Rioja Reserva, Vina Tondonia, R. López de Heredia Viña Tondonia 2009

Sweet berries, cherries, cedar and dried flowers on the nose. Some lemon and lime zest, too! Medium-to full-bodied with tight, integrated tannins that show wonderful length and reserve. So fresh and vivid. Lots of energy. A wonderful, classic wine. Drink or hold.

The 2009 vintage of Viña Tondonia Reserva is a beautiful and utterly classical young wine. The bouquet is deep, complex and vibrant, wafting from the glass in a mix of raspberries, cherries, fresh nutmeg, a beautiful, salty base of soil tones, a touch of nutskin and a very refined framing of older American oak that is already hinting at notes of toasted coconut. On the palate the wine is pure, bright and quite svelte in personality this year, with lovely focus and grip, a good core of red fruit, fine soil signature and a long, well-balanced and bouncy finish. This is fairly low alcohol by recent, global warming standards, coming in at an even thirteen percent octane. It is quite approachable already, but this is nicely knit and will be even better with a bit more bottle age. As always, lovely juice. 2022-2065+.

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. 220,000 bottles produced. It was bottled in May 2017. Drink 2020-2029