Go gaga for this Rioja

2008 Viña Ardanza Uncork this stupendous Rioja and you'll be in for a very exciting time, says Matthew Jukes.

Matthew Jukes
By
published
in Features

923_MW_P42_Wine

2008 Via Ardanza, Rioja Reserva, La Rioja Alta, Spain£49.99, magnums, reduced to £44.99 each if you buy six, Majestic Wine

The year 2008 will go down in the history books as a great vintage for Ardanza thanks to exceptional weather throughout the year and perfect conditions at harvest time. The garnacha grapes come from the La Pedriza estate in Tudelilla (Rioja Baja) at an altitude of 550m above sea level. They play a crucial part in this wine because the flavour is so good on account of a particularly long hang time on the vines.

As you would expect, the lion's share of the blend is tempranillo (80%) and these grapes come from the 30-year-old La Cuesta and Montecillo vineyards, located in Fuenmayor y Cenicero. The tempranillo saw 36 months in American oak (averaging four years old) and the garnacha spent 30 months in two- to three-year-old barrels.

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Bottled in 2013 and benefiting from a full decade of maturity today, this is a stupendous Rioja and one that perfectly sums up why we all, every so often, go gaga for this style of wine.

Add to this the small fact that this wine comes in big bottles and you are set for a very exciting time when you uncork one of these mags. If you are looking for early Christmas pressies for impossible-to-buy-for individuals, then this is a small price to pay for an incredibly impressive gift.

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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