Not all wines get better with age, but this Spanish Rioja makes a delicious case for the cliche
Campo Viejo Rioja Reserva Rioja
Campo Viejo Rioja Reserva
Rioja, Spain
$14.69
13.5% alcohol
PLCB Item #9327
Sale price; regularly $17.69
Maturity is so strongly associated with wine quality in popular culture that some advertise being aged, as with this Spanish Rioja. Red wines from Spain that carry the “Reserva” designation must be matured for a minimum of three years before they are sold, with that time split between barrel aging and bottle aging.
A wine’s primary alcoholic fermentation can take anywhere from 10 days to 10 months and leaves the wine in a raw state, where a range of small scale chemical reactions and microbiological processes are needed to improve its taste. Many red wine styles benefit from a few months spent aging in oak barrels, which permit a slow ingress of oxygen; white wines can be enriched by resting on their natural sediment of yeast solids. Both processes can soften a wine’s mouthfeel and harmonize its existing flavors, but oak barrels and yeasty “lees” can also contribute new flavors and scents to a wine as well. (Note that older wines are not always better, and that some wine styles are aged longer than others.)
Patient maturation in oak barrels is most necessary for high intensity red wines, as with this tempranillo-based blend from northern Spain, since the compounds that make a wine red can also make it feel leathery in the mouth. Further aging in bottles for anywhere from a couple years to a couple decades used to be recommended for taming the tannins of the darkest and strongest reds, much as a tough cut of meat can be tenderized by cooking it slowly on low heat. Nowadays, the tannic harshness of red wine is much reduced by modern production methods and most vintners aim for their wines to be at their peak for enjoyment when they hit store shelves. This widely available Rioja Reserva provides a delicious example of why both oak barrel aging and further bottle aging are still prized, adding a gloss of toasty spice and a layer of aromatic complexity reminiscent of that found in tea or coffee to a base wine that still features plenty of freshness in its red cherry and blackberry flavors.
Also available at:
Total Wine & More in Wilmington and Claymont, Del., $14.69
Roger Wilco in Pennsauken, $15.98
Joe Canal’s in Lawrenceville, $15.99