Winemaker Notes
The 2024 vintage was strongly influenced by the climate conditions, particularly towards the end of the cycle. The 2024 Muga Rosado has a beautiful pale pink colour. On the nose, it has medium-high intensity and great complexity in the aromas, with a first impression of notes of peach peel, stone fruit and a hint of white blossom. On the palate, it is a very well-balanced wine, with a marked, sharp acidity perfectly integrated with the sense of body in the mouth. It has a long finish, bringing back reminders of peach, with slight citrus nuances.
Ideal with seafood, pasta and rice dishes and salads. Great to drink by the glass as a starter or with a small snack on a terrace.
Professional Ratings
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Jeb Dunnuck
The 2024 Rosado is 60% Garnacha and 40% Viura grown in clay-limestone soils and fermented to preserve maximum freshness and complexity. The aromas evoke wild strawberry and dried herb, with textured, light-bodied layers of crisp acidity. The family’s first vintage of Rosado was 1932.
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Wilfred Wong of Wine.com
For decades, Bodegas Muga has stood as one of my most trusted Rioja producers, and the 2024 Muga Rosado gracefully upholds that tradition. Medium pink in hue, the wine opens with vibrant aromas of red berries, polished sandalwood, and sun-kissed garden herbs. On the palate, it is smooth and composed, unfolding layers of alluring spice and dried fruit that glide into a long, refined finish. This rosado would shine alongside Jamón Ibérico or grilled prawns brushed with smoked pimentón oil. (Tasted: July 18, 2025 – San Francisco, CA)
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James Suckling
Simple and fresh with light cherries, stones and peach skin. Bone-dry and crisp with bright acidity and elegant nectarine and grapefruit flavors. A blend of garnacha and viura.
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.
Whether it’s playful and fun or savory and serious, most rosé today is not your grandmother’s White Zinfandel, though that category remains strong. Pink wine has recently become quite trendy, and this time around it’s commonly quite dry. Since the pigment in red wines comes from keeping fermenting juice in contact with the grape skins for an extended period, it follows that a pink wine can be made using just a brief period of skin contact—usually just a couple of days. The resulting color depends on grape variety and winemaking style, ranging from pale salmon to deep magenta.
Highly regarded for distinctive and age-worthy red wines, Rioja is Spain’s most celebrated wine region. Made up of three different sub-regions of varying elevation: Rioja Alta, Rioja Alavesa and Rioja Oriental. Wines are typically a blend of fruit from all three, although specific sub-region (zonas), village (municipios) and vineyard (viñedo singular) wines can now be labeled. Rioja Alta, at the highest elevation, is 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 and higher alcohol, which can add great body and richness to a blend.
Fresh and fruity Rioja wines labeled, Joven, (meaning young) see minimal aging before release, but more serious Rioja wines undergo multiple years in oak. Crianza and Reserva styles are aged for one year in oak, and Gran Reserva at least two, but in practice this maturation period is often quite a bit longer—up to about fifteen years.
Tempranillo provides the backbone of Rioja red wines, adding complex notes of red and black fruit, leather, toast and tobacco, while Garnacha supplies body. In smaller percentages, Graciano and Mazuelo (Carignan) often serve as “seasoning” with additional flavors and aromas. These same varieties are responsible for flavorful dry rosés.
White wines, typically balancing freshness with complexity, are made mostly from crisp, fresh Viura. Some whites are blends of Viura with aromatic Malvasia, and then barrel fermented and aged to make a more ample, richer style of white.