Suddenly, there was the Marques de Riscal Rioja 1862 in a wine glass in front of me. Not only did this 160-year-old red wine still have an astonishingly healthy garnet color, but even more extraordinary was that it smelled and tasted very much alive.
That’s already incredible, but there’s more to this situation than meets the eye. You see, that wine was the very first Rioja wine to be sold in bottle, and it represents the beginning of quality wine production in what is now Spain’s most famous wine region. For us, selling wines in bottle goes without saying, but for Spain in the middle of the 19th century it was a revolutionary step that opened up the possibility of exporting quality wine with a guarantee of authenticity.
The completion of the railway line linking Rioja with the port of Bilbao in 1864 made it much easier to export Rioja wines in barrel and bottle – part of the technical innovations and new winemaking methods at the time that set the region on the path to its contemporary success.
And that 1862 vintage wine was just the beginning of an extraordinary vertical tasting that extended through most of the intervening decades to end with a wine from the 2011 vintage.
All these wines were tasted in Marques de Riscal’s historic winery in the small Basque town of Elciego. Part of the winery dates back to 1858.
Special tastings like this mostly take place during the winter or spring so they don’t distract from urgent work in the vineyards or winery, but Marques de Riscal boldly chose the start of harvest. That enabled me to see the beginnings of the 2022 vintage in the form of the tempranillo grapes that were processed on the day of the event.
Although Marques de Riscal is best known for its Rioja Reserva, a globally distributed brand of which several million bottles are produced each year, it also has a range of high-end wines like the Rioja Baron de Chirel (first vintage, 1985). They are inspired by the historic wines in the winery’s La Botelleria – its rarities cellar.
So, what do the ancient vintages I tasted say to contemporary wine drinkers?
To begin with, the 19th-century wines tell the story of how Marques de Riscal developed its own wine style. They’re based on the indigenous tempranillo grape plus the cabernet sauvignon grape that was imported from Bordeaux around 1860 along with a slew of winemaking techniques. Bordeaux was then the role model, both because of its preeminence at the time and its relative proximity. This also enabled the winery to import a Bordeaux winemaker, Jean Pineau from Chateau Lanessan in the Medoc.
Look at the notes below and you will see that the aromas and flavors described are a world away from the blackcurrant, cedar and pencil shavings of mature Bordeaux. As Marquis de Riscal’s technical director, Luis Hurtado de Amezaga Hamparzoumian, explained, “When they are mature, our wines develop balsamic and spicy aromas that are unique.“
Those aromas come up again and again in my tasting notes, and even where they are not noted there was always at least a hint of that character in the wines.
The first section of the tasting ended with the 1899 vintage, because that was when the phylloxera mite started to spread through the vineyards of the region, slowly killing the vines by eating their roots. But what a high point that wine was, with stunning concentration and astonishing vitality for its age, although it has just 11.3 percent alcohol. This was a rather common figure for the wines until climate change made itself felt in recent decades.
The export trade in Spanish wine that the improved quality and technical innovations had made possible peaked in 1891, when more than nine million liters were exported, mainly in barrel to France.
The vertical tasting had a large gap following the 1899 because of replanting that took place from the turn of the 19th to the 20th century. From the 1922 vintage, and even more from the 1935 vintage, you could see the wines regain their historic stature through increased vine age.
Hurtado explained that although not labeled as Gran Reserva, these wines were all vinified like modern Gran Reservas. Spanish wine law demands a minimum of two years maturation in barrel and a total of at least five years of aging for this designation.
The towering peak of this period was the totally breathtaking and perfectly preserved Marques de Riscal 1945, a wine that belongs in the same league as the greatest red Bordeaux from the 1945 vintage. It also weighs in at just 11.3 percent alcohol.
The historical part of the tasting concluded with the sensationally rich and beautifully balanced Marques de Riscal 1964 because, according to Hurtado, “after this, changes in the vineyards and winery had an adverse influence on the quality and character of the wines.”
Leaving out three entire decades worth of vintages is pretty radical, and we ask ourselves exactly what the problem with those wines is.
Regardless, the tasting recommenced with the 1995 vintage of Baron de Chirel, the brand with which Marques de Riscal began seriously rebuilding its image for quality and a unique wine style. The early 21st-century vintages of Baron de Chirel marked the beginning of the current period, with 14.5 percent alcohol now normal for that wine. Of course, this gives recent vintages a very different weight and mouthfeel from the historic wines.
“Although they taste different to our contemporary wines, they remain essential reference points for us,” Hurtado said.
– Stuart Pigott, Senior Editor
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