Rating94
Release Price$79
Drink Date2022 - 2032
Reviewed by Luis GutiérrezIssue Date14th Jul 2022SourceJuly 2022 Week 2, The Wine Advocate
A barrel selection of the most age-worthy wines from the vintage, the 2015 Gran Reserva Limited Edition is a blend of 80% Tempranillo, 9% Graciano, 9% Mazuelo and 2% Garnacha from their 300 hectares of vineyards. The grapes were picked between the September 14 and October 16; the destemmed and lightly crushed grapes were fermented by plot and variety in stainless steel, and the varieties aged separately for 27 months in American barrels. Tasted next to the wines from 2018 and onward, this is a more powerful and concentrated wine, also because of the style of the vintage. The concept is to make a wine with more structure, power and aging potential. It's very classical with notes from the aging in American oak clearly recognizable, very spicy and tasty. The wine is medium to full-bodied and powerful but already developed by some time in bottle; it's spicy, tasty, chalky and still young with potential to age. 62,418 bottles produced. It was bottled in May 2018.
Marqués de Murrieta is one of the most classical names in Rioja, and they have managed to keep the classical style of the wines but are also completely relevant and up to date with what is happening in the world today. All of their wines come from their own vineyards, which sets them apart from the majority of classical wineries that didn't use to have any vineyards. So, it's a château style winery, a domaine, not a négoce and a small- to medium-size winery. All of the wines are numbered, and they produce a total of a little more than one million bottles. They keep faithful to the use of mostly American oak barrels for their wines, and the aim is for elegance and freshness. The first vintage in the new winery was 2018, but they only open the winery to the public now. So, the wines from 2018, 2019 and 2020 that I tasted are the first ones that fermented in the new winery.
They have finished building their new winery, where they now have plenty of room to work as they have a lot of wines aging in the winery, both in barrel and in bottle. Fermentation will change, and they have introduced concrete for CapellanÃa and oak vats for the top-of-the-range in reds. In 2022, they celebrate their 175th anniversary. Many congratulations!
