Marques de Caceres

My tasting partner and I have a fondness for the winery Marques de Caceres.  We spent a year in Spain outside of Madrid in the mid 90’s and began our wine tasting experience in earnest that year.  I would go to the Hipercor (which was a very large store much like a Target or Walmart) a few miles away and pick out red wines within our price range to try.  After a few weeks of this, we decided on a wine we really liked: Marques de Caceres.  We even went to the Rioja area of Spain, north of Madrid, to tour the winery on one of our trips.  What we found in Marques de Caceres then still holds true now: a reliable wine, with oak on the nose, hints of vanilla and leather in the taste, mild tannins and balanced. 

Rioja red wines are classified into 4 categories: ‘Rioja’ which is the youngest wine spending less than a year in oak barrels, ‘Crianza’ which in aged for at least 2 years, some of that time in oak barrels,  ‘Rioja Reserva' aged at least 3 years, with at least one of those years in oak barrels and finally ‘Rioja Gran Reserva’ wines which are aged at least 2 years in oak and 3 years in bottle.  ‘Reserva’ and ‘Gran Reserva’ may not be produced each year.  It depends on the grapes.  And the grapes used in Rioja wines are predominately tempranillo, with Garnacha, Graciano and Mazuelo varietals used in blending.

The other night I opened a Marques de Caceres, Crianza, 2009, 13.5% alcohol about $15.00 and my tasting partner declared once again, his fondness for that particular wine.  I thought it was a good wine for the circumstances- a picnic at the beach at sunset.  It went well with our dinner and did not require much thought.  Sometimes a reliable, dependable wine is just what you are looking for and the Marques de Caceres label is one of those wines. 

Marques de Caceres, Crianza, 2009                 88-90 pts