single variable: the passage of time.
That is to say, while vintage, producer, barrel time, winemaking philosphy, etc. are of course very important elements to consider when tasting, what was most astounding was how the wines, grouped together into decades–2000s, 1990s, 1980s, 1970s, 1960s–evolved as a group as we went back in time. And how, at the end of the tasting when we returned to wines from from the present decade, time in the glass exposed to oxygen (a form of accelerated aging) gave the wines greater finesse and roundness and complexity, a hint to what lies ahead.
This kind of evolution, and the extraordinary aromas and flavors that the this sort of evolution engenders, puts Rioja Gran Reserva into a rarefied class of red wines–Burgundy Gran Crus, Cru classe Bordeaux, Barolo, Brunelo di Montalcino, Hermitage, Chateuneuf-du-Pape–capable of altering one’s senses so completely that we enter into an exalted realm beyond the space-time continuum.
It also argues strongly in favor of Rioja Gran Reserva as the standard bearer for what’s truly great in Rioja.