Visiting Bodegas Muga: Four Generations of Rioja Excellence

This winery was amazing, very traditional and obviouly out to corner the market on all the oak forests in France. They've got the egg market sewn up as well.

We met with the fourth generation of the Muga family wine business, Juan and Marco Muga. Bodegas Muga has a love affair with oak that borders on obsession. All the fermentation tanks, fermentation and aging barrels of course and even the HUGE storage tanks are all oak.

Some see this as a throw back considering most wineries use shiny, clean stainless fermenters and tanks but there are opposing schools of thought. In the debate of Oak vs Stainless Steel the downside of oak is the labor. You need lots of labor to build the damn things, and Muga does it from scratch.

They have their own cooperage with three generations of master coopers employed, then there is the labor to maintain all those wooden containers. Absolute cleanliness is vital to sound wine making and it is a lot easier to keep stainless clean than to clean wooden barrels, fermenters and tanks. It is a huge job if done properly. Now if the devotion to oak isn't anachronistic enough, Muga clarifies their wine with egg whites, thousands and thousands of egg whites. I just want to know why there isn't a huge brand of mayonnaise called "Muga".

Well, that's how they roll at Muga, very old school, but the results speak for themselves. After touring the cooperage, checking out all the tanks and getting lost in the 10,000 barrel barrel room (while tapping a few barrel samples) we wound up at an amazing lunch and tasting of the whole Muga range. The memorable dishes were beautiful whole split baby artichokes braised with herbs and onions and a mix of fresh white and green beans (green beans not greenbeans) with chorizo, and loin lamb chops. Most of these wines were released May-July 2011 and are current. These are the highlights

Muga Blanco 2010 about $15   nose: Pear, spice, citrus and mineral              palate: balanced, crisp mineral and apple notes with slight flavors of bread, allspice and nutmeg. Firm on the palate with a nice fresh qualitiy  

Muga Reserva Seleccion Especial 2005 about $50. Nose: warm cherry, plum, licorice and white pepper.  Palate: a bit tight and tannic, needs some bottle age but very dense and concentrated, gets extensive aging in American oak.

We also tasted the Muga Seleccion Especial 2004 Excellent! like silk, like the 2005 but very smooth with integrated tannins. In stock.

Muga Prado Enea gran reserva 2004 about $60, in stock. I'm really biased on this wine, it's one of the few gran reservas that I love. Gran reserva is required to age 5 years in barrel and bottle before release and many of them taste tired, oxidzed and dusty but Prado always has the density and concentration of fruit to make it a rich, intense beauty. The aging gives it a polish that leaves it smooth as silk. Though it's not cheap, for the quality it's a steal. Nose: red fruits, spice, hung meat, full, deep and fresh aromas . This is followed by notes of oak, slate, graphite and a little thyme. Taste: powerful, mouth coating fine tannins. Flavors of dried plum, cherry, plum jam, mineral, red clay. Very impressive

Torre Muga 06 about $90. Nose: inky concentrated nose, dense black cherry, licorice, white pepper, baked berry tart and hint of tar taste: powerful dark berry, mineral, spice, herbs, the flavors just go on and on.  

Muga Aro 06 about $170. Incredible, like Torre Muga on steriods.

Contact me directly if you want to know more or want to order any of them rich@moraswines.com . The Prado Enea 2004 and Seleccion Especial 2004 are in the shop, the others are special order items.