2016 Capellania Reserva Blanco
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Tasting notes
100% Viura from a single vineyard of old vines planted in 1945. Murrieta are unusual in that they only ever use estate-grown grapes. Peter Mitchell MW says that the style of Capellanía has been very much toned down over the years – it used to be much more oxidative – but it still ages well. Hand-picked, destemmed, short skin contact, vertical pressing, and then fermentation in stainless steel at about 18 °C for 24 days. Aged in new French oak barrels of 225 litres for 16 months. 39,000 bottles. Smells of wet chalk, honeysuckle, peonies and poached quince. Gorgeous nose. This is gorgeous (my original notes have 'gorgeous' in upper case)! Grilled hazelnuts, nectarine, smoky fennel, a huge sweeping arc of acidity. Long, long, long. Absolutely stunning. Lemon panna-cotta creaminess, touch of something green – a lime-leaf shimmer. This sweeps in and owns the room. A wine with the gleam of old polished pewter, the nerve of bright platinum, the soft glow of bronze in candlelight. Every mouthful is a different angle, a different moment: like drinking sunset. I fell in love. This may not be the sought-after Ygay Blanco (which I would contemplate giving a couple of fingers up to taste again) but it is, in its own right, stunning. Jeroboams' have just 300 bottles. It would be insane not to buy some at the discounted price – even at the full price, I'd consider it a bargain for a wine of this fierce, compelling complexity and beauty. GV (TC)
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Tamlyn Currin, jancisrobinson.com
Luis Gutiérrez, Wine Advocate
More reviews and scores
Bright straw-yellow. Fresh orchard and pit fruits, buttered toast, vanilla, orange zest and a hint of jasmine on the expansive nose. Silky in texture and energetic in the mouth, offering intense white peach, pear nectar and honeysuckle flavors that pick up a suggestion of smokiness with aeration. Fleshy and well-concentrated but lively as well, finishing very long and spicy, with solid thrust and a repeating vanilla note.
I was really looking forward to the 2016 Capellanía, the white that inherited the tradition of long aging in barrel that used to be the norm in Rioja until the 1980s. It's structured and they strive for aging potential while keeping some of the varietal character. It comes from a plot on the Ygay property that gives the wine its name; it's their highest plot at 485 meters in altitude. The grapes were picked the 3rd and 4th of October from the six hectares, and the must from pressing the clusters fermented at 10 degrees Celsius in stainless steel. And without going through malolactic, the wine was put in mostly new oak barrels, where it matured for 16 months, and then it was kept in concrete until bottling. It has 13.5% alcohol and very good freshness and acidity, and it comes through as very dry. They love 2016 as a vintage, to the point that they will not release a red Castillo Ygay 2015 (which was considered a very good vintage), because they believe it would be overshadowed by 2016. This is their oldest vineyard, and it seems to have a mind of its own. So, it doesn't necessarily follow what the other ones do, and in a vintage that saw a large crop, it delivered lower yields and they produced a lot less. The wine is still quite oaky, but I consider this a wine for the medium and long term (I'm still waiting for my 2004s!); but after a couple of hours in the glass, it felt a lot more harmonious. The palate is textured, rich and serious, with a chalky sensation and a long, dry and tasty, almost salty finish. This should make a nice bottle of aged white Rioja. 39,411 bottles and 400 magnums produced. It was bottled in late January 2020. This will be released in the spring of 2021.