Quality Rioja 2010: Panel tasting results

Riojas priced at £15 and above, these oak-aged styles, traditional or otherwise, impressed us all, says Simon Field MW...

69 Riojas tasted, with 2 Outstanding and 34 Highly Recommended

The tasters: Sarah Jane Evans MW, Simon Field MW and Pierre Mansour

Scroll down to see the tasting notes & scores

The verdict

This was a fascinating and uplifting tasting and it was inspiring to see so many of these current release 2010 Riojas, despite their age, coming in at relatively modest price points – certainly in the context of their relative maturity and inherent quality.

Gracias to the bodegas for maintaining an entirely reasonable philosophy of releasing wines only when they are ready to drink. That aside, there was, in fact, a clear correlation between pricing and quality, with the significant majority of the top 12 scores from the upper echelons, price-wise.

As an honourable exception, the Cerro Añón Gran Reserva represents superb value for money as one of only two wines rated as Outstanding.

Reserva vs gran reserva

Honours were pretty much even between reserva and gran reserva. The density and complexity of the latter were often in evidence; yet, in perfect counterpoint, the more balletic styles of the reservas were well worthy of high praise.

French oak vs American oak

Far more clear cut was the outcome on the topic of oak, with more French than American oak on display, and the results favouring the French oak styles by some distance.

Does this mean that we are moving away, instinctively or otherwise, from the dignified, leathery, slightly oxidised styles of old? Quite possibly. The tasting certainly demonstrated that the more mature styles can maintain a certain gravelly gravitas, a particular ‘mature Rioja’ identity, without the American influence.

Varieties

There were a lot of richly satisfying wines, the fruit style writ from the darker end of the canon, maybe, but the fundamental structure long, resonant, generous and uniquely satisfying. For this we have to thank the Tempranillo grape variety, with a significant nod to its increasingly influential siblings, especially Mazuelo and Graciano.

Not to forget Garnacha, bedrock of a plush, fleshy style which so often upholsters the wines with its own decadent charm.

Subregions

Rioja Alta claimed ‘victory’ over Alavesa in terms of sub-region, a little to my surprise. It’s quite possible that the more feminine, Burgundian style so often relished in Alavesa is less demonstrative in the heady environment of the tasting room.

And then we have the wines which have decided to defy, or at least to ignore, the traditional classifications. Given that the wines are the latest releases from 2010, they are by definition wines of similar pedigree and maybe even, somewhat ironically, similar ageing regimes.

Overall a mixed performance here, although one might have anticipated a little more from the best efforts of luminaries such as Allende, Muriel and Roda. All of these scored well, however, and it’s clear that at the moment the battle is more intellectual and theoretical than anything else.

Allende’s Calvario, for example, is a single-vineyard wine and aspires to garner clear acknowledgement for the fact, but that does not entail any radical departures in winemaking and so forth. In other words, all the wines sat nicely together and performed well in each other’s company!

An impressive and pleasing tasting; fellow tasters Evans and Mansour, doyenne and doyen respectively of the Rioja category, clearly shared my enthusiasm.

One can safely conclude therefore, that the styles are getting a little tighter, cleaner maybe, French oak more significant, with impressive dark fruit increasingly dominant, but, in the best examples, maintaining a unique balsamic lift.

Still, and for all that, it is forever Rioja: excellent value, food friendly and eminently satisfying.

The scores

69 wines tasted

Entry criteria: Producers and UK agents were invited to submit red Rioja 2010 of reserva level and above with UK retail prices of £15 or more

Exceptional 0

Outstanding 2

Highly Recommended 34

Recommended 31

Commended 0

Fair 1

Poor 1

Faulty 0

The judges

Sarah Jane Evans MW

Evans is an award- winning journalist and author specialising in Spanish wines, food and culture. She is a co-Chair of the Decanter World Wine Awards, and was made a member of the Gran Orden de Caballeros del Vino for services to Spanish wine. Her most recent book is The Wines of Northern Spain (Infinite Ideas 2018).

Simon Field MW

Field was a buyer for Berry Bros & Rudd for more than 20 years and now consults on areas that particularly interested him during that time, with Spain and the fortified category featuring prominently, as well as the Rhône, Languedoc and Champagne.

