Winemaker Notes
Professional Ratings
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Robert Parker's Wine Advocate
1964 was for many the vintage of the 20th century, and the 1964 Castillo Ygay Gran Reserva Especial, produced with 74% Tempranillo, 14% Garnacha Tinta, 10% Mazuelo and 2% Graciano, has a blend like the wines from the early vintages of the century, higher in Garnacha. This matured in tank for six months followed by 266 months in American oak barrels (over 22 years!) and was bottled in July 1987 with 13% alcohol, 7.3 grams of acidity and 0.84 grams of volatile acidity. It was released in 1994. It feels a lot younger, with fresh fruit and a touch of beeswax and pollen intermixed with more traditional notes of tobacco and cigar box, smoke and forest floor. The wine is powerful and youthful, still young at age 58. It has a lively palate with great freshness and acidity, a silky texture and a long, tasty and almost salty finish. It's more powerful than the 1959.
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.