£14.99–£21.95, Majestic, Tesco, Savage Vines, Marlo Wine, Mumbles Fine Wines, Secret Bottle Shop, Drink Finder
Tasting this Rioja a couple of months ago reminded me just how consistently good some of the world’s most familiar wines and brands are – and how generally under-represented they are in my Wine of the Week slot.
It’s all too easy to assume that people will find their way to the big-name wines without a helping hand from me and that it’s more useful and interesting to give voice to wines and styles that are less well known. But every so often I taste something achingly familiar that stops me in my tracks. So it was with Marqués de Riscal Rioja Reserva.
The 2019 is a wonderful combination of classic Rioja ageing with concentrated fruit and appetising freshness, and dark, ripe berries with balsamic notes, spice, toasted oak and lithe, polished structure.
It comes from clay-limestone soils in the Rioja Alavesa and from vines – Tempranillo with a maximum of 10 per cent Graciano – that were mostly planted in the 1970s. Aged for 21 months in American oak barrels (225 litres) then just over a year in bottle, it’s perfect now but has the acidity, characteristic of the 2019 vintage, to age and evolve for at least another decade. .
It’s meat friendly – lamb, beef or pork, roast or in casseroles and including with chorizo – and can also be paired with mixed bean casseroles, roast root vegetables and red peppers, hard and semi-hard cheeses or monkfish fish cooked in red wine or wrapped in prosciutto. Organic and vegan. 14.5%. Empty bottle weight: 455g.
Marqués de Riscal Rioja Reserva 2019, Rioja, Spain
£14.99 in any 6-bottle mix, Majestic (or £18.99 singly); £15, Tesco; £18.90, Savage Vines; £18.95, Marlo Wine; £21.50, Mumbles Fine Wines; £21.95, Secret Bottle Shop; £21.95, Drink Finder; £22.45, Frazier’s Wine Merchants
Aged for 21 months in American oak barrels (225 litres) then just over a year in bottle, it’s perfect now but has the acidity, snow rider 3d characteristic of the 2019 vintage, to age and evolve for at least another decade. .