My understanding of the aging and labeling requirements as pertains to Lopez de Heredia:
The DOC requires one year barrel, one year bottle, for Crianza; one year barrel, two years bottle, for Reserva; two years barrel, three years bottle, for Gran Reserva. Additional barrel time can be substituted for the bottle time.
Obviously, with LdH these requirements don’t mean very much, they are regularly exceeded by many years, so i take their levels to reflect both the relative, in-house aging regimen and the judged quality of the grapes. In vintage watches one can take the level of adjustment as an indication of the producer’s opinion of a movement, so I presume LdH treats their best grapes to bring out the highest quality wine.
As an example, we have several bottles of “5 anos” Bosconia, labeled as Crianza. Tiny stamps on the front label are also:. G G 11 81
María José López de Heredia has written to my inquiry that this wine is a vintage 1973, in barrel from the next spring until bottling in November 1981, so 7 1/2 years in wood and now of course almost 28 more in bottle, not really a standard “Crianza”.
Blake, Great dinner, wines and notes.
Off topic, your phrase “some older, some younger, all good” triggered a flashback for me. Not sure if my memory from many years ago is 100%, but in the introduction to his imaginative and metaphorical Vietnam War novel “Going after Cacciato”, the author Tim O’Brien says something about the events in the book to the effect “some are real, some are imagined, all are true” which struck me powerfully then and stays with me decades after reading it. Cheers. -Jim
Steve, I have a similar understanding about the time requirements and the deviation done by LdH. I’m seeking out confirmation and any additional input Moncia/ the winery can give.