Rioja gran reserva: Panel tasting results

Sarah Jane Evans MW, Christine Parkinson and Beth Willard tasted 61 Rioja gran reservas with three outstanding and 30 highly-recommended wines.

Entry criteria: Decanter invited producers and UK agents to submit Rioja gran reserva reds from any vintage, with availability in the UK

The verdict

Although the gran reserva category has basic parameters, there is still considerable variation in its wines. Winemakers can choose to age their gran reservas for longer, and wines are also increasingly being made in a variety of styles.

In a tasting that encompassed a range of vintages from 2001 to 2015, this diversity was even more pronounced – and it was the first thing that tasters commented on. ‘Gran reserva used to be a small category, but you knew what you were getting. Now I think it’s much more confusing,’ said Sarah Jane Evans MW.

‘You have 24 months in oak or you have 36 months in oak; you have American oak or French oak. We used to expect gran reserva to be a truffly, mushroomy wine, with a lovely maturity developing, some slightly paler colours around the edges. But in fact, in this tasting we found dark- coloured wines, with a lot of really intense primary fruit,’ she added.

Scroll down to see tasting notes and scores for the top Rioja gran reserva wines

‘I know that the styles are changing – and golly you could see here that gran reserva is really, really changing. Some of the winemakers are clearly making gran reservas for a modern consumer palate. But with some of them I thought: “Is this really Rioja?”’

Christine Parkinson agreed. ‘It is confusing for people. All of these wines are on current release: some are youthful, full of vim and vigour and fruit; others are delicate, autumnal and evolved. The styles are widely different, though so many are delicious,’ she added. ‘Without doubt this is now a category where you need to take advice before you buy the wine, or you need to be prepared to have something that will be delicious but may be completely different from what you may have expected.’

Beth Willard noted that the quality was consistent. ‘I think it’s really important that just about everything was at bronze medal standard and above,’ she said. ‘What I thought shone through was that, within the wines that showed great typicity for Rioja, we were tasting 100% Tempranillo or blends with Graciano and Mazuelo, or in some the Garnacha came through beautifully. So we were tasting a range of flavours which perfectly expressed the region and put us very firmly in Rioja.’

All of our tasters agreed that the older vintages were more satisfying. ‘The tasting showed that when gran reserva Rioja gets some substantial age, it really does undergo a magical transformation,’ said Parkinson. ‘It becomes an utterly distinctive thing. Age is a really key component in these wines.’ Evans added: ‘The 2001, 2005, 2010, even 2009, and then the 2011s were all showing well.’

What about price to quality ratio? ‘A gran reserva of a particular age will usually be better value than a comparative style or level of quality from another country,’ noted Willard. ‘One of the advantages with Rioja is that so many wineries do actually hold back their wines to the point where it’s the right moment to release. You don’t need to buy a 2019 Bordeaux en primeur when you can buy a 2011 Rioja, for a fraction of the price, that’s almost ready to drink.’

‘It’s so thrilling to be able to have really genuinely quite affordable wines that are all about age,’ agreed Parkinson. ‘For someone who is fairly early in their journey of wine appreciation, and may not have a huge budget, I think there’s so much more reward in spending time getting to know the different producers, styles and vintages of Rioja than there is in trying to achieve the same, certainly in Burgundy or Bordeaux.’

Discussion copy by Julie Sheppard

See all the wines from the Rioja gran reserva panel tasting 

The Rioja gran reserva scores: 

61 wines tasted

Exceptional 0

Outstanding 3

Highly recommended 30

Recommended 25

Commended 1

Fair 1

Poor 0

Faulty 1

Rioja gran reserva: the facts

Total Rioja vineyard area 66,240ha

Red grapes Tempranillo 87.7%, Garnacha 7.5%, Graciano 2.2%, Mazuelo 2%, Maturana Tinta 0.3%, others 0.2%.

Volumes In 2019, total sales of red Rioja were about 218.5m litres, of which just 6.2m litres were gran reservas – the largest category, Crianza, accounted for 99.1m litres.

