Wine Advisor
La Rioja Alta, Gran Reserva 904 2016
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Description
Tasting notes
Reviewed by: Luis Gutiérrez
I find the 2016 Gran Reserva 904 to be spectacular and a textbook example of the grand traditional style. It was produced with 90% Tempranillo and 10% Graciano from a selection of vineyards in search of balanced wines with silky tannins, good acidity, character, length and aging potential. The élevage is long, four years in used barrels averaging 4.5 years of age, during which time the wine is manually racked every six months. It's ripe with 14.5% alcohol, a pH of 3.61 and 5.4 grams of acidity, but the wine is super fresh and complex, with aromas of cigar box, balsamic, dry tea leaves, aromatic herbs, camphor, antiquary furniture and tobacco. It's elegant and intense, with pungent flavors and very good freshness, and it's silky, textured and nicely structured, with volume, clean, intense and long. This is a very complete year for 904. It's ready, but it should last. 120,000 bottles produced. It was bottled in May 2021.
About the Producer
La Rioja Alta S.A. is located in the Rioja wine region of Spain. Rioja is the earliest and largest high-quality wine producing area in Spain. It has the reputation of "Spain Bordeaux" and has many Spanish boutique wineries. This winery is one of the best representatives. The winery is now part of Grupo La Rioja Alta S.A. With the popularity of European wines and American wines, various wine exhibitions and wine critic competitions have become popular internationally, and Oak River Winery has also participated and achieved quite good results. In 1893, the winery won the gold medal at the Chicago Columbus Wine Show; in 1895, the winery won the silver medal at the Bordeaux World Wine Show; in 1910 and 1911, it won the Buenos Aires and Toulouse Wine Show Awards. But after winning a gold medal at the Latin American Wine Show in 1930, the winery announced that it would no longer participate in any wine shows or wine critic competitions, because they no longer needed to make wine for any awards, they needed to make real wine. Although it did not win international awards, its good reputation continued to spread. In the following 10 years, the winery has become famous and quickly became the top wine in Rioja, Spain. One of the Spanish wine brands.
