70s Rioja and Bellota Ham
Tasted Monday, April 15, 2013 by octopussy with 619 views
Introduction
The 70s were maybe not the most glorious decade for Rioja, but you could say that in that decade lots of things changed. Marques de Caceres started out with the 1970 vintage, giving birth to "modern Rioja". For a few years I had collected selected bottles of Reserva and Gran Reserva from the better of the 70s vintages, such as 1970, 1973, 1975, 1976 and 1978. Many wines of the large brands are not too hard to find at auctions (at reasonable prices) because of the large quantities produced. Some wines we had were German bottlings, labeled as "Spanischer Rotwein", bottled by a German agency. So, besides the risk of the wine not having been stored properly, there was the additional risk that the German bottling is significantly different from a Spanish or other bottling.
All wines were decanted to separate the depot and given in between 10 and 90 minutes of air. We tasted blind, but uncovered after each flight.
We combined the wine tasting with a small tasting of six different Belotta hams and Belotta Chorizo, which went very well with the wines. They were:
Chorizo Campaña Ciurana Iberico Bellota.
Paletilla Ibericos Frexnense Belotta
D.O. Huelva Jabugo Sellecion Cebo
D.O. Extremadura Bellota
Jamon de Jabugo 5 Jotas Bellota
D.O. Huelva Jabugo Summum Bellota
Flight 1 (1 Note)
Flight 2 (1 Note)
Flight 3 (1 Note)
Flight 4 (1 Note)
Flight 5 (2 Notes)
Flight 6 (1 Note)
Flight 7 (1 Note)
Flight 8 (1 Note)
Flight 9 (2 Notes)
Flight 10 (1 Note)
Flight 11 (1 Note)
Closing
We had bottle luck, no corked bottles and none that were totally over the hill. Still, some wines tasted tired and should - based on other Cellartracker notes - have been better. Wine of the night for most was the 1978 López de Heredia Vina Tondonia Gran Reserva. I slightly preferred the monolithic and rather young tasting 1975 Castillo de Ygay Gran Reserva Especial, but the López de Heredia was a bit more classic in its profile. Positive surprises were the 1973 Senorio de Prayla Gran Reserva, a bodega/brand, nobody of us had heard of before, and the 1973 Martinez Lacuesta Gran Reserva. Maybe the biggest disappointments were the 1973 C.V.N.E. Imperial and the 1978 Riojanas Vina Albina, both of which were well past their prime and only hardly alive. Regarding the two La Rioja Alta Vina Ardanza from 1976 and 1978, I was thinking that it may be better to just drink these within five to six years after release (maybe with some exceptions, like the 2001 Reserva Especial). Both wines, as well as a recently drunk 1995, did not seem to benefit much from extended bottle age.
While there were some great wines in the tasting, after all there were only very few wines that gave real drinking pleasure in a sense that you would like to drink a second glass. But it was certainly interesting to taste the range. Furthermore, some people in our group were already at legal drinking age when the wines were brought to the market and had actually tried some of them young. So it was interesting to discuss how the wines tasted young.
1970 Bodegas Bilbainas Rioja Viña Pomal Reserva 85 Points
Spain, La Rioja, La Rioja Alta, Rioja
Cloudy crimson red. In the nose, this shows signs of age, is already a bit tired, yet still displays nice aromas of black coffee, leather, some strawberry, blackcurrant. Not very complex though. On the palate, it has mild acidity, the tannins have faded, it's rather soft, yet is ok structured. It was fine for some four hours.
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