Hacienda López de Haro Reserva 2019 Review

Sometimes there doesn’t need to be a food pairing or any great occasion behind opening a bottle. England were playing, I fancied a Rioja, and that was pretty much the extent of the decision making.

Tonight’s bottle was the Hacienda López de Haro Reserva 2019, a Rioja Reserva that on paper should be right up my street. I’ve been drinking quite a bit of Rioja recently, from ridiculously good value supermarket bottles through to some considerably more serious examples, so I’m starting to get a decent idea of what I really want from the region.

In the Glass

The nose is immediately inviting. There’s plenty of ripe fruit, but it’s that familiar sweet baking spice that really makes itself known. It’s a profile I’m increasingly finding I love in Rioja, particularly when the spice complements the fruit rather than completely taking over.

On the palate it’s soft and very easy drinking. Ripe plums and cherries lead the way with the baking spice following behind. There’s also a slight green edge in there. My first thought was that perhaps the fruit hadn’t reached complete ripeness, although that’s difficult to pin down from flavour alone and it could simply be part of the wine’s naturally herbal character.

Either way, it’s noticeable without ruining the wine.

Where It Falls Short

The bigger issue for me is depth.

All the flavours are there. Plum, cherry, spice and that slightly savoury green edge. It tastes unmistakably like Rioja and there’s nothing particularly wrong with it. It just never really develops beyond those initial flavours.

The mouthfeel is surprisingly light too, almost watery through the mid palate, