Master Sommelier: “My top under-$30 Gran Reserva of the year”
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2014 Bodegas Tobia Oscar Tobia Gran Reserva Rioja 750 ml
- Curated by unrivaled experts
- Choose your delivery date
- Temperature controlled shipping options
- Get credited back if a wine fails to impress
Ancient Vines, Free-Run Juice, and Time
The 2014 Bodegas Tobià Oscar Tobià is our favorite under-$30 Rioja Gran Reserva we’ve tasted in a long time. And it’s not even close.
A Gran Reserva grown on 34- to 93-year old vines in Rioja Alta, made from free-run juice, now with NINE years of age *should* cost $50-$60 and up. That’s because using only free-run juice yields much less wine—and when Rioja estates do it, they often make up for it by raising prices.
From their pristine juice, Bodegas Tobià made 60 barrels of this beautifully integrated Gran Reserva, boasting the depth and spicy nuances that can only come from almost a decade in the cellar.
Perfectly-aged Gran Reservas of this caliber are expensive and time-consuming to make. There’s the cost of aging this wine for two years in high-quality French and Hungarian oak, and 15 more months in bottle. And we still haven’t gotten to the five additional years of aging this wine received in the estate’s cool cellars, developing layers of spice and complexity.
All that adds up to an elegant and perfectly polished wine, full of dark cherries, strawberry, blackcurrants, and sagebrush. The backdrop offers resinous herbs, licorice, citrus peels and warm dusty earth. It’s rich and full in body, with a plush texture and fully integrated tannins that still have a soft, supple grip around the edges. It’s complex and subtle, a wine to contemplate in silence or pour for guests alongside paella.
After almost a decade of age, this stellar wine has its breed on full display, and still has another ten years or more in the tank.