Winemaker Notes
The 2021 vintage in Rioja, and especially in the Rioja Alta, was characterized by more favorable weather conditions compared to other recent years. This enabled us to obtain very well-balanced red wines with marked expression of the varieties. This is a wine with medium-high robe and an intense red color which denotes its youthful age. Intense aromas in which there is a clear presence of ripe fruit, as well as hints of strawberry and blackberry. These are complemented by the notes provided by the ageing process in high quality, French-oak casks, bringing elegant toasted aromas, coffee and chocolate.
On the palate it is a smooth, well-structured wine, with the return of the same notes of fruit and ageing nuances as appeared on the nose. The acidity and alcohol are in perfect balance, so that the sensation as the wine passes through your mouth is harmonious. The tannins are soft and elegant, contributing to a pleasant, silky sensation.
The finish is long and persistent, leaving a sensation of satisfaction which underlines the excellent quality of this vintage.
You can pair this wine with red meat left to hang for a good time, game or failing that, enjoy it on its own.
Blend: 90% Tempranillo, 10% Mazuelo & Graciano
Professional Ratings
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Jeb Dunnuck
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.
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James Suckling
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.
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Robert Parker's Wine Advocate
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. Rating: 96+
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Wine Spectator
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.
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Vinous
The 2021 Torre Muga is a blend of Tempranillo, Mazuelo and Graciano from Rioja. It aged for 18 months in new French oak barrels. Garnet-red in hue, this opens with pronounced oak, blackberry and sour cherry notes, followed by spicy herbs, orange peel, incense and toffee in which the oak is a layered presence. On the palate, it’s juicy and structured, with moderate concentration and a polished texture that conveys both energy and elegance, although it still needs to settle down and integrate properly. This promises to develop a refined, expansive flow with further time in bottle.
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.