Winemaker Notes
Professional Ratings
-
Robert Parker's Wine Advocate
1994 was the beginning of modern Rioja, and Marqués de Murrieta considered it to be a very high quality vintage, with 20% lower yields than usual, giving wines great tannic structure and the ability to age well. The 1994 Castillo Ygay Gran Reserva Especial, produced with a blend of 75% Tempranillo, 13% Mazuelo, 10% Garnacha and 2% Graciano, matured in oak barrels for 50 months. It has 13.4% alcohol with 7.4 grams of acidity and 0.7 grams of volatile acidity, and it has tannic structure. In this decade, the winery had a big influence on the wines; there's more noticeable oak here despite a shorter élevage. The oak was still 100% American.
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.