Marques de Murrieta, Capellania Reserva, Rioja, Spain, 2018

Click Here to Read Our "Rules of Rioja" Blog

Overview The Wine
The origin of the Marqués de Murrieta winery is also the origin of Rioja. Don Luciano Murrieta, applying the techniques learned in Bordeaux, made the first Rioja wine in 1852, with the intention of lasting over time.

Don Luciano was clear from the beginning that a wine with the quality of Rioja and good aging would have the ability to be exported outside Spain. Therefore, he did not hesitate to send that mythical vintage of 1852 to countries such as Mexico and Cuba, also becoming the first Rioja exported.

The viura, a white variety with which it is made, comes from Pago Capellanía, of only 6 hectares and located in the highest area of Finca Ygay. Thanks to the altitude, the high quality of its calcareous soils and the low yields of the vineyards of more than 70 years, the variety reaches its maximum potential.

Manual harvest, selection table, fermentation at low temperatures... every step that is taken in the elaboration of Chaplaincy is aimed at achieving the greatest expression of the variety. Its balanced passage through French oak barrels gives it precision and makes Chaplaincy an incredibly gastronomic wine.

Click here to watch our YouTube video about this wine!

Grape/Blend
Viura

Origin
Rioja, Spain

Winemaker's Tasting Notes
With a steely straw color and with a very defined nose in which aromas of ripe apple, spicy notes of thyme and fennel, almond touches and an elegant smoked patina stand out. In the mouth it is frank and direct, with volume, fresh and balanced. With a lot of life ahead of us.

"The always demanding Pago Capellanía has given us a vintage plus a wine of great liveliness and complexity" Maria Vargas - Technical Director.

96 Points - James Suckling
Mineral, macadamia, pine nuts, white sesame and white fruit with a touch of spice. A bright and linear Capellania that shows excellent tension, freshness and complexity. Long and appetizing finish. More taut and gastronomic now. 100% viura. Drink now or hold.

95 Points - Decanter
Murrieta is one of Rioja’s great centenarian names, and it remains a reference for top-quality Rioja today. All its best wines are made from its own vineyards around the Ygay estate near Logroño. Unlike the legendary Ygay white, which is a wine aged for an extremely long time, this Capellanía is a top-quality wine that remains more closely connected to the fruit, thanks to a much shorter period of ageing and more protective winemaking. Pedro Ballesteros Torres MW: Quite restrained, it saves everything for the palate. There, the wine is smooth but very complex; multi-layered and unique. The epitome of a great Rioja white, this is destined for a very long future. Sarah Jane Evans MW: Very fine oak. This is a pure, lean style, perhaps almost too refined and controlled. Pierre Mansour: Wonderful spicy new oak notes; intense, plump, fleshy and round. Some seriously good fruit here, this has depth combined with freshness. Shows very talented winemaking.

94 Points - Robert Parker's Wine Advocate
To catch up with the current vintages that I shall review every 12 months from now on, I tasted two vintages of some of the wines, including the whites. The 2018 Capellanía is 100% Viura from the plot that names the wine. The vineyard is six hectares planted in 1945 at 485 meters altitude, the highest in the estate. It fermented in concrete, the first vintage to do so, as it was fermented in stainless steel until then, and matured in second-use French oak barrels for 22 months. It spent a further seven months in concrete, a long élevage, with the idea to produce a structured white with aging potential, while keeping the varietal character. The wine is subtle and elegant, following the path of all the wines in the portfolio here, still marked by the élevage in oak, spicy and smoky. The palate is balanced, with a nice combination of fruit and oak, with a soft texture, clean, focused and tasty. It has 14% alcohol, a low pH of 3.1 and 6.10 grams of acidity. 21,836 bottled and 688 magnums produced. It was bottled in July 2022. This is now released with the Gran Reserva back label.

Product size: 750ml