2009 Prado Enea, Gran Reserva, Bodegas Muga, Rioja

2009 Prado Enea, Gran Reserva, Bodegas Muga, Rioja

Product: 20098008466
Prices start from £279.00 per case Buying options
2009 Prado Enea, Gran Reserva, Bodegas Muga, Rioja

Buying options

Available by the case In Bond. Pricing excludes duty and VAT, which must be paid separately before delivery. Storage charges apply.
Case format
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3 x 75cl bottle
BBX marketplace BBX 4 cases £165.00
BBX marketplace BBX 1 case £220.00
6 x 75cl bottle
BBX marketplace BBX 1 case £279.00
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New To BBX
BBX marketplace BBX 1 case £280.00
BBX marketplace BBX 1 case £300.00
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3 x 150cl magnum
BBX marketplace BBX 2 cases £290.00
New To BBX UK ONLY
New To BBX UK ONLY
BBX marketplace BBX 1 case £299.00
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Description

Bodegas Muga is one of the great names of Rioja, located in the centre of Haro, a stone’s throw from López de Heredia and La Rioja Alta. Founded in 1932, Muga remains family owned. This wine is a superb effort from the warm 2009 vintage, sitting happily alongside the best Prado Eneas.

The nose reveals a wealth of hedgerow and forest fruits muddled together with notes of sweet spice and vanillin. Underneath sits a core of dense, ripe blackberry and mulberry fruit. The palate is characterised by a beautiful silkiness, ripe yet gradually building tannins provide structure for the richness of the blackberry, wild strawberry and damson fruit. Full and rich with great power, held together by the wine’s underlying freshness, this is an almost hedonistic Prado Enea which will develop into a beauty over the coming decade and beyond. Drink 2020-2032+.

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Critics reviews

Wine Advocate96/100
The most classic cuve was not produced in 2007 or 2008, so we jumped to the phenomenal 2009 Prado Enea. It was produced with grapes from cooler vineyards that enjoyed 20 extra days of slow ripening compared with warmer zones, which provided them with perfect ripeness and deep flavors. This blend of 70% Tempranillo, 20% Garnacha and the remaining 10% between Mazuelo and Graciano had an extended levage, in this case no less than three years (alternating newer and older barrels). This is still a baby and I know Winemaker Jorge Muga would like to keep it in bottle for longer before selling it, but the commercial pressure is tremendous, as there has been no wine since 2006. The wine has 14.1% alcohol and a surprising 3.34 pH, especially considering 2009 was generally a warm and ripe year. But somehow this cuve seems to work very well in ripe vintages. The wine feels even younger on the palate, and it still needs to develop some further complexity and the silky texture for which this wine is famous. There is good balance here and all the elements are in place for a nice development in bottle. In fact, it feels like one of the great recent vintages of Prado Enea. There will be no Prado Enea in 2012 and 2013 either, but it's produced in 2010, 2014 (small quantities) and 2015. At this quality level, the price seems like a real bargain. 90,000 bottles produced in 2009.
Luis Gutirrez - 31/08/2016 Read more

About this WINE

Bodegas Muga

Bodegas Muga

Traditional Rioja, quite naturally enough, has a great following at Berry Bros. & Rudd; the synergy of values and history is self-evident and the wines, of both colours, are to my mind some of the most distinctive and under-rated in Europe. When one visits the area around the old railway station at Haro, one is overwhelmed by the role-call of great names, all located in close proximity to one another, all famous names... with Tondonia, la Rioja Alta, CVNE all stalwarts of the Berry Bros. & Rudd list. The other famous name, hitherto absent from our catalogue, and only, in all probability, to avoid the embarrassment of such riches, is Muga. Tasting the wines recently, we decided that Muga were every bit as good as the others and so we now complete the Haro jigsaw by proudly purchasing them for the first time.

Bodega Muga was founded in Haro in 1932 and is still in family ownership; the company farms 250 hectares in La Rioja Alta and in addition has long-standing contracts with the owners of another 150 hectares. Located in the foothills of the Montes Obarenses, the five principle vineyards (El Estepal, La Loma, Blatracones, La Loma Alta, and Sajazarra) share clay and limestone soils, each with its own unique microclimate, informed by the happy coincidence of continental, Mediterranean and Atlantic influences. The extended Muga family controls all aspects of the production and advocates the complexity afforded by the entire canon of grapes, that is to say Tempranillo, of course for the red, but also Garnacha, Mazuelo and Graciano in addition to Viura and Malvasia for the whites.

The key to everything here is wood, from the magnificent 18th century wooden Bodega to the impressive collection of 14,000 barrels used for the maturation. In addition the wines are fermented in large wooden casks, of which there were 90, all of subtly differing sizes, at the last count. An in-house Cooperage employs three experts full time in addition to a ‘Cubero’, a specialist who makes and maintains the large casks. It should come as no surprise that vinification is traditional with racking every four months and clarification with egg-whites. The residual egg-whites, together with the discarded lees go to make up a high quality compost, which serves as an organically sustainable fertiliser. And so the whole process resumes, nourishing itself as it will surely nourish those who sample their most impressive range.

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Best of BBX: Rioja

Best of BBX: Rioja

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Tempranillo/Tinto Fino

Tempranillo/Tinto Fino

A high quality red wine grape that is grown all over Spain except in the hot South - it is known as Tinto Fino in Ribera del Duero, Cencibel in La Mancha and Valdepenas and Ull de Llebre in Catalonia. Its spiritual home is in Rioja and Navarra where it constitutes around 70% of most red blends.

Tempranillo-based wines tend to have a spicy, herbal, tobacco-like character accompanied by ripe strawberry and red cherry fruits. It produces fresh, vibrantly fruit driven "jovenes" meant for drinking young. However Tempranillo really comes into its own when oak aged, as with the top Riojas  where its flavours seem to harmonise perfectly with both French and American oak, producing rich, powerful and concentrated wines which can be extraordinarily long-lived.

In Ribera del Duero it generally sees less oak - the exception being Vega Sicilia where it is blended with Cabernet Sauvignon and Merlot and then aged for an astonishing 7 years in oak and is unquestionably one of the world`s greatest wines.

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