Campo Viego, Reserva Rioja, 2003
The nose has a definite chemical smell -- turpentine -- along with some bark. Ignoring the turpentine, it smells like an Oregon forest right after it rains.The taste is thin. Here and there, you can pick up some salmon berry and currant. Sometimes there's raspberry too. It's very dry. The bark returns as a flavor too (no, not an oak/vanilla ... it's bark). It's flat on the finish, and the flavors just disappear on the tongue. Disappointing.
The really bad part is that there's an Immediate hit of vinegar, but not because it's old or had gone bad; it seems like it's just got a bad taste as part of the package. The wine was actually better just as we opened it. Then it got pretty lousy within 20 minutes. Some sips are good; many are not. It tastes good with the Caprese salad, but was horrible with marinade shrimp.
I really like Rioja: it can be complex, inexpensive and tasty. So I'm always looking for good Rioja's that are cheap. And this one was $12 and designated 'Reserva'. However, I would never have guessed that by the taste. It was definitely more like a poor Crianza (the lowest designation for Rioja).
Cost:
Rating:
4.5