Oak-free Rioja: 1996 Solar de Randez Reserva

O

Oswaldo Costa

Oswaldo Costa
1996 Solar de Randez Rioja Reserva 13.0%
I was told at Chambers Street that this saw no oak, and thought it might be didactic & fun to compare it to the 97 La Rioja Alta Gran Reserva 904 that charmed us two months ago. Light almond aromas hint at oxidation, assisted by cloves, damp earth and blood iron. Tastes meaty, reminiscent of rare steak, with some leather showing up towards the end. Zero sign of oak (no dilly dallying here). Lively acidity, decent enough body, unobtrusive alcohol, like wallpaper. Sweetness perhaps slightly deficient, not sure if the victim of incipient oxidation or just a textbook example of grapes picked at European maturity, with no hint of that amicable cola super maturity produced by the Jerry Bruckheimers of wine and playing in home theaters everywhere. Worked much better with food, as acidic wines are wont. For once, I wondered if a bit of wood (castanets, perhaps) might not have done this proud teen some good. Not so much for flavor (though I have never enjoyed American oak as much as I did with the Rioja Alta), but for the anti-oxidant effect of wood tannins, which might have given grape tannins the helping hand they needed. For once, I opt for wood.
 
originally posted by scottreiner:
no oak, or no NEW oak?
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If I remember correctly, vinified and aged in cement. But, now that you ask, wouldn't that fall afoul of the Rioja Reserva requirements? I'll write CSW and ask.
 
Rioja regulations (which are severely enforced) demand that a wine aiming to be awarded a Reserva back label be aged a minimum of 12 months in 225-liter oak barrels, and a minimum of 36 months total aging (barrel and bottle) before release. Many traditional Riojas use no new oak at all. This may be the case here. There is not one Reserva (or Crianza, for that matter) Rioja wine that is aged in cement. And indeed Bodegas Las Orcas, which makes Solar de Rndez, reports that this wine spends 24 months in barrel.
 
Thanks, Victor, CSW didn't reply, and I was hoping you'd step in. So this was a comparison between no taste of oak and a lovely taste of American oak.
 
originally posted by Oswaldo Costa:
Thanks, Victor, CSW didn't reply, and I was hoping you'd step in. So this was a comparison between no taste of oak and a lovely taste of American oak.
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More likely a comparison between old American oak casks with most of their flavor leached out, and newer casks. But it gets even more complicated if you are a fan or foe of traditional "American oak flavor." A lot of that traditional flavor was derived from the barrel production process - how the wood was aged, steam-bent vs. open flame bent, etc. If you take oak from an American forest, then cut the planks and age them and make the barrel just like a traditional French cooper, what you end up with closely resembles a French oak barrel in flavor and effect.

P.S. Leaving out Limousin vs. Nevers and other grain-related complexities for now.
P.P.S. The "amicable cola super maturity" you refer to is more likely related to late picking and finishing fermentation in barrels than American oak.
 
originally posted by Christian Miller (CMM):
A lot of that traditional flavor was derived from the barrel production process - how the wood was aged, steam-bent vs. open flame bent, etc. If you take oak from an American forest, then cut the planks and age them and make the barrel just like a traditional French cooper, what you end up with closely resembles a French oak barrel in flavor and effect.
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Well, not just the production process. Not much resemblance between Europe's Quercus petraea and America's Q. alba. Alba's aromatic charge is much higher since it has three or four times as many lactones as petraea. The European oak wood is split to make barrels, the American oak wood is much too tightly knit to be split, so it has to be sawed against the grain into planks. The effect is entirely different: the flavors spill out of those sawed planks much faster than from split planks. Of course there are more and less refined American oak barrels, with those having been dried (and also hit by rain) outdoors for a long time resulting in a far less aggressive effect on wine. I particularly like the two types of American barrels I use, Demptos Napa new generation (medium toast) and the Australian A.P. John Cooper, the first to steam-bend American oak la Dargaud-Jaegl. A.P. was bought by Franois Frres a few years back, so now they and Demptos are all in the same company...
 
originally posted by Christian Miller (CMM):
P.P.S. The "amicable cola super maturity" you refer to is more likely related to late picking and finishing fermentation in barrels than American oak.
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Yes, I never meant to imply that it had anything to do with the wood.
 
I used to work for and remain a close friend of the importer of the Solar de Randez and all of the Bodegas Las Orcas wines.

The fermentation for the '96 and '97 Riservas occurs in stone tanks cut in the rock foundation of Laguardia. Laguardia is in Rioja Alavesa, and is in the foothills of the Sierra Cantabria mountains that separate Rioja from Pais Vasco. Some of the tanks are 7 stories below the surface. This style of fermentation is tradition in Laguardia - I think that these are the last couple of years that they used this method.

For oak, in more recent vintages, I know they used 50/50 old American/French barrels. The late 90's SdR wines taste unoaked (and IIRC, they are), with a pure Tempranillo, seeming even a bit low-toned for Tempranillo. Dill, mushroom, tomato, and especially celery seed show up in my tasting notes. In fact, through out all of the Bodegas Las Orcas wines, from the Joven to the Riserva, I get a really pronounced celery seed/ vegetal quality that I really enjoy. The Solar de Randez is really something unique these days, and tastes like a time capsule into the character of Alavesa.

Oh yeah, it's dry farmed; fermented with native yeasts.
 
Thanks for the excellent detail, William. Though I preferred the Rioja Alta stylewise, I found the Randez unusual and interesting. I was looking for any signs of dill but, unlike you, found none.
 
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