2001 La Rioja Alta Rioja Viña Ardanza Reserva Especial
Community Tasting Note
honest bob wrote:
93 Points
Sunday, March 14, 2021 - From 75cl, perfect cork, decanted 1 hour. An exquisite bottle. Bright red fruit (redcurrant/cranberry/morello) with just a hint of darker (loganberry?) in there somewhere, also gentle fresh tobacco, very gentle leather, and of course vanilla, but not the in-your-face American oak of less successful bottles of Tondonia. All in all: rather more like a wonderful old red Burgundy than a typical 20-year-old Rioja. Tannins fully resolved, but still plenty of delicate structure. Bright acidity. This superb bottle could have lasted another decade. 93–94P
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Comment posted by forceberry:
6/19/2021 3:28:00 PM - In-your-face American oak in Tondonia? In which wines and which vintages? Seeing how Heredia's oak barrels are pretty much ancient and they replace only a few percent of their barrels per year, I really can't understand where they could get any in-your-face oak character. At least I've never tasted a single Tondonia with obvious oak influence and I'm interested if I've had any of those wines you consider "less successful".
Comment posted by honest bob:
6/21/2021 2:40:00 AM - Hi forceberry, thanks for your comment. I think we may be writing about different things. No, I definitely don't mean the kind of new oak treatment (usually in French barriques) which has put me off "new-wave" Rioja (e.g. Remírez de Ganuza, Remelluri, Dalmau...) I'm describing the intense, high-toned (volatile?) acidity which comes from vinification and very long subsequent ageing in old American oak, i.e. exactly what LdH do with Tondonia. (Have you visited the bodega? It's quite an experience!)
As a long-term fan and collector of both LdH and Castillo Ygay (i.e. long before they became popular and expensive again) I'm fully aware of the electric thrill of that high-toned, high-acid, sharp, old-oak magic... when it works and is in balance with sufficient body, fruit and a decent "structure" of other textural elements. The antithesis of such success is, in my personal opinion, Paternina's Banda Azul, which gives me instant acid reflux.
Returning to your question, roughly half the roughly two-dozen 2001 Tondonia Reservas I have opened myself or been offered by friends struck me as having suffered from too-extensive oak treatment. The same applies, if I remember correctly, to the single bottle of 2005 Bosconia I opened when I bought that vintage (in 2018) and several bottles of 2005 Cubillo over the years. The biggest disappointment so far have been several expensive bottles of 1994 Tondonia Gran Reserva and 1991 Tondonia GR Blanco, all with more or less deficient corks under the wax capsule. I'm very sensitive to both TCA and mouldy smells, so that is what I generally record; my husband is unusually TCA-tolerant (what luck for us!) so what he usually notes the lack of fruit and biting old-oak-acidity unless the TCA is really screaming. Barring spoiled bottles, it may above all be a question of time: Successive bottles of 1970 Tondonia GR have been among my most wonderful wine experiences.