Greg T. Was right - Torre Muga

WINE TALK
1

Okay, I like Greg a lot but one place we’ve never agreed is Torre Muga. He says given enough time it’s going to taste like Rioja. I said, no way.

I’ve hated the 1994 Torre Muga for about 15 years, I just had it tonight. It’s fantastic and it tastes like Rioja. Greg, you were right.

2

Wow. [wow.gif]

Just. Stunned.

Not to sidetrack the late breaking admission here, but I just came from a tasting of Gran Reservas and must say the Spaniards have a way with American oak that nobody else seems to have yet mastered, without the possible exception of Ridge.

3

Interesting, but if the modern wines are going to taste like trad Rioja when you age them, but they cost 2x the price on release, they still have nothing to offer people who don’t want the modern style in the early days.

4

Yes,I’d still buy Prado Enea or reserva in preference, but it shocked me that I actually liked this wine after so many terrible examples.

5

To be fair, it’s neither the case that Muga are bomb-throwing radicals nor that Torre Muga is exponentially more expensive than ambitious “traditional” wines - moreover, as in Barolo, the lines increasingly blur (and were never that sharp to begin with), to the benefit of all. And the Torre Muga always been well made.

Yeah, I like Artadi and LdH both. So shoot me.

6

Jay could u please expound on what vintages u do not care for? I have tasted '04 and '96…both were wonderful

7

Interesting to know. I like the muga reserva (especially at $18 ea) and prado enea, but find myself not getting the “higher end” wines as much. The reserva is a great wine to get people interested in Rioja. I have only just recently bought a couple bottles of the special selection, but only because local Costco has it for $30 and it was worth a whirl.

8

Well thank you Jay!

My comments were only based on tasting those wines over many years. But the Mugas themselves warned me not to keep the Torre Muga too long because then it would just be like a more traditional wine. Like that was a problem!

The main thing about those wines is that a lot of winemakers in Spain are now doing what the Bordelais do - letting the customer age the wines. If you taste the LdH wines when they’re only a year or two old, they’re pretty fruity and up front. Ten years in, after they’ve been in those big tanks for a long time, they’re different.

Besides the release date, another dif between the Torre Muga and some other wines is that I think they use newer barriques than some of the others. They’re pretty sensitive to using new wood as opposed to wood that’s a few years old. The TM gets six months in large tank and then 18 months in barriques, then they release it after only a year, so it seems like it has heavier oak than some wines. If you keep it for a few years, it starts to meet the requirements for a Gran Reserva and the oak settles down.

Over time that oak somehow integrates. Not only with the Muga wine, but with wines from elsewhere in the world as well. Only Muga wine I can’t say much about regarding age is the Aro.

BTW, I was up in Santa Barbera this afternoon and I thought of you. Tasted through a whole lot of wines from Qupe and related family wines, and they bottled some Graciano. Who knew? But more interesting was a Grenache that was around 13 pct or less. I was thinking that I knew some east coast people who would like that and quite a few of the other wines that apparently never make it out east. We tasted probably a dozen or more of their wines and all of them came in under 14 pct, some in the 12s. Reminded me of old ESJ wines.

9

Jay,

Perhaps it was on “off” bottle?

10

Ron, assuming you’re not joking, it was not an off bottle (I was tasting right next to Jay). I have tasted mid 90s Torre Muga against Prado Enea of similar age before and observed the same thing - definite convergence. I guess the terroir wins in the end!

11

At the other end of the table from Jay and Alan, but fully agree. This was stunning, with amazing purity and finesse. Personally preferred it to a 94 LdH Tondonia GR, which is usually one of my benchmarks for classic, old school Rioja.

12

This is really encouraging. There is so little traditional Rioja left that I would be willing to wait for wines such as Torre Muga to age into form.

13

If you want the embarassing part, there were three wines tasted blind in the flight. the first two were “obviously” traditional Rioja. The third wine was not showing well - much more modern, lots of unintegrated American oak, I did not enjoy it very much.

My guesses were

A. Muga Prado Enea
B. Muga Reserva
C. Torre Muga

When they were unveiled the wines were:

A. 1994 Torre Muga
B. 1994 Tondonia GR
C. NV Bodegas Vega Sicilia Ribera del Duero Unico Reserva Especial (2012 Release - blend of 1991, 1994, 1999)

I will say that returning to the Muga at the end of the evening the oak seemed more prominent. But I’m not sure how much of that might have been psychological once I knew what it was.

14

Nothing compared to how I felt when the wine was unveiled. I just sat there saying, “Wow, Greg was right after all.”

15

Wow, though I gotta say, is this one of those “seeing is believing moments!?” I would have never thunk it! Lots of great palates on this thread being surprised. Doubt I will buy any, but an interesting read. I just love the traditional Muga very much.

16

Interesting.

I opened a bottle of the 1994 TM 3 years ago. I thought it had the Rioja classic thing to it and those that were convinced that they know it very well (in another wine board and not one of them drank from the same bottle as I did) were up-in-arms against my description then. [dance-clap.gif]

Oh well, I have a bottle left and am glad that it showed well in Jay’s blind tasting.

17

I was joking! neener

18

Really. I had the '94 Torre Muga with two other Berserkers and we were all taken aback by the amount of oak treatment. It had a pickle-y quality that reminded me of 2001 Ardanza.

19

As mentioned the oak seemed to come out more with air, but early on it definitely seemed classic Rioja and given the trajectory I’d guess that element will only integrate further with time.

20

I probably would have joined them in their skepticism before last night.