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Long missing from the Muga portfolio, a SERIOUS white wine, and this wine is a VERY SERIOUS wine. Just the second vintage since 2011, the 2021 is a VERY admirable follow up to the excellent 2019 that we sold quite well here at Wine Solutions.

2020: 94 Wine Advocate
The 2020 Flor de Muga Blanco has a golden color and a smoky and toasty nose. It was produced with Viura and around 30% Garnacha Blanca and Maturana Blanca, sold as Reserva. It fermented and matured separately in barrels and a few 500-liter barrels for six years. It’s chalky, tasty, round and balanced with very good freshness (a constant in the whites and ross) and has a long, tasty finish. 20,340 bottles produced. It was bottled in July 2021.

2019: 94+ Wine Advocate
The second vintage of their top white is the 2019 Flor de Muga Blanco, produced with a blend of 40% Viura from red limestone and clay soils, 30% Garnacha Blanca from classical clay and limestone and 30% Maturana Blanca planted on sandy soils. It fermented in small barrels with indigenous yeasts and then matured in concrete eggs for three months and new barriques built in their own cooperage for six months. The wine is 13.2%alcohol and has a pH of 3.2 with very good acidity. There are only 37 hectares of Maturana Blanca in Rioja, of which they have eight. It’s the same grape as the extinct Ribadavia variety from Galicia. The variety disappeared because it delivers very low yields, but they love the quality when it’s picked fully ripe when it still keeps very good acidity. The wine is still a little oaky and powerful, from a warm and dry year, but the palate is electric and almost salty. This is a white that should develop nicely in bottle (I wish I had a time machine!), and as with the ros, this feels like the finest vintage to date… only the second one! 11,892 bottles produced. It was bottled in December 2020.

GRAPES

40% Viura, 30% each Garnacha blanca and Maturana blanca

SOIL

Sandy-loam soil (Maturana) from the Haro and Anguciana zone, calcareous clay (Garnacha blanca) from Villalba de Rioja and Galbrruli and calcareous and ferrous clay (Viura) from the village of Badarn.

WINEMAKING

Harvested by hand at the optimum point of ripeness for each variety and plot. Transported to the winery in small crates in refrigerated trucks to preserve intact all the aromatic potential. After a short period of maceration in the press the free run must which runs off by gravity is taken. This is known as mosto flor. This is then fermented at a low temperature in American-oak casks. When fermentation is complete, the wine remains on its lees for 3 months in an Oeuf de Beaune (an egg-shaped, concrete tank) to preserve the aromatic expression and to achieve more body and greater smoothness.

AGING

Aged for 6 months in new, French-oak casks made in our own cooperage, with a light toast. The oak comes from prestigious woods in Nevers and Bertranges. Afterwards the wine is left to evolve in the bottle for 18 months to obtain greater refinement and roundness.