98+/100 RP | Drink: 2024-2034. The 2021 Tabuérniga follows its path of complexity and elegance with a faint iron-like side this year, with notes of blood and rusty nail, a little earthier. Winemaker Pablo Eguzkiza thought that could be because this year the wine has more Graciano. It's also a little lighter, a little more ethereal. The grapes were picked between the sixth and eighth of October, and they were very healthy. They used a small portion of full clusters, maybe 5%, fermented in 3,000-liter open-top oak vats and matured in 1,500-liter oak foudres for 14 to 16 months. It has the harmony, balance and freshness with the elegant and seamless tannins from 2021. 2021 delivered good yields, and that might have provided finer-boned wines, a little in the style of 2016. This is superb. 3,812 bottles produced. It was bottled in June 2023. The single-vineyard bottlings from Telmo Rodríguez are from the 2021 vintage, a year of very high potential for elegant and fresh wines. 2021 was an unusual year, a year with a late budding and a hurried ripeness that resulted in an early harvest and wines with a style like in the past, powerful but with a low pH and lots of freshness in the wines. It was marked by a hailstorm the third of June, and 150 liters of rain fell during the first half of that year. There's no El Velado that year because that hail killed the crop and even damaged the vines.
Land: Spanje
Jaartal: 2021
Regio: La Rioja
Appelatie / Herkomst: Rioja DOCa
Druivenras: Tempranillo
Serveertemperatuur: 16-18°C
