R. Lopez de Heredia Bosconia Reserva 2014 750ml

The 2014 Viña Bosconia is 80% Tempranillo with 10% Garnacha, 5% Graciano and 5% Mazuelo from the El Bosque vineyard in Haro, Rioja. Garnet in hue, it opens with cassis, cola and oak-driven aromas. The palate is youthful and smooth, with well-integrated tannins, black fruit and anisette at the finish. Still growing, it’ll develop greater complexity with more time in bottle.

I loved the nose of the 2014 Viña Bosconia Reserva, a red that sells at an incredible price for the quality, the problem is (like all their wines) finding it... They had to accelerate the harvest to avoid botrytis caused by the abundant rain during the harvest. This is a blend of 80% Tempranillo, 15% Garnacho and the remaining 5% Graciano and Mazuelo, fermented in old oak vats with their yeasts and matured in neutral American oak barrels for no less than five years. It's elegant and nuanced, developed but young for its age, with a seamless palate and very fine tannins, with energy and light. It has 13.5% alcohol, a pH of 3.3 and 6.7 grams of acidity, notable parameters of freshness. 80,000 bottles produced. It was bottled in March 2022.

The Viña Bosconia wines are sourced from a vineyard called El Bosque. Situated next to the river Ebro at an altitude of 465m, it is one kilometer away from the winery. Vines are planted on the south-facing foothills of the Sierra Cantabria range, providing them with the perfect conditions for ripening. The soil is a mixture of clay and limestone, and the average age of the vines is 40 years. El Bosque consists of 15 hectares, 11 of which are Tempranillo, 2 are red Garnacho, 1 hectare of Mazuelo and 1 hectare of Graciano. The Viña Bosconia Reserva is made every year in quantities varying from 20,000 to 48,000 bottles. In general, Viña Bosconia wines are elegant but full-bodied; have a deep colour and good structure, and are wines with great complexity and expression. The Reserva wines are "coupage" wines and not vintage wines; they age for 5 years in American oak barrels, and are hand racked around 10 times before they are released to the market. The Gran Reserva wines are single-vintage and made only made in very exceptional vintages, in small quantities and from selected grapes; the amount produced varies from 5,000 to 15,000 bottles. The wines age in barrel for a minimum of 8 years to a maximum of 10 and some of them are hand racked over 20 times. After being fined with egg white directly in the barrel, they are both bottled and corked by hand, and finally waxed so that the cork is protected when they lie in underground cellars for another 10 years before being released to the market.