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Lopez de Heredia Description
Lopez de Heredia Vina Tondonia Reserva pours a vibrant red that gently leans toward amber, hinting at its graceful aging. The nose is light and fresh, offering inviting notes of vanilla and dried berries. On the palate, it reveals a rich yet very dry character, beautifully smooth and fully developed, with firm tannins providing structure and impeccable balance. This classic Rioja is a natural match for roasted lamb, tapas, aged Manchego, grilled vegetables, or slow-cooked stews—bringing elegance and excitement to every bite.
James Suckling: 96 Points
Savory berries, plums, iron, minerals, tobacco, ink and blood oranges. Very bright, juicy and structured, with sensational balance, aged savoriness and brightness that are typical of Tondonia reds. Beautiful now.
Wine Advocate: 95 Points
The 2012 Viña Tondonia Reserva comes from a very dry year, with 25% less rain than the average (at the time), resulting in lower yields of very healthy grapes that delivered wines with nice balance between alcohol and polyphenols, making it very apt for the aging in barrel. It had a slightly longer élevage in barrel, six years. The wine is aromatic with a developed profile, spicy and tertiary (forest floor, a touch of brick dust and iodine), complex and nuanced. The palate is full and round, with polished tannins and a long, dry finish. It has a textbook Tondonia nose and profile. 250,000 bottles produced.
Vinous Media: 95 Points
The 2012 Vina Tondonia is a blend of Tempranillo, Garnacha, Mazuelo and Graciano, cultivated on the meander of the Ebro River in Rioja Alta. This garnet wine reveals aromas of ash and plum marmalade, with a faintly herbal core and hints of oaky cedar. Dry and lean, the fairly chalky texture lingers long, concluding with a compact, flavorful and lasting finish. The 2012 is a beautiful old-school Rioja.
Decanter: 94 Points
All you can expect from a classical Vina Tondonia with its focused intensity and muscular yet very elegant tannins. At once assertive and silky, with juicy red and blue fruit gliding through the palate while being pleasantly pulled back by an energetic, iodine verve. Subtle, hovering, brooding notes of tobacco, mocha and wet forest floor. 70% Tempranillo, 20% Garnacha and 10% Graciano and Mazuelo, bottled in January 2022 having matured in 225-litre American oak barrels for six years.
John Gilman: 93 Points
The 2012 “Vina Tondonia” Reserva from López de Heredia has just been released. The wine is crafted this year from the same cépages as was the case with the lovely 2011 version, which I reported on in the last issue: seventy percent tempranillo, twenty percent garnacha and ten percent from a mix of mazuelo and graciano. The wine spent six years in older American oak barrels of two hundred-twenty-five liter capacity prior to bottling. The wine is nicely classic in its octane in this vintage, coming in at an even thirteen percent and offering up a complex bouquet of red and black raspberries, spiced meats, cigar wrapper, salty soil tones, clove-like Rioja spices, woodsmoke and a bit of spicy oak. On the palate the wine is vibrant, full-bodied, focused and still quite youthful at twelve years of age, with a lovely core of fruit, excellent soil signature and grip, ripe, well-integrated tannins and a long, well balanced and complex finish. This is certainly approachable, but my inclination would be to bury it away in the cellar for another five to ten years, let its tannins properly fall away and really enjoy the fireworks!
Wine Spectator: 92 Points
Notes of tar, dried flowers and licorice are enticing on the nose of this sleek red, accenting flavors of dried raspberry, fig cake, loamy earth, leather and iron that glide across the fresh palate. This is silky in texture, offering a fine cloak for the robust core of tannins that emerges to firm the savory finish. Tempranillo, Garnacha, Graciano and Mazuelo. Drink now through 2032. 7,166 cases made, 5,000 cases imported.
