2018 Bodegas Muga Rioja Reserva

2018 Bodegas Muga Rioja Reserva

2018 Bodegas Muga Rioja Reserva

This 2018 Reserva displays an attractive, medium-deep, ruby-red color with some brick-red glints. The nose reveals delicious red and black fruit aromas, such as blueberries, plums, and forest fruit, together with notes of liquorice and chocolate. Medium-bodied on the palate, the wine shows lovely balance with hints of roasted coffee beans, ripe fruit, silky tannins, and a lingering finish. This Crianza can be enjoyed now, but it also has enough structure to be cellared for several years.

James Suckling (94/100)
Lovely, succulent red with juicy berries and plums, together with some chocolate, spice, walnut and cedar. It’s medium-bodied with round tannins and a flavorful finish. Touch of dried fruit in the center palate. A pretty combination of savory and fresh-fruit character. Some orange peel as well. A baby Prado Enea.

Wilfred Wong (93/100)
COMMENTARY: After my 1993 visit to Bodegas Muga, I became a lifelong fan of the winery’s impressive body of work. The 2018 Reserve is superb from start to finish and is one of the best red wines I have tasted over the past two years. This wine has all of its components in the right place. TASTING NOTES: This wine exhibits excellent aromas and flavors of black fruit, complimentary oak nuances, and earth. Serve it with a mixed grilled and enjoy! (Tasted: March 21, 2021, San Francisco, CA)

Bodegas Muga is a family firm founded in 1932 by Isaac Muga and Aurora Caño. The first wines were made in an underground cellar, until in 1968 they decided to set up their own winery in a beautiful old 19th-century town-house situated in the city of Haro. The Bodegas Muga outstanding feature is that it always uses the finest materials, combining tradition with the latest advances in winemaking so as always to give its wines the very best quality without losing authenticity. Indeed, it is the only wine cellar in Spain which employs its own master cooper and coopers, who make all the vats for the cellar as well as the oak casks. The winery remains true to traditional winemaking methods such as racking the casks by gravity and fining the wine with fresh egg whites. Bodegas Muga has succeeded in combining the purest family tradition with an updated vision of the future which has allowed them to preserve their own personality and character.