Winemaker Notes
On the eye, it reveals more red than purplish hues in the meniscus and displays excellent acidity, boding well for a highly promising future.The wine closely reflects the growing conditions of the vintage and so appears balanced, full- and smooth-bodied, surprisingly pleasant and "well-behaved" on the palate given that it is still only three years' old and comes from a zone which normally needs more bottle time. That said, we can make allowances for a few small sharp edges in the middle palate which will soon be polished.
Professional Ratings
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Wine Spectator
Toast and cola notes frame rich plum and fig flavors in this concentrated red, which is bright and polished, though there's depth under the muscular tannins. Impressive in the modern style. Best from 2011 through 2021.
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Robert Parker's Wine Advocate
The 2006 Torre Muga is opaque purple-colored with an appealing nose of smoke, pencil lead, Asian spices, balsamic, and blackberry. A bit lean on the palate but with savory flavors, it will not make old bones but is approachable now.
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Wine Enthusiast
Among the world's bruising, full-bodied wines, Torre Muga is a flag bearer. This vintage offers cola, pepper, coffee and sweet blackberry fruit aromas, and the palate is tannic, acidic, grabby and full of life. Flavors of blackberry, dark plum and spice are pure as they come, with espresso on the finish. Let this sit another few years to allow the fierce tannins to mellow. Cellar Selection.
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.