Winemaker Notes
Andén de la Estación, a name which pays homage to the train station that was responsible for shipping wine from Rioja to Bordeaux during the phylloxera, was born out of the family's desire to produce a traditional style classically gastronomic Rioja Crianza, with a profile showcasing the Muga signature complemented by a youthful and fresh profile. Made with Tempranillo and Garnacha varieties, El Andén de la Estación is a modern wine that ages in oak barrels for 14 months.
Professional Ratings
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Robert Parker's Wine Advocate
The approachable red 2023 El Andén de la Estación is a modern blend of Tempranillo with 30% Garnacha from Tudelilla to add freshness. It fermented in stainless steel and concrete and matured in French and Central European oak barrels for 12 to 14 months (it was shorter for the Garnacha). Between 2016 and 2021, this was produced in another winery; then they bought the Solaguen old winery, and from 2022 onward, they produce it there. Here, they look for freshness and an approachable and fun wine, which, this year, feels quite serious. It has more Garnacha than any of the others, which gives it a more fluid profile. It has good ripeness and 14% alcohol, with a pH of 3.53 and 5.64 grams of acidity. It has supple and focused flavors and very fine tannins and is very pleasant and easy to drink.
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James Suckling
Toasty with cherries, dried flowers and red fruit undertones. A blend of 77% tempranillo and 23% garnacha (from Valle de Najerilla). Medium- to full-bodied, succulent with fine-grained, polished tannins, focused and with a sense of toasty red fruit.
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Wine Enthusiast
This brings soft and openknit dried cherry and black-raspberry fruit framed by accents of fresh cedar, tobacco, dark spices, and a hint of sage. Some dark-chocolate tannins firm the foundation underneath. It’ll be great with grilled and roasted meats.
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Wine Spectator
A well-balanced red, with a dark and juicy core of black cherry and black plum fruit animated by lively, blood orange peelinfused acidity. Light, silky tannins provide definition and hints of loamy earth, licorice root, milled pepper pepper and thyme. Tempranillo and Garnacha.
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.