Winemaker Notes
Professional Ratings
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Robert Parker's Wine Advocate
The 1989 Castillo Ygay Gran Reserva Especial was produced with 76% Tempranillo, 14% Garnacha (a year higher in Garnacha), 7% Mazuelo and 3% Graciano. It matured in tank for a few months and then in American oak barrels, a mixture of newer ones and well-seasoned, neutral ones, for 45 months. It has 13% alcohol, with 7.2 grams of acidity and 0.6 grams of volatile acidity. 1989 was a fairly dry year with only 285 liters of rain per square meter. This is austere with high acidity and plenty of tannin, a thinner wine with a metallic personality and detached acidity. The 1980s were probably the weakest wines, thin wines with lots of acidity.
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.