2020 Bodegas Muga "Torre Muga" Rioja

Lastly, the 2020 Torre Muga just about jumps out of the glass with its complex red and black fruits, savory flowers, tobacco, lead pencil shavings, and graphite-like aromatics. Plush, full-bodied, concentrated, and beautifully balanced, it shows the softer, more rounded style of the vintage and has ripe tannins and a great finish.

One of the flagship wines of Bodegas Muga, the 2020 Torre Muga is powerful, dense and highly complex. Comprised of 75% Tempranillo, with 15% Mazuelo and 15% Graciano, the wine is aged for 24 months in new French oak: the first 18 months in barriques coopered the winery and the last six months in large oak vats also made on site. First produced in 1991, Torre Muga was created to be a modern, Bordeaux-inspired Rioja and a compelling alternative to the dominant American oak-aged style of the region. Today, it remains a singular wine in Rioja, and the 2020 is another great vintage in a long line of great vintages. With richly concentrated red and black plum notes, the wine is wrapped in vanilla and toasted almond aromas and enhanced by subtle turned earth and graphite. Quite sophisticated on the palate, with supple tannins and an enveloping mouthfeel, this wine is approachable and enjoyable now but could also age for several more years, if not decades. For anyone who enjoys Right Bank Bordeaux or collectible Napa wines, this is one not to be missed: entirely Spanish and able to stand shoulder to shoulder with many of the great red wines of the world.