A beacon of excellence from La Rioja Alta

The famous La Rioja Alta company has released a brand new product under its Torre de Oña brand and it is a thoroughly gorgeous wine.

Matthew Jukes
By
published
in Features

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2012 Torre de Oa, Martelo Reserva, Rioja Alavesa, La Rioja Alta SA, Spain (£35, Armit.co.uk).

The famous La Rioja Alta company has released a brand new product under its Torre de Oa brand and it is a thoroughly gorgeous wine. A single vineyard Reserva, made from 60-year-old vines, the 2012 vintage is a 95% tempranillo, 5% field blend of mazuelo, garnacha and viura, and it spends two years in 80% American and 20% French oak.

So far so good. The recipe makes sense and it also explains a lot about the lush, broad, sweeping black-fruit flavours and ultra-succulent back palate. But I think there is more here. While tasting the traditional La Rioja Alta alongside this wine, I noticed a more ancient and venerable edge to the LRA range, with ancient, oaky notes, brick-red colours and leathery, strawberry flavours, while the Torre de Oa wines looked modern, fit, brightly fruited and much more alive in terms of their vivid, blood red colours.

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Ensuring that the two brands have two distinct characters is a good idea. But, and this might be a little heretical, the monumental La Rioja Alta company might be going the wrong way retreating into the past, while its new sibling charges over the new horizon. Martelo is a beacon of excellence one sip will show you why.

Matthew Jukes is a winner of the International Wine & Spirit Competition's Communicator of the Year (MatthewJukes.com).

Matthew Jukes
Matthew Jukes

Matthew Jukes has worked in the UK wine business for well over three decades and during this time has written 14 wine books.  

Matthew regularly lectures, judges, speaks at wine conferences and runs masterclass tastings for both corporate and private clients all over the world. Matthew is also the creator of his ground-breaking initiative, the One Day Wine School, an indulgent day of tasting and learning first performed in 2006.

He has been the MoneyWeek wine correspondent since 2006 and has written a weekly column for the Daily Mail’s Weekend Magazine since 1999. His four highly-acclaimed, annual wine reports – the Burgundy En Primeur Report, the Bordeaux En Primeur Report, the Piemonte Report and the 100 Best Australian Wines – are published on his website, www.matthewjukes.com.

Matthew is one of the world’s leading experts on Australian wine and, with Brisbane-based wine writer Tyson Stelzer, runs an annual competition in Australia to find ‘The Great Australian Red’.  He was made Honorary Australian of the Year in the UK at the 2012 Australia Day Foundation Gala dinner. 

Matthew is a winner of the International Wine and Spirit Competition's Communicator of the Year Trophy.  His thoughts, recommendations and tastings notes are followed very closely by the wine world at large.

 

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