Winemaker Notes
A palpable example of the elegance, consistency and regularity that characterize Marqués de Murrieta winery. This wine shows the incredible personality of the Ygay Estate and summarizes perfectly what happens during a whole vegetative cycle.
Pair with lightly smoked hake kokotxa, Pil pil sauce, olive, and soy; galician green chickpeas, organic egg yolk, and white truffle; line-caught baby squid, roasted squid jus, and "redondilla" olive oil.
Blend: 86% Tempranillo, 8% Graciano, 4% Mazuelo, 2% Garnacha.
Professional Ratings
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Robert Parker's Wine Advocate
Their flagship wine comes from one of the finest vintages in recent times. The 2021 Marqués de Murrieta was previously called the Reserva and still qualifies as such, but it's not included in the name now. It was produced with 86% Tempranillo, 8% Graciano, 4% Mazuelo and 2% Garnacha Tinta from their 300 hectares of vines in their Ygay estate on limestone and clay soils with alluvial influence. The grapes were picked between the 27th of September and the 15th of October, and each plot and variety was vinified separately in stainless steel, matured in American oak barrels for 26 months, then blended and kept in concrete for a few months until bottling, which was a longer élevage this year. It's very spicy, peppery, with a combination of berry fruit and some incipient tertiary aromas, hints of forest floor and truffle. It's very Rioja, with clout, elegance and freshness and the elegant tannins that are the signature of 2021. It comes in at 14.3% alcohol with a pH of 3.6, denoting ripeness and balance. It's delicious, fresh and available. Bravo!
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James Suckling
This shows vibrant cherries, spiced plums, blue fruit and superb balance with well-hidden oak. Firm and really harmonious, it has a bit more prominence of fruit and fine-grained tannins than the 2020. Drink from 2026.
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.