BODEGAS R. LOPEZ DE HEREDIA Rioja Tinto 'Vina Tondonia' Gran Reserva 2001 Bottle

Description

CHARACTERISTICS OF THE VINTAGE:
Year qualified as EXCELLENT by the DOC Rioja Board. The quality was extraordinary due to a very dry summer that prevented any fungal diseases. The grape arrived to the winery in perfect health conditions. We started harvesting the white grapes on Monday October the 8th and the red grapes on the 15th which is the average date for harvesting in Rioja Alta. The harvest went by with a relatively good weather and finished on October 29th lasting 21 days. The grapes showed a good maturation of the fruit and even a bit higher than the average for the Rioja Alta area, which for its altitude and north latitude has a limited cultivation mostly due to the sun influence. These wines have a great balance and will be able to age in bottle improving even more.

THE WINE ADVOCATE 98 points
Drink 2021 - 2040 - The 2001 Viña Tondonia Gran Reserva is the follow-up of the 1995. There is a sense of harmony and elegance, of nuance and subtleness that wasn't quite the same in the Bosconia, as comparing both wines is inevitable. They started picking the red grapes the 15th of October, and the last grapes were picked the 29th of October with good weather. The grapes ripened properly and thoroughly, and the wine has great balance for a long aging in bottle. This is 70% Tempranillo, 20% Garnacho and 5% each Graciano and Mazuelo that fermented in their 153-year-old oak vats with indigenous yeasts and matured in used barrels for 10 years. It has 13% alcohol, a pH of 3.4 and 6.4 grams of acidity (tartaric). The nose shows young (tasting it blind, you'd guess a 10-year old wine, not a 20-year-old wine!). It has a nose of sweet spices, underbrush and cigar ash, somewhat balsamic, bramble fruit with perfect ripeness, integrated and young but starting to show some tertiary complexity. The palate is velvety and medium-bodied, with fine-grained, chalky tannins denoting a limestone soil that brings finesse and texture and a sapid, tasty, almost salty finish. This is going to make a beautiful bottle of old Rioja in 30 years' time! 25,000 bottles produced. It was bottled after being fined with egg whites in July 2012. - Luis Gutiérrez

JAMES SUCKLING ***** 97 Points
11 Oct, 2020 – Wow. This is really something on the nose, offering ripe plums that are highlighted with old and used leather, walnut and cedar, reminiscent of the interior of a fine vintage sports car. Full-bodied with very fine tannins and delicious, ripe fruit that continues on for minutes. Tile and dark berry at the end. Still tight and fresh for the vintage. A great wine. Drink or hold.