Released today, the top-quality 2012
There can't be many wineries anywhere that work on a similar model. What other winery would only be releasing a 2012 vintage in 2024? In Rioja, Bodegas López de Heredia has been making wine the same way pretty much since it was founded in 1877. The best quality fruit is fermented, given long aging in barrels made from American wood (but assembled by an in-house cooperage), followed by yet more aging in bottle, before finally being released to the market - only when it is judged to be ready. That isn't to say this wine won't have a long cellar life ahead of it - it will, slowly getting more and more mellow.
López de Heredia has been able to make this model work so well for so long because it has a source of such good quality fruit. In a region that built its huge winemaking industry on cooperatives and growers selling fruit, the bodega (winery) has always been an outlier in owning its own vineyards. Tondonia is the flagship, meticulously assembled from the purchases of yesteryear. It lies on the border between Rioja Alta and Rioja Alavesa, on clay and limestone soils, sloping down towards a bend in the River Ebro.
2012 was rated a 'very good' vintage in Rioja. It was a hot, dry year, which meant low yields and small grapes, but the Tempranillo grape variety thrives in these conditions. The fruit at harvest was top quality. As ever in Tondonia, there is a minority blend of other grape varieties (Garnacha, Graciano, Mazuelo) bringing structure, acidity, complexity and flavour diversity. The bouquet on 2012 Tondonia is already glorious, mingling red-fruit notes of cherry and raspberry with cured leather, black tea and cedar. The palate is both mellow and intense, with a focussed finish carried by a line of acidity that could support it through many more years of cellar aging - though it is pretty irresistible already. /NT
Offered subject to remaining unsold; for shipment Autumn 2024
