This advertising content was produced in collaboration with SevenFifty and 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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