Hello board, looking for some help in valuing this for a friend. Anyone have any value inputs for this one? They bought it at the winery a while back, mid-late 90s maybe.
NV R. López de Heredia Rioja Centenario 100 anos 1877 Viña Tondonia
2 photos are attached…
Well, “Primer Centenario” mean “first Century” and I’d wager that wine is made in 1977, if Heredia is founded in 1877.
Back then Heredia made NV Tondonias, so most likely that is such a wine if it doesn’t have any vintage designations. I have no idea if that is a normal NV Tondonia, or if that Primer Centenario means it is a special edition having a different blend compared to the regular bottling.
From December:
Sold for €41
Were they really NV? I was under the impression that, for the Reservas back then, they simply weren’t labeled with the vintage. I.e., the reservas were labeled ‘6 años’ to reflect the barrel aging, but the juice was from a single vintage.
They were really NV. Maria said until recently, there was substantial blending of vintages at LdH. With increased EU regulations, this practice has decreased but even now, the Reservas at LdH have around 10% of other vintages blended in even though they are vintage dated. The GRs are all 100% unblended.
Interesting - thanks for the explanation!
To my understanding, many other Rioja producers employ quite a bit of blending as well, since it is allowed - as it is in many other appellations and wine countries. IIRC Faustino I has quite a bit of young wines to freshen up the flavor profile as well.
As a tangential point, it’s always entertaining to think how much leeway these legal minimum percentages give. For example, if you have a Napa Cab 2012, the wine needs to have:
95% of the fruit from the designated vintage
85% of the fruit from the designated AVA
75% of the fruit from the designated grape variety
Thus, you could actually have a wine of which only 55% is actually Cabernet Sauvignon from Napa and from 2012 vintage! I’m not saying that would be the case with any producer, but it would be possible to make such a blend and comply with all laws and regulations.
Thanks, I saw this too and then I saw how cheaply everything else on this site sells for. Not exactly a great indicator of value. Save the actual conditions for wines sold here. Maybe it’s a small captive market that does not have a lot of buyers?
Thanks everyone for the explanations. I did come across something previously that said there was wine from 1877 in here, but how much who knows? A thimble full or some real % I do not know. Maybe none and it’s just an anniversary bottle?
If the owner is in the US, they may have the advantage of tacking on the additional costs it would take to ship from Europe.
If it’s done in a solera-like system, and they take out half every year and replace it with new juice, it’s easy to calculate: (% kept over from previous year)^(number of years). If it’s half every year and it’s been going for 50 years, that would be (0.5^50) left from the original batch, or 8.9e-14%. If your tank’s capacity was a billion liters, you’d still have a little under a microgram of original juice. Even if they kept 90% year-after-year, you’d only have half a percent of original juice.
Lol I’d say definitely not. I’m quite certain no winery keeps wine stashed away for hundred years from the very first harvest. In all likelihood it’s just an anniversary bottle. Since it’s an NV, it might have more older vintages in the blend, but no 100-yo wine.
Yeah was thinking the same thing…Geoff’s math if correct proves that.
Send Maria am email:
It may take a week or two, but you will almost certainly be returned the best available information.
When I came across a case of 5 Anos Bosconia, I asked her about the tiny codes punched on the label and leaned about the vintage, bottling date, and blending tradition.