This advertising content was produced in collaboration with our partner, Wines from Rioja.
The storied region of Rioja, Spain’s first DOCa, is known for its wide range of food-friendly wines, including fruity rosés, bright whites, and complex reds. While much of this stylistic diversity can be attributed to the region’s individual microclimates and producer-specific approaches to winemaking, it’s also a result of Rioja’s unique aging processes.
Barrel-aging is part of the identity of Rioja, so much so that it’s included in the region’s strict classification system. On the back of every bottle of Rioja is a trust seal, making it easy to identify the age designation of the wine: generico (no aging requirement), crianza (two-year minimum aging), reserva (three-year minimum aging), or gran reserva (five-year minimum aging).
For this Supertasters challenge, SevenFifty Daily and Wines from Rioja brought together five top wine professionals from across the U.S.: Robert Gamble, the head sommelier at Catch in Las Vegas; Oscar Garcia, the buyer for 67 Wine in New York City; A.J. Ojeda-Pons, the director of operations at Temperance Wine Bar in New York City; Cyrus Tolman, the Spanish wine buyer for Houston Wine Merchant in Houston; and Marika Vida, a sommelier, wine writer, brand ambassador, and founder of Vida et Fils Wine Consulting. Watch as these buyers and sommeliers blind-taste three Rioja wines with different age designations—and see if they can guess them correctly.
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