La Rioja Alta "904 Seleccion Especial" Gran Reserva Rioja 2015

John Gilman : 95+ Points

(5/1/2023) The 2015 Rioja 'Seleccion Especial 904' Gran Reserva from La Rioja Alta is crafted from a blend of eighty-nine percent tempranillo and eleven percent graciano in this vintage, with all of these vines at least sixty years of age. The wine was raised in four and a half year-old American oak barrels for thirty-three months prior to assemblage and bottling. The wine offers up a stunningly beautiful bouquet of red and black raspberries, cigar wrapper, a lovely array of Rioja spice tones, salty soil tones, woodsmoke and a lovely framing of coconutty American oak. On the palate the wine is deep, ripe and full-bodied, with a sappy core of fruit, superb soil inflection and grip, suave, seamless tannins, beautiful focus and balance and a very, very long, complex and utterly refined finish. This wine comes in at 14.5 percent in the ripe vintage of 2015, but there is absolutely no hint of heat on the backend, which is just utterly classical and stunning. At eight years of age, this wine is certainly approachable already, but in reality it is still a young wine and it will not show all of its layers of complexity without another decade’s worth of bottle age. It is a brilliant wine. Drink between 2023-2085.

James Suckling : 97 Points

(2/3/2022) A perfumed nose of plums, mulberries, mushrooms, caramel, sweet tobacco and sweet spices. Full-bodied with velvety, fine tannins and lively acidity. Balanced and supple with a creamy texture. Delicate and precise with a long, polished finish. 90% tempranillo and 10% graciano. Drink or hold.

Wine Advocate : 95 Points

(7/14/2022) They used the words subtlety, elegance, finesse, delicacy and silk to define the 2015 Gran Reserva 904 Seleccion Especial, a blend of 90% Tempranillo from their vineyards in Villalba, Brinas and Rodezno with 10% Graciano from the Montecillo vineyard in Fuenmayor that was picked 23 days later than the Tempranillo. The grapes were sorted optically for the first time, and they fermented in stainless steel where the wine went through malolactic too. The wine was put in barrel in January 2016—used American oak barrels built by their own coopers—where it matured for four years, during which time it was racked every six months. 2015 was a healthy vintage with balanced ripeness that delivered wines with good aging potential. They thought the wine needed a little more time in bottle to polish those tannins and have decided to hold it and release the wine around March 2023; it will be marked Seleccion Especial, the first 904 to do so, as they have very high hopes for this year and believe it's one of the finest vintages. They think it will develop the sophistication in the palate with a little more time and that is should achieve the silkiness that is the signature of 904. This is very 2015; I saw quite strong tannins in all the 2015 wines I tasted from Rioja Alta. Drink Date: 2024 - 2035.