I’ve been doing a course with a great group…looking more in depth at Spanish red wines.  Our first week was Rioja and we made some interesting discoveries.  It was a great opportunity to further explore the fascinating topic of classic and modern Rioja styles.

The most unique and fascinating wine was probably the 1955 Paternina Reserva…a wine that had no information on the label at all.  I had done some research and found some recent tasting notes on the 1955 from a vertical Paternina tasting.  The most fascinating piece of information I could discover was that in the early 50’s the Paternina wines had a metallic taste to them that was caused by the use of copper pipes in the winery.  These were changed out in 1956!

Another interesting comment I came across in my research was an original explication for why older Rioja’s can age such a long time.  Forgive me for not attributing it…but I can’t remember where I saw it.  The idea was that classic Rioja enters into a sort of mummified state, a state of suspension…while it does not improve, neither does it decline.  I had read about the concept, but never heard it called mummified…I like that term! 

We removed the saturated but whole cork and poured immediately.  No decanting…which turned out to be a good call based on the wine’s development in the glass. 

The color was very pretty….amber rim with a pale brick red core…and not as brown as I had expected.

The nose was very clean and surprisingly attractive….strawberry and violets…not intense but solid enough.  Very youthful…I would have never guessed its age by the nose.  The nose faded over the next 30 minutes, but still retained fruit notes.

The mouth showed it aged much more, but honestly, it was not so different form some of the classic Rioja’s I taste form the mid 90’s.  It was more of a style issue rather than an age issue.
More tertiary notes turned up in the mouth, tobacco and leather, but the delicate strawberry fruit of the nose was much fainter.  It was a fairly attractive mouth that was marred by two major defects:  that slight metallic edge (copper pipes?) and a very short finish…the finish was dominated by the metallic flavour. 

Conclusion:  Surprisingly youthful and attractive…but quite simple and short.  It faded out and lost the floral/fruit element, but was still drinkable 2 hours later.  The term mummified seems to suit these wines perfectly…the wine is eerily similar to classic Rioja’s I’m drinking these days from the 90’s.   Age has not destroyed the wine, but nor has it improved it.