2001 La Rioja Alta "Viña Ardanza" Reserva Especial Rioja

ter the official business, Im trecking with these Italians, and we start ta lking about wine. They are absolutely appauled by the fact I speak so highl y of rioja wine. They know the cheap crap rioja in their country that it is impossible that I know anything about wine and can like rioja. then we swi tch topic to itlaian wine where I mention I like pian delle vigne brunello

and still you say rioja is one of your favourites?? how is this even possib le??? [with italian accent, which sort of enhances the exclamation]

. We agree to go there and I choose the wine.

list, but I see that have Jamon Iberico, which is on my todo list. and the y have lamb cutlets which would go wonderfully with a rioja, if they have i t! Meanwhile I look for winebars and find 2 potential places were to have g ood wines afterwards.

card and talk to the waitor (that speaks the most english, which isnt a lot , so Im going Italian mode. which works a bit better. Turns out they have a rdanza res. esp. 2001 and immediately I go Thats the one! we take 2! Turns out its their last 2 bottles.

idst doesnt know any spanish word for decanter) and lets me taste first. On e whiff and Im in heaven!

s , when I mention rioja and think of rioja! And I did not expect to find a nything like this here.

nd goes " wow, what the f*ck , this is REALLY REALLY good. this night is tu rning out to be really something alreadY". i managed to convert a sceptic.

ls me with joy and gives me goosebumps, brick colour, lingering finish.

I liked this a lot last year. '64, 73, and '01 are excellent years. Maybe also big crops so they did the Especial label because they had enough GR?

I'm jealous. I've had a couple version of the Ardanza Reserva, which I liked quite a lot, but the 904 is also quite fine.

Many of the Italians I know (reading this, Mike?) prefer Iberico to most Prosciutto (and also prefer olive oil from Spain to most of the Tuscan output).

Mark Lipton

I always only read about that La Rioja Alta was supposed to be on par with Tondonia, but I never tried them. At the airport I found Grand reserva 940

The Italians there thought parma was still better than the iberico and thou ght maybe we didnt get the best parma in trieste. They said the parma isnt as dry, but then I said I prefer the iberico especially because it is more leathery. Like I also prefer salami thats dry. My mother in law is also alw ays annoyed when I eat iberico instead of Italian prosciutto. But the marke t I get iberico in Trieste has 9 differnt grades of parma/ san danielle, an d then also iberico. I tried the best italian they had and iberico is still much better. Tehy are all cut to order form the big leg.

To me its Serrano < parma < iberico.

Michael Nielsen wrote in news: snipped-for-privacy@googlegroups.com:

You were probably lucky. I liked 2004 better than 2001 and that 2001 had probably been too long on the shelf. It is a great wine.