Pierre Mansour

Mansour is head of buying at The Wine Society. He started in the wine trade at the Antique Wine Company in 1995, followed by four years with Berry Bros & Rudd, joining The Wine Society in 2000. He took on the role of buyer in 2004, and has been buying The Society’s Spanish wines since 2008.

About Rioja

Rioja is at a crossroads. With up to 400 million bottles a year to sell, the region exports more than 35% of its wine and has been able, despite burgeoning competition, to command an impressive UK average bottle price of £6.82. The nearly 12 million bottles of reserva and gran reserva sold in the UK in 2017 represent more than 25% of the market in certain sectors.

Yet change is afoot. In essence, Rioja has come to be defined by the ageing regime employed, rather than by the specific origin of the grapes.

This has worked well for the larger companies, who source their grapes from across the region. New regulations in the pipeline will, however, introduce additional categories that follow a far more precise, French template; Vino de Zona, Vino de Municipio and Viñedo Singular will, from 2019, drill down to an ever more precise origin, and thereby, the advocates say, allow the magical heterogeneous identities of the extensive patchwork that makes up the region to have full and eloquent expression.

It is hard, on the face of it, to argue with such aspiration, all the more so when it has such gifted champions as Telmo Rodríguez and Artadi’s Juan Carlos López de Lacalle. For them, recognition for such outstanding sites as Remelluri and El Pisón can only be fully realised within a clearly defined pyramid of quality, in the Burgundian mould.

Age or origin?

How will this interface with the extant system, and where will it leave the much-loved triumvirate of crianza, reserva and gran reserva, which have served the region pretty well in the face of some stiff competition? It’s a work in progress, but it has a bearing on this tasting of 2010 Riojas coming to the market.

The great thing about quality Rioja is that it is not released until it is ready, and this is why our 2010 tasting centres, de facto, on reserva and gran reserva.

There are, however, other styles featured, where the winery in question, maybe in anticipation of this new system, has released a wine without age-designation, therefore, for the moment, as Rioja only. Were these wines appreciably different and how did they fare?

If one adds this fascinating question to the age-old discussions of the relative merits of reserva versus gran reserva and French oak versus American oak, we have plenty of food and drink for thought.

Rioja: the facts

65,593ha in the Upper Ebro over three provinces – La Rioja, Alava and Navarre

Three regions Alta, Alavesa and Oriental (formerly Baja)

Main grapes Red (87% of volumes) Tempranillo, Graciano, Garnacha, Mazuelo, Maturana Tinta; White Viura, Garnacha Blanco, Malvasia; recent derogation of international varieties such as Chardonnay and Sauvignon Blanc

Climate Both Mediterranean and Atlantic influences, also the Cantabrian mountains

Altitude Up to 700m

Categories Joven (young), crianza (min 12 months in cask), reserva (aged for three years of which min one year in cask) and gran reserva (aged for more than 60 months, min two years in cask and two years in bottle)

Rioja: know your vintages

2016 After the challenges of midsummer drought and very high temperatures, a long benevolent growing season brought the crop into equilibrium and the results are promising.

2015 A return to form, warm but not hot. Balanced ripening across the region; ideal conditions for harvest, completed speedily under perfectly blue skies.

2014 Tricky year, cooler, the vines struggling a little after the vagaries of 2013; hopes were dashed by a very wet mid- and late-September which affected those who had not picked early. Impressive whites and rosados.

2013 A difficult year with very mixed results. Spring rains and unpredictable growing patterns had predictably mixed results.

2012 A more challenging vintage, drought and shut-down in the vines, midsummer, resulting in a relatively short crop with a heterogeneous identity.

2011 Excellent vintage, fruits maybe marginally less complex than 2010. Patches of very warm weather have informed a ripe and powerful personality to the wines.

2010 An excellent harvest, relatively late in the offing, but thereafter almost perfect conditions. A long, leisurely harvest stretched from the beginning of September to the end of October in ideal conditions.

See all the wines in this panel tasting

Top-scoring Rioja 2010 from the panel tasting:

See all the wines in this panel tasting

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