Bodegas Muga Torre Muga 2016
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Winemaker Notes
The dense legs that this wine reveals are a sign of its enormous elegance. The purple-colored hues around the rim reflect its youth. On the nose you find black fruit aromas at the peak of ripeness, spicy black pepper aromas and wood-land herbs. Balsamic herb nuances appear with rosemary and some smoky notes from the ageing in top class oak casks, creating a harmony and balance which cannot be matched. In the mouth we can find the juicy, elegant tannins with a nice sharp acidity to balance the palate. Hints of licorice and the pepper return. A very persistent, elegant, enjoyable and approachable wine.
Blend: 75% Tempranillo, 15% Mazuelo, 10% Graciano
Critical Acclaim
All VintagesTorre Muga is the most "international" in style of the bodega's reds - controversially so when it was first released in 1991 - and is a cuvée of Tempranillo with 20% Mazuelo and Graciano, aged in 100% new French wood. Using fruit from the "magic triangle" between Villalba, Haro and Labastida, it's plush, aromatic and finely judged with subtle wood, violet top notes, sculpted tannins and the depth and concentration to age. 2022-35
Brilliant violet. Intense, spice-tinged cherry, boysenberry and vanilla scents display outstanding clarity and pick up smoky mineral and floral accents with air. Juicy and seamless in texture, showing excellent depth as well as energy to the red and blue fruit liqueur, spice cake and floral pastille flavors, which demonstrate impressive definition and back-end lift. Finishes extremely long and precise, with an echo of sweet dark berries and deftly woven tannin's that add gentle grip Drinking window: 2023 - 2033
This bold red is assertive, yet holds power in reserve. A thick texture, supported by muscular tannins, supports ripe flavors of currant, fig, cocoa, loamy earth and tar. Concentrated, but remains harmonious. Impressive, in the modern style. Best from 2022 through 2036.
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.