Bodegas Muga Reserva 2016
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Robert - Decanter
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Jeb
Product Details
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Somm Note
Winemaker Notes
This wine is ruby-red with glints of brick-red and a medium-high depth of colour. Dense legs which provide you with a sequence of patterns around the sides of the glass. Initially you can find notes of red fruit aromas such as blackberries and reminders of spices. This is all well balanced by smoked aromas from its time in wood which had received a light-to-medium toasting. A subtle vanilla pod aroma coming through with roast coffee nuances. A smooth, mellow attack, with tannins wrapping the sides of the mouth with hints of menthol. In the finish the interesting lingering persistence is worthy of note.
You can pair this wine with veal, Iberian ham and charcuterie and some kinds of stews and hotpots.
Blend: 70% Tempranillo, 20% Garnacha, 10% Mazuelo & Graciano
Professional Ratings
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James Suckling
This is really tight and powerful with gorgeous tannins and solid fruit. Full body. Tight and composed. Wet earth, smoked meat and hints of black truffles. Very long and powerful. Wonderful length. Real Rioja. One of the top best-value, high-quality reds in Spain. Drink or hold
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Robert Parker's Wine Advocate
The largest volume of the Muga winery is for the red blend 2016 Reserva, a wine that is sold as 2016 Crianza in Spain (for commercial reasons). This has the Muga style and the imprint of the cool and fresh 2016 vintage, one of the best vintages of recent years. 2016 is also a year of harmony and freshness that reminds me a little of the 2010. But the Muga family thinks it's somewhere between 2010 and 2011, because for them 2011 is not so warm, even if it generally produced quite ripe wines. It has a mixture of red and black fruit with sweet spices that are very integrated and in harmony. The palate is silky and clean, and the tannins are round and gentle. A delicious Reserva/Crianza. They produced around one million bottles of this. It was bottled in January 2019.
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Decanter
From a fantastic vintage and reliable producer, this well-composed Reserva carries the power and elegance of black and red fruits, ripe tannins and integrated acidity. It shows remarkable balance and persistence on the finish.
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Wilfred Wong of Wine.com
COMMENTARY: The 2016 Muga Reserva is bright, vibrant, and lasting. TASTING NOTES: This wine brings red fruits, some mineral notes, and oak to the fore. Enjoy with a rosemary and garlic-infused, roast leg of lamb. (Tasted: May 14, 2020, San Francisco, CA)
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Jeb Dunnuck
The 2016 Reserva showed nicely, with a classic, slightly more reserved style carrying lots of dark, almost blue fruits, peppery herbs, cedarwood, and violet-like aromas and flavors. Medium to full-bodied, beautifully balanced, and elegant on the palate, it has a notable sense of freshness, ripe, present tannins, and a great finish. This outstanding 2016 is going to evolve for 10-15 years.
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Bodegas Muga is a family firm founded in 1932 by Isaac Muga and Aurora Caño. The first wines were made in an underground cellar, until in 1968 they decided to set up their own winery in a beautiful old 19th-century town-house situated in the city of Haro. The Bodegas Muga outstanding feature is that it always uses the finest materials, combining tradition with the latest advances in winemaking so as always to give its wines the very best quality without losing authenticity. Indeed, it is the only wine cellar in Spain which employs its own master cooper and coopers, who make all the vats for the cellar as well as the oak casks. The winery remains true to traditional winemaking methods such as racking the casks by gravity and fining the wine with fresh egg whites. Bodegas Muga has succeeded in combining the purest family tradition with an updated vision of the future which has allowed them to preserve their own personality and character.
Hailed as the star red variety in Spain’s most celebrated wine region, Tempranillo from Rioja, or simply labeled, “Rioja,” produces elegant wines with complex notes of red and black fruit, crushed rock, leather, toast and tobacco, whose best examples are fully capable of decades of improvement in the cellar.
Rioja wines are typically a blend of fruit from its three sub-regions: Rioja Alta, Rioja Alavesa and Rioja Oriental, although specific sub-region (zonas), village (municipios) and vineyard (viñedo singular) wines can now be labeled. Rioja Alta and Alavesa, at the highest elevations, are considered to be the source of the brightest, most elegant fruit, while grapes from the warmer and drier, Rioja Oriental, produce wines with deep color, great body and richness.