Live life with fine Spanish wines

The month of March is a great time to visit Rioja; there is a distinct spring feeling in the air. The sun was shining, the fields were green and the cherry trees were in full bloom. However, the vines were still as small and bare as during the winter months, but they should sprout their first buds any day now.When we came to Miguel it turned out that he had quite a vertical tasting lined up for us!He had just had some big purchasers from New York visiting him and had therefore been even more generous than usual in opening a lot of wine treasures. All in all we tasted 10 of his vintages.

We started with one of Miguel’s vintages that I never tasted before – his 1994 Reserva. This was his very first vintage he ever made so it was a privilege to be able to taste it, especially since there are only a handful of bottles still left. It was still in great condition, very light in color, smooth and round, a bit dry, very well balanced. The bottle had spent its whole life in perfect conditions, being cellared in a cave by one of the patches of old Tempranillo vines that provided the grapes for the wine. The cave keeps a cool 12 degrees all year round so the wine had been lying there in the darkness, waiting for us for 14 years, slowly evolving to a silky smoothness.The next bottles were the 1996 and 1998 Reservas. Quite similar, more powerful and fruity than then 1994, packed with raspberry and crispy tannins, the 1998 more powerful than the 1996. The 1998 Reserva has become a bit of a household wine for us (even it is a bit too expensive and powerful to be a wine for a Tuesday pasta dinner) and as always it performed very well.

Next in line were an interesting couple from 1999; a Vitola Reserva and a Gran Reserva. Vitola is Miguel’s wine in difficult years and I had no idea that he also made a 1999 Gran Reserva. The Vitola was good but the Gran Reserva was great! I’m generally not a big fan of Gran Reservas; all those months in oak tend to make the wine too dusty and dry for my taste. And a Gran Reserva from as a challenging Rioja year as 1999 year did not sound too promising. But the wine was anything but dusty and dry; instead it was quite fruity, plum jam, tannins and an enormous complexity.Then we hit the 21st century wines; the 2000 and 2001 Reservas. Especially the 2001 was quite a show-stopper. That year was a great harvest and Miguel had certainly taken advantage of all those perfectly ripe grapes. In very tight competition the 2001 Reserva was until then my favorite of the whole tasting. It manages to be mix a world of aromas and tastes; powerful fruit, cardamom, hazelnut, and dill, and stayed in the mouth for minutes.

Time for the Unnum -02, Miguel’s more modern wine and here I found a worthy contender to the title the day’s best wine. Instead of the 24-25 months that the Reserva usually stays in the barricas, the Unnum only gets around 16 months. The result is a wine similar to the Reserva but more “modern”, with touches of black berry, mint and coffee. An incredible wine, clearly showing the power of the new Rioja.

The last wine was nothing like I ever before tasted from Rioja (or anywhere else either, for that matter); a 100% Mazuelo from 2006. The wine is an experiment Miguel does together with the Swedish wine maker Lars Torstensson. Of course Sweden is too cold for any quality wine so Mr. Torstensson makes wine in places like Provence and Rioja. The Mazuelo grapes all come from vineyards around Briones and are racked in 3 Hungarian, 3 French and 3 American oak barrels. And the difference in the wine coming out from the different barrels could not be bigger! For some reason mixing Mazuelo and Hungarian oak is not a good idea – Miguel has decided not to sell any of it. But what I had in my glass (not clear if it was from the French or American oak, or a mix) was very interesting indeed. I have to confess that I had my doubts about making a varietal Mazuelo. I thought there should be a reason why Miguel Merino is, as far as I know, only the third Rioja bodega ever to try this out. Across the border in France, where the grape is known as Carignan, it is certainly not known for giving any quality wines. You can find Mazuelo grown en masse all throughout Spain but it is seldom allowed to play the first fiddle in a blend, let alone be the soloist. I know that there are a few bodegas in Navarra who turn out pure Mazuelos but never had the opportunity to taste them. But all my doubts just show you that you should not knock it till you’ve tried it. The wine was darker than all the previous Tempranillos and with a completely different nose and taste. It was quite a fruit punch, blackberry, but also quite smoky with hints of tar, long aftertaste, a powerful wine. Even if I really liked it you could discuss its complexity. It is perhaps not a great wine – Miguel seemed to have mixed feelings about it. There is also a 2007 still in barricas in the bodega but Miguel was not sure if he is going to sell it or not. All in all, it was a very interesting break from all the Tempranillo (even if they are delicious!) and I will certainly be the first to knock on Miguel’s door when the puts the Mazuelo bottles on the market.

As always, it was a treat to visit Miguel and his bodega in Briones, a lovely medieval Rioja village. And this time we had the opportunity to drink some quite unique wines. I left Briones with a happy smile (or perhaps more of a sheepish grin; my wife was driving…) and 3 cases of great wines in the trunk.

Fredrik - www.excelwines.com