Bodegas Muga Torre Muga 2011
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On the eye, it reveals more red than purplish hues in the meniscus and displays excellent acidity, boding well for a highly promising future.The wine closely reflects the growing conditions of the vintage and so appears balanced, full- and smooth-bodied, surprisingly pleasant and "well-behaved" on the palate given that it is still only three years' old and comes from a zone which normally needs more bottle time. That said, we can make allowances for a few small sharp edges in the middle palate which will soon be polished.
Professional Ratings
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Wine Enthusiast
Concentrated, ripe and pure on the nose, this is toasty smelling and intense, with notes of charcoal, cassis and blackberry. A grabby, extracted but balanced and impressive palate holds flavors of coffee, toasty oak, bitter chocolate and wild berries. The finish tastes savory and fully oaked, but not overdone. Hold a few years, then drink through 2026. Cellar Selection.
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Robert Parker's Wine Advocate
The Mugas are happy with the 2011 harvest. The 2011 Torre Muga is a dark-colored, almost opaque, ripe and concentrated effort. (It contains the Tempranillo that would normally be part of the Aro, and was not produced because they didn't get the Graciano they needed.) They are selling this very young (but still, it will not be released until around September 2015). It is quite heady with aromas of ripe plums, spices, lead pencil, ink and well-integrated oak. The palate is full-bodied, round and lush with plenty of dense and concentrated tannins that feel very young. If you have in mind the Torre Muga from the beginning, this has a lot less oak and is less extracted; it has much better balance. As usual, it's a blend of Tempranillo, Graciano, Mazuelo and others, from a very cold zone close to the Oja-Tirón rivers, which might explain why this wine is so fresh in such warm vintage. There will be no Torre Muga in 2012 or 2013, and possibly very little 2014. So stock up on this if you want a wine like it, because it will keep and develop well in bottle.
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James Suckling
Dark colored with very intense aromas of wet earth, stone and blueberries. Full-bodied, structured and powerful. A little extracted yet interesting and intense. Tannic. 24 months in new fresh oak barrels. This has 70% tempranillo and the rest is graciano and marciano. Needs more time to soften. Better in 2017.
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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.