While that 6 year stretch is a little longer than most gaps, it doesn’t strike me as all that much out of character. For example (if I’m remembering correctly), there was a 10 year stretch from 1981 to 1991 between Bosconia GRs. Granted, in general, the Tondonia (red) GRs were declared more frequently than Bosconia (for example, '85, '87, and the “pseudo-GR” '80), with the gaps tending to be more in a 3-4 year range.
That being said, I’m quite apprehensive as to what the pricing is going to look like on their GRs starting with the 2001s. I suspect they will drive us to remember the “good old days” for pricing of the '90s and '80s vintages (and even the pricing of the frequently library releases of older vintages that they were doing back in the early 2000s).
Your experience mirrors mine in Maryland. In fact, I haven’t purchased any LdH whites in quite a while simply because I used to remember to buy them when I would see them on the shelf of my local wine shop, which doesn’t happen nowadays. I am also curious what the pricing will be for the new Gran Reserva releases. The ‘95 Bosconia I purchased seven years ago was very reasonably priced and was on the shelf for months at my local wine shop. Still, at the time, they were probably the priciest bottles I had ever purchased! I appreciate the information here to be on the lookout for the upcoming GR release. I planned to visit LdH last Spring, but had to cancel my trip due to coronavirus.
I remember buying the GR Blanco on the shelf at PJs for around $28 not all that long ago (2008, I think)… checking CT, I see I posted a note on this wine!:
1989 López de Heredia Blanco Reserva Viña Tondonia (8/5/2008)
90% Viura, 10% Malvasia. Very golden in color. Slightly oxidized in style, with some dry honey and straw notes on the bouquet. The flavors are subtle but interesting, with dried sultanas, flowers and spicy bergamot. I found this sherry-like, very food friendly (think white fish), and bone-dry. It had a medium length with sneaky intensity, tart but not overly acidic. Not something for everyday, but very unusual and interesting. This has a love-hate style. A- (if you like the style, as I do)
Well shoot, now I’m not sure. I recall it begin the Gran Reserva, but my note says Reserva as you spotted. And I have no digital receipt to confirm with as I bought it in person. Either way, it was great stuff.
Well, almost all of the wines in the Heredia lineup are actually eligible for a Gran Reserva designation, and those that are not, are not far behind. They just choose to label most of the wines just Reserva or Crianza instead of Gran Reserva. So in that sense you have technically been drinking Gran Reserva, no matter which wine it was.
However, I’m not sure if they ever released GR 1989. I remember 1996, 1994, 1991 and 1987 being GR vintages, but 1989 doesn’t ring any bells - and Google search doesn’t return any results.
Your list above is consistent with my understanding of the vintages in that time frame in which RLdH released Tondonia Blanco GR (with the '96 still being their “current release”). While I wouldn’t bet my mortgage payment on it, I’m pretty sure there was no such GR released in '89. That being said, the '89 vintage of the Tondonia Blanco Reserva is quite good on its own (and $28/bottle was a more likely price at that time for the Reserva). Haven’t had one in quite a while, since I’m already down to my last few bottles. May be time to revisit again.
Nope, there are 8 notes in CT starting in 2007 on the 1989 López de Heredia Blanco Gran Reserva Viña Tondonia, so they definitely made a Gran Reserva blanco that year and released in that general timeframe.
Pat, I’m guessing those 89 GR notes were entered in CT in error and should have been Reserva. I see the Gilman View from the Cellar feature on LdH from 2009 that refers to an 89 Tondonia Blanco Gran Reserva, but right below that mention it says the most recent vintage of that particular wine (at the time) was 1987! (It reads, “The 1987 Tondonia Blanco Gran Reserva is the new release of this fine wine (one has to love it when the new release of the estate’s top wine is twenty tow years of age!)”).
If you check out bottles In Stock in Cellartracker, you’ll notice there are normally hundreds of bottles in stock of the GR vintages that actually exist, but only a small handful of bottles that don’t - because they are Reservas.
