WTN: New style Riojas 1994-1996

I am scared of modern style wines - I admit that as freely as I admit that there are certain modern wines that I really do like. So I went to this tasting with a feeling of trepidation but hoped that there would be a few wines that would truly be to my taste. Oh boy was I wrong. I debated long whether to write notes at all, whether to give my brutally honest opinion or whether to try to achieve some sense of objectivity (impossible though that is). I opted for the first two. I hope I don't tread on anyone's toes and offend anyone's favourite wine - I just want to write my honest opinion, nothing more.

And one rather cruel observation. I've been hearing such propaganda that the reason some decided to do this sort of "modern" style wine is that the "old" style was too oaky! Can this really be true? I find the old style much more palatable and in some instances very, very good, and the oak always much better integrated.

Finca Allende: Aurus 1996

A sickly sweet nose, toffee galore, does show some depth but there isn't any savoury elements to bring the sweetness into balance. The palate was much better, with lovely high acidity, but still too much of everything.

Bodegas Breton Criadores: Alba de Breton Reserva 1996

This was like above, but with less depth to it and the oak even more disjointed. But again, it did have lovely acidity - I really have liked the acidity of most 96s I've had. To my tastes it really is an underrated vintage.

Vinedos del Contino: Vina del Olivo Reserva 1995

I think, but am not sure as I don't really understand this modern style of wine as well as I should, that this is pretty much the ideal of this style of wine. There was depth to the nose, complexity even if all you desire is fruit and oak based scents. The palate had some Tempranillo character to it and was red berried (in the others I could see no hint of the Rioja grapes). Though a bit soft, it did have structure. This was balanced, but not at all to my taste.

CVNE: Real de Asua Reserva 1994

Juicy oak, sickly sweet toffeeish and berryish scents, but gladly a touch of earth also. The palate was soft and plump, red toned with fair acidity, but candied. Yuck.

Bodegas Lan: Vina Lanciano Reserva 1996

Sickly sweet and confected nose, a touch of earth and on the palate, acids. A fair represantative of the style but not terribly complex. Hmmmmm....

Bodegas Lan: Culmen Reserva 1995

Quite a deep scent, very sweet but not quite confected, a little savoury also. But the palate was soft and sweet and plummy and simply lacked life and vivacity because the structure couldn't carry such an amount of over-ripe fruit with any degree of grace. Hmmmm.....

Bodegas Luis Canas: Amaren Reserva 1995

A strange wine in that it had a bit of dung, but otherwise was a similar type of blueberry milkshake that all the others were. It was just as spoofulated as the rest, but didn't have the complexity. Yawn.

Marques de Caceres: Gaudium Gran Vino Reserva 1994

Liquorice and spoofulation. Soft, plump, structureless and supremely oaky. Yuck.

Bodegas Miquel Merino: Reserva 1994

This was maybe the least modern of all of these as it was recognisably Tempranillo-based, had red fruit, a touch of earth, a bit citrussy - over the top in its sweetness for sure, but at least it had some elements that I truly liked. The palate was a bit too soft and lacked liveliness, but again wasn't so massive and spoofulated as the others. I rather liked this.

Bodegas Miguel Merino: El Chopo Reserva Especial 1995

Ok - here we get back to the totally modern style in full blast. It did have depth to it and some complexity and was even a bit citrussy like mature Riojas tend to be, and the Tempranillo character wasn't totally hidden. The palate, I'm sorry to say, was just sickly sweet juice - not wine. Ok.

Bodegas Olarra: Summa Anares Reserva 1995

I was tiring by this point of such huge amounts of oak and over-ripe fruit that I just wrote that this was sickly sweet and inistinguishable from the others. Yuck.

Bodegas Palacios Remondo: 2 Vinedos 1995

This was a little bit more savoury and actually tastes like wine and has a nice tannic structure. Not bad in this style.

Bodegas Roda: Roda I Reserva 1996

Unfortunately corked. It wasn't badly so, so I did note that this was stylistically a bit different as it had a hefty dose of shit and some lead-like character. If these are also in good bottles, I might actually like tasting it!

Then we had a couple blind wines:

Vega Sicilia Valbueña No.5 1994

A massive nose of over-ripe fruit, but also a bit earthy. The palate was remarkably fine though, with lovely high acidity and tannins supporting the massive fruit. But I don't like massive wines. This was a grave disappointment when revealed - I thought Vega Sicilia made more traditional tasting wines.

Mission Hill Oculus 2002 Okanagan

A very ripe, yet deliciously vegetal nose which begins to show some Bordeaux-grapes' character once it begins to open up. But still, the sweet fruit is what I mostly noted. The palate is well balanced with moderate acidity and noticable tannins giving good support. A nice wine.

-Otto-(waiting impatiently for my antidote beginning in about an hour: Musar tasting )

You are a brave man there, Otto. To me, the oak argument centers around new barrique-type oak vs. long fermentation in older foudre. While the long fermentation imparts lots of oak, to me it's more tolerable, more complimentary oak than the new toasty/charcoal/vanilla/chocolate thunder oak.
The only Finca Allende I've had is the Calvario and it too is pretty big and new but it is well made and pretty tasty. I took a 2000 to Joe's bday but it was corked.
Regarding Vega Sicilia, I had my first Unico at Joe's bday as well. Mr Bday boy opened an '89 (it was like he was a hobbit giving out a present to all his guests at his party). Wow. It too was pretty massive but had such intense complexity. I loved it.
I hope the Musar tasting cleans your palate!

Otto, I am glad to see that NONE of my spanish wines are on your list. And I am looking forward to your notes on the Musar tasting.

Hi Otto
Thanks for the notes, although the tasting seems like it was horrifying for you.

I recently tried the 1994 CVNE Vina Real Gran Reserva and it was very good. It had a blend of flavors including old oak, some savoury elements, leather, red fruit and good acidity. It seemed lively and balanced, and would benefit from additional aging.

The CVNE group of wines are very confusing for me as to which are made in the modern, small barrique, new wood style and which are the traditional style wines. I hope some Rioja guru will jump in and help clarify the differences on the various wines from CVNE.

I have also tried the 1999 Finca Allende but it was the basic bottle and not the Aurus or Calvario. I found it was very well made but somewhat anonymous with ripe concentrated fruit and some vanilla new oak flavors. It wasn't as bad as your note made the Aurus sound.

Best,