The recent Camp Viejo releases are actually pretty good, the style getting a welcome polish. But this Campo Viejo Rioja Reserva 2014 is lack a bad flashback. Rustic, ferrous and raw with acidity and drying oak tannins the only thing to hang on to. Old fashioned Rioja and outdated only lifted up by ok length. Best drinking: It will live and likely get better for years. But the balance may never improve. 15.8/20, 85/100. 13.5%, $19.99. Would I buy it? No.
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3 Comments
Hi Andrew, I must object. You called this Campo Viejo an old fashioned Rioja but described the wine as being “Rustic, ferrous and raw with acidity and drying oak tannins”. Old fashioned Rioja is anything but that, they were medium-bodied, light in colour, aged in American oak, and offered perfumed, vanillin oak and had a Burgundian feel to them. Today there are very few producers of the old fashioned style, led primarily by Lopez de Heredia and la Rioja Alta. Most are making deep reds and aged for shorter periods in French oak. Some don’t even use the Crianza, Reserva and Gran Reserva nomenclature. It’s sad really because those old Riojas from the 70s and 80s were glorious.
That’s a fair comment, and I love La Rioja Alta. I just baulk at the local prices,
I say old school as this style of fusty, poorly oak handled style was THE mode a/of the late 90s and early noughties and has only just changed.
You don’t have to tell me about local prices Andrew, it makes me cry every time I visit Australia. Although I have to say the price of La Rioja Alta has skyrocketed here in Canada as well. It cost me less than $30 for the 1998 LRA Ardanza Reserva and now the 2008 is all of $70! Thank heavens I still have four bottles of the 1998.