R. Lopez de Heredia
The timeless wood-panelled offices here appear not to have changed since the last century. Nothing much has changed at this superb Rioja traditionalist, 90% of whose wines are still sold in Spain, the rest scattered in tiny quantities among 50 export markets. "We're proud of not changing," says Maria Jose Lopez de Heredia, who co-manages this bodega along with her father, noting that the winery is in fact experimenting with different oak toasts. Lopez de Heredia has always taken advantage of the right to blend 15% of wine from other vintages-in fact, as much as 17% with special permission. "This is why, on our regular Tondonia and Bosconia bottlings, the vintage has always been written in small print. It is only in our gran reservas that "Cosecha de..." is in big print at the bottom; these wines are 100% from the vintage on the label," she adds. One of the keys to the Lopez de Heredia style is that these wines are among the driest of the region, typically going into bottle with less than one gram per liter of residual sugar. The winery continues doing remontage for more dryness, and even keeps pumping over after the wine has been moved into vat. The impression of dryness is reinforced by high acidity: Lopez de Heredia has traditionally used a percentage of (underripe?) mazuelo as a natural acidification, in the belief that it creates more stable acidity than the addition of tartaric acid. The typical pH of the winery gran reservas is a very low 3.2, but that's higher than it was a generation ago. "In the old days, we bottled wines with pHs under 3, and 12 grams per liter natural acidity," noted Maria Jose. "High acidity, rather than alcohol, was long considered to be the key to longevity in our wines," she told me, then admitting that this theory has been proved wrong. And acid levels in the region have declined in recent years, she added, due to several factors: climate changes, the use of potassium-based products in the vineyards, a decline in the population and use of indigenous yeasts, and increasing encroachment of roads and utilization of tractors, which raise the lead content of the soil.
From The Best of Rioja and Ribera del Duero (Nov 1999) by Stephen Tanzer
1993 Vina Tondonia Reserva Rioja
Color: Red
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1976 Vina Bosconia Gran Reserva Rioja
Color: Red
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1990 Vina Gravonia Blanco Rioja
Color: White
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1985 Vina Tondonia Gran Reserva Rioja
Color: Red
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1981 Vina Tondonia Gran Reserva Rioja
Color: Red
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1985 Vina Gravonia Blanco Reserva Rioja
Color: White
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1992 Vina Tondonia Reserva Rioja
Color: Red
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1991 Rosado
Color: Rosé
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1989 Vina Gravonia Blanco Rioja
Color: White
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1993 Vina Bosconia Crianza
Color: Red
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1992 Vina Bosconia Crianza
Color: Red
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1976 Vina Tondonia Gran Reserva Rioja
Color: Red
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