2006 Rioja Blanco, Finca Allende

White Rioja of old was made in a deliberately oxidative fashion, often given a lengthy up-bringing in American oak. Its distinctive taste was often a rather unwholesome marriage that brought to mind vanillin on the one hand and over-cooked vegetables on the other. Not to everyone’s taste in other words. Miguel Angel has re-written the rules, and his superb white Rioja is aged in tightly-grained French oak, its roughly equal division of Viura and Malvasia lending, respectively, texture and aromatics.
(Simon Field MW, BBR Buyer)