Overall consensus
The
2012 Viña Tondonia Reserva
is considered a beautiful "old-school" Rioja, showcasing the traditional characteristics expected from López de Heredia. It's a complex and nuanced wine with a good balance of aged savoriness and brightness. This vintage is deemed approachable now, but also shows great potential for further aging.
Key characteristics
- Appearance: A vibrant red leading slightly towards amber, garnet with a brick rim edge.
- Aroma: Aromatic with a developed profile, offering notes of fruit preserve, tobacco, sweet spices, scrubland, and meaty notes. It also presents aromas of ash, plum marmalade, a faintly herbal core, and hints of oaky cedar. Other reviewers detected notes of forest floor, a touch of brick dust and iodine, showing its complex tertiary characteristics. Further descriptors include savory berries, plums, iron, minerals, tobacco, ink and blood oranges.
- Palate: Vibrant, full-bodied, focused, and still quite youthful with a core of fruit and excellent soil signature. It is described as full, round, dry, and lean, with a chalky texture that lingers long. The wine offers polished and elegant tannins, good balance, and a long, complex finish. Flavors noted include savory, spicy, round tannins, red and blue fruit, tobacco, mocha, wet forest floor, ripe fruit, liquorice, wood, and black pepper.
- Structure: Muscular yet elegant tannins, providing both assertiveness and silkiness on the palate.
Aging potential
While approachable now, the 2012 Tondonia Reserva has a long aging potential, with some reviewers suggesting enjoying it from 2024-2035 or even up to 2075.
Pairings
It pairs well with various meat dishes, including red meat and hearty dishes. Specifically recommended pairings include grilled lamb chops, wild mushroom risotto, and mature Manchego cheese. It also harmonizes well with hard cheeses, roast pork, and vegetarian pizza. Natalie MacLean suggests pork tenderloin, veal porterhouse, roast chicken, prime rib roast, pork chops, and veal cutlets.
Vintage conditions
The 2012 vintage was a very dry year in Rioja Alta, with 25% less rain than average, leading to lower yields of healthy grapes and wines with a good balance between alcohol and polyphenols. It had a slightly longer maturation in 225-liter American oak barrels for six years.
History
It all started in the middle of the nineteenth century when French negociants visited the Rioja region to find alternative sources of quality grapes to transform into wine, since the phylloxera epidemic had decimated their vineyards. Our founder, Don Rafael López de Heredia y Landeta, a knowledgeable and enthusiastic student in the art of wine making, followed closely in their footsteps.
Don Rafael fell in love with the region and especially the area around Haro, the mythical capital of the Rioja Alta region. He observed that there was a magical combination of soil and climate that would offer the perfect environment for producing wine that would eventually become world famous. Around 1877 he began the design and construction of the complex that is today known as the López de Heredia bodega (winery), the oldest in Haro and one of the first three houses in the Rioja region.
For over a century our emotions have been rooted in our love and passion for this land and its harvest. We cherish our heritage, and this combination of love and the rigorous quality standards we apply, have become our trademark and remains our maxim for today and the future.
Bodegas López de Heredia stands out as one of the few family-run bodegas regulated by the Denominación de Origen Calificada Rioja - DOC (Appellation region).