Exports The UK is the leading market for Rioja exports overall, with 30% market share, followed by Germany, the USA, Switzerland and Russia.

Barrels The total number of 225-litre oak barrels for use in ageing was 1,356,820 on 31 December 2019, illustrating the importance of barrel ageing in Rioja as a whole

Source: www.riojawine.com

About Rioja gran reserva

It sets a global benchmark for wines aged in barrel, and shows that Tempranillo is very capable of developing over time. Sarah Jane Evans MW explains what lies behind Rioja’s most long-lived reds.

The ‘gran’ in gran reserva could be said to have made Rioja great. It built the image of venerable elegance, of the refined interplay of oak with an autumnal palate of mellow fruitfulness. Despite this, there is a remarkably small proportion of gran reserva produced.

Rioja is the model of gran reservas. Producers worldwide use the term, but Rioja’s is the most clearly regulated. Red Rioja gran reservas are defined as ‘wines of great vintages that have been painstakingly aged for a total of 60 months [five years] with at least two years in oak barrels [of 225 litres] and two years in bottle’.

Note that although the qualification for being a gran reserva is age, the Rioja Consejo Regulador requires the wine to have been produced in a ‘great vintage’. Nevertheless, this definition does not mean that wines are all similar in style.

The ageing requirements, for instance, are a minimum. At the Decanter World Wine Awards 2020 judging we tasted young gran reservas that only just qualified for the category. They were vivid characters, with firm tannins and bright acidity.

Talk to the producers of these styles and they explain that they are designed to appeal to a different audience. While being gran reservas, they are intended to bring new consumers in: ones looking for fruit-forward styles.

Wood works

Within the category there are also differences over winemaking. Mature Rioja is regarded as synonymous with the vanilla-and- coconut tones of American oak. However, French oak is widespread. The modern classic from Remírez de Ganuza is a case in point, using new French oak.

Muga works with both French and American oak across its portfolio, commenting that American oak comes into its own with the longer ageing typical of gran reservas when it has lost its earlier rusticity. As for varieties, blends were traditional, but many producers today are using 100% Tempranillo.

What unites the best of these wines, however, is a remarkable capacity to age. While it’s true that the great advantage for consumers is that gran reservas are released ‘ready to drink’, they do go on improving. With the great ones, come back in 20 years, 40 years and more, and you will be charmed.

Marqués de Murrieta’s Castillo Ygay Gran Reserva Especial (a blend of French and American oak) and the López de Heredia may be the most famous, but there are plenty more to enjoy.

Rioja gran reserva: know your vintages

2015 – After several lean years, this is a fine vintage with some excellent early-drinking wines. The gran reservas are still young, released with minimum ageing.

2014 – A return to form after the disappointing 2013s, but lacks Rioja’s hoped-for brilliance.

2013 – A difficult year – the best advice is to follow the producer.

2012 – Officially very good, with a number of enjoyable wines.

2011 – Uneven, in the shadow of 2010, but has some good wines.

2010 – This was a fine vintage to end the first decade of the 2000s and arguably the best in 2010-15. Across the board, there were wines of excellent quality and cellaring potential.

Top-scoring wines from the Rioja gran reserva panel tasting:

The judges

Sarah Jane Evans MW

Evans is an awarded journalist, author and broadcaster in food and wine, with a particular interest in Spain. A Master of Wine since 2006, she is chairman of Spain’s Gran Orden de Caballeros del Vino, author of The Wines of Northern Spain, and one of three Co-Chairs overseeing the Decanter World Wine Awards.

Christine Parkinson

Parkinson is co- founder and drinks consultant at Brimful Drinks. Starting out in the kitchen and rising to head chef, she went on to become worldwide group head of wine for the Michelin-starred Hakkasan Group. Having led her team to the WSET Educator of the Year global award in 2016, she left Hakkasan in 2019.

Beth Willard

After moving to the UK from Australia, Willard worked in several buying roles before that of buying manager at Direct Wines. Now working with Winetraders to introduce new wines from Spain and Eastern Europe to the UK, she is a member of Spain’s Gran Orden de Caballeros de Vino and the Confrérie de Tokaj.

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