Bodegas Muga Torre Muga Rioja 2021 750ml

The 2021 Torre Muga is a big baby, still developing, remarkable in its wafty layers of 90% Tempranillo and complements of Mazuelo and Graciano. Gentle extraction is the key, the grapes coming from small plots of low-yielding older vines in Villalba de Rioja, Brinas, and Labastida. Smoky cinnamon and balsamic provide a sultry character to the berry fruit before going into new Allier oak barrels for 18 months. It has concentrated volume and full-bodied power, a gorgeous wine from a gorgeous vintage that’s worth the price. Structured to develop further another 20-25 years, it should hit its prime in about five.

In classic Torre Muga style, this is structured but polished with a fine, woodsy smokiness that delivers depth to the nose. There’s a minty edge to the excellent layers of rich but fresh blackberries with dried herbs, pine cones, rosemary and lard. Well-integrated, caressing tannins are almost powdery. Really long. Drink from 2026.

Fragrant and enticing, this fresh red shows a statuesque quality while maintaining overall harmony and balance. Hints of violet, dried thyme and rosemary, graphite, and anise lace a dark core of juicy blackberry paste, black cherry coulis and olive tapenade flavors, all enmeshed with a fine frame of muscular tannins. A push of ground coffee, smoke and dark chocolate echoes on the finish. Tempranillo, Mazuelo and Graciano. Drink now through 2046. 3,000 cases made, 600 cases imported.

I again tasted the 2021 Torre Muga, which was produced with Tempranillo, Mazuelo and Graciano grapes from 55+-year-old vines in the zones of Labastida, Briñas and Villalba de Rioja between 480 and 560 meters in altitude. The grapes were destemmed and put through an optical sorting machine and fermented in small oak vats with indigenous yeasts. The wine matured in new French oak barrels for 18 months on average, as the different varieties aged separately. It has 14.5% alcohol, a pH of 3.56 and 5.6 grams of acidity, pretty standard parameters here. This is evolving at a very slow pace, and I found it more backward and closed this time, more serious, with less aromas and flavors from the wood, and those toasty and smoky tones are now much better integrated. It has a balanced mouthfeel, with the freshness and fine tannins from the vintage. I found it to be a bit better than last time. 37,355 bottles produced. It was bottled in October 2023. The 2022 will be released in 2027.