Try as you might, I doubt you’ll find any pictures of 1989 Gran Reserva from the internet. However, if you try for any vintages that actually were made, you’ll get correct results immediately.
A disturbing number of CT users can’t seem to resist upgrading their wines. If a winery has ever made a reserve (or in this case a GR), then you can bet that there will be CT entries showing a reserve (or GR) for many vintages in which none were produced.
If you ever find examples such as this, just click “Report a problem with this page” at the bottom and it will get cleaned up. At least that’s been my experience when encountering data quality issues.
Note that you need to be using the non-Classic UI in order to do this.
It would certainly be convenient if CT entries were the definitive source to determine what vintages of specific wines were actually made and released. But they ain’t…
Let’s take the Tondonia Blanco GR as an example… According to the RLdH website (who, I would assume, are the most knowledgable folks on which wines were made), the Current Release for this wine is the 1996 vintage [ R. López de Heredia Viña Tondonia, S.A. ]. Despite that, if you look at entries in CT, there are folks claiming to have bottles in their inventory (and a few tasting notes) for a number of vintages up to 2008.
2008 R. López de Heredia Rioja Blanco Gran Reserva Viña Tondonia (Spain, La Rioja, La Rioja Alta, Rioja) Click to view 146 label images 10 set…
2007 R. López de Heredia Rioja Blanco Gran Reserva Viña Tondonia (Spain, La Rioja, La Rioja Alta, Rioja) Click to view 146 label images 27 set…
2006 R. López de Heredia Rioja Blanco Gran Reserva Viña Tondonia (Spain, La Rioja, La Rioja Alta, Rioja) Click to view 146 label images 8 set…
2005 R. López de Heredia Rioja Blanco Gran Reserva Viña Tondonia (Spain, La Rioja, La Rioja Alta, Rioja) Click to view 146 label images 21 set… CT90
2004 R. López de Heredia Rioja Blanco Gran Reserva Viña Tondonia (Spain, La Rioja, La Rioja Alta, Rioja) Click to view 146 label images 27 set…
1996 R. López de Heredia Rioja Blanco Gran Reserva Viña Tondonia (Spain, La Rioja, La Rioja Alta, Rioja) Click to view 146 label images 251 2018-2037 CT93.9
And, by some amazing coincidence, all of those above vintages from 2004 - 2008 just happen to be vintages where RLdH has released Tondonia Blanco Reservas (which I can confirm, as I still have some of most of them in my cellar). As noted on their website, the current Reserva vintage is 2009 (a vintage which has unfortunately for me not yet appeared in the Seattle market).
As someone else in this thread already noted, you can validate the GR Blanco vintages they released by looking at the quantities in inventory in CT. Every actual GR vintage released shows > 50 bottles in inventory in CT. That includes the following vintages: 1973, 1976, 1981, 1987 , 1991, 1994, 1996. I can also verify that all those vintages exist, as I also have those in my cellar. The 1970 GR also exists, as Maria-Jose was kind enough to open a bottle and taste that with us when we visited the bodega some years ago. I can’t speak with any precise knowledge as to what vintages were released prior to that (though I’m pretty sure other earlier vintages include the 1970, 1968, and 1964).
In my opinion, the best of all of these post-1960s vintages is the 1981.
Yes, I happily concede to being a bit of an “RLdH Nerd”…
Michael
P.S. – I went back in my CT records and looked at my purchase dates for the 1989 Tondonia Blanco Reservas. I bought those in 2007 and 2008, which just happens by coincidence to be the timeframe for the tasting notes Pat refers to above. I think you can pretty much guarantee that RLdH did not release both a Reserva and GR version of the same wine in anywhere close to the same time period.
Yeah, I started submitting some requests to fix these a few years ago. But there are so many erroneous entries for RLdH wines that I quickly realized I’d get carpel tunnel if I kept going with them. Decided in the end it wasn’t worth the hassle.
But I also suspect people just don’t know better or misremember.