2009 Tondonia Reserva MAG 93WA
La Rioja, Spain

ETA September 2024 - direct from the winery cellars

The Tondonia is the flagship of the winery and probably nowadays the most popular of all the Rioja wines made in this special region. This again is a wine I personally buy every year - you will read that a lot here - I only try to offer wines that I personally admire. These wines drink amazingly well now but have the ability to age gracefully for another 20 years easy. Wines like this that are held back and matured at the winery should cost a fortune, but lucky for us, Lopez de Heredia thought to do this a long time ago, setting them up to economically be able to do so and offer us a true superior value wine.

Grapes: Tempranillo 75%, Garnacho 15%, Graciano and Mazuelo 10%

93 pts Robert Parker Wine Advocate
As with many wines this time, I had two vintages to taste of the Reserva from the Tondonia vineyard, 2009 and 2008, two very different, almost opposite vintages. The 2009 Viña Tondonia Reserva, a blend of 70% Tempranillo, 20% Garnacho and 5% each Mazuelo and Graciano, matured in used American oak barrels for six years. It has some toasted character, with ripe fruit, black rather than red, denoting a warm year but more restrained than the Bosconia Reserva from the same vintage. 2009 is a year of ripeness, concentration and tannin; the wines are powerful, but here you see the finesse of Tondonia in comparison to the more rustic Viña Bosconia. It was bottled in May 2017.