Winemaker Notes
Pale pink color. Elegant. On the nose it appears complex and intense with aromas of peach, citrus notes and white blossom and underlying spicy nuances provided by the fine French oak from the small vats. On the palate it is fresh, with good sharp acidity, yet still meaty thanks to the result of the lees stirring. Long finish in the mouth.
It can be paired with tuna tartare, oysters, ceviche, pasta and rice dishes.
Professional Ratings
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James Suckling
A creamy-textured rosé with sliced peach, orange peel, cinnamon stick, crushed stones and some citrus and vanilla. It’s full-bodied, dry and beautiful. Intense finish. Drink or hold.
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Jeb Dunnuck
A big jump up in price, the 100% Garnacha 2019 Flor de Muga Rosado comes from very old vines and was brought up in barrels. It's slighly lighter ruby colored compared to the base Rosado and is more geared for the dinner table, offering beautiful caramelized cherries, flowers, incense, and spicy aromas and flavors. Rich, medium to full-bodied, and textured, it has notable freshness and a great finish.
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Robert Parker's Wine Advocate
The 2019 Flor de Muga Rosado was produced with Garnacha grapes from a dozen plots of old vines in the Alto Najerilla zone of Rioja Alta, where they have traditionally sourced the grapes for their rosés. These old vines are head-pruned and planted mostly in small terraces and slopes at 600 to 750 meters in altitude, conditions that bring freshness to the wines. They only used half of the free run juice that fermented in small oak vats at low temperatures, and each plot fermented separately, sometimes in vats as small as 500 or 1,000 liters. The wines are kept with the fines lees that were periodically stirred for a period of four months, and at the end, they do the blend of the different wines. It shows smoky/spicy with subtle aromas of rose petals and herbs. The palate is dry, serious and austere, with freshness and very good natural acidity. This should keep nicely in bottle.
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Wine Enthusiast
While almost colorless and smelling of peach pit and petrol, this feels chiseled and racy, with prickle and pop. Dry peach-pit bitterness and citrus flavors come with yeasty backing notes, while this shows additional depth and yeasty complexity on a dry finish with an autolysis note normally found in Champagne and other classic method sparklers. Drink through 2021.
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.