Torre Muga 2020

The more modern wine in the portfolio is the 2020 Torre Muga, which has notes of toast, smoke, sesame seeds, smoky bacon, spices, herbs and ripe berries. It is a wine they started producing in 1991, and the change in style also influenced the quality approach and selection of vineyards, grapes and oak for the barrels that they later applied to other wines. It has a polished palate with very fine tannins, chalky and elegant. It's a more approachable vintage, round, velvety and soft, though perhaps without the aging potential of 2021, but it’s very pleasant. It's long. They didn't bottle the 2020 from Aro, so some of those grapes might have finished in this bottle. It was bottled in December 2022. - Luis Gutiérrez. 

Torre is a bolder, more concentrated expression of Rioja from Muga. Meaty and tarry nose with smoked bacon. Lots of grilled herbs and some dark sweet spices. Powerful, broad and full-bodied on the palate with lots of vertical, dusty tannins that lead you towards the long, juicy finish. Tempranillo, mazuelo and graciano. Better from 2025. - Zekun Shuai, Senior Editor. 

Lastly, the 2020 Torre Muga just about jumps out of the glass with its complex red and black fruits, savory flowers, tobacco, lead pencil shavings, and graphite-like aromatics. Plush, full-bodied, concentrated, and beautifully balanced, it shows the softer, more rounded style of the vintage and has ripe tannins and a great finish.

Torre Muga is the top wine among the current releases from this Haro-based bodega, right up there with the best bottlings of this avowedly modern blend of Tempranillo with 10% each    of    Mazuelo    and    Graciano.    A    Rioja    with    a    French    accent,    as    it    were,    it    has    coffee    bean    oak, violet and green herb aromas, granular tannins, blackberry and bramble fruit and the structure to age in bottle. 2026-42