2014 Seleccion Especial

Fruit-focused red, with strong aromas of ripe blackberries, red plums and gently complex earthy and spicy notes. There’s energetic, ripe dark and red fruit on the palate. Silky and crisp with fine tannins, giving a velvety and chalky texture. Upbeat and succulent finish. Drink or hold.

A wine that won't be released on the market until next year, the 2014 Muga Reserva Selección Especial checks in as a blend of 70% Tempranillo, 15% Garnacha, 10% Graciano, 5% Manuelo. With an inky black color and loads of black fruits, charcoal, lead pencil, and espresso aromas and flavors, it's medium to full-bodied, has slightly more acidity than the 2012, as well as more tannin. It's a balanced, pure, beautiful expression of Rioja. It’s going to benefit from short-term cellaring and keep for 15-20+ years.

The Muga family is a lot happier about 2014 than your average Riojano, and the 2014 Selección Especial shows why. Through a selection of the vineyards and longer aging in barrel, this is a more-polished wine, very good with food (it's the one winemaker Jorge Muga usually has when he drinks one of his wines with a meal). There is very good acidity here, which is why I think this is so good with food. I really see that vintages produced from the higher-altitude, cooler places in Rioja where the Muga family sources their grapes are different from other parts of Rioja, and this 2014 is one of the finest and most balanced of the recent vintages of Selección Especial. 200,000 bottles produced. It was bottled in February 2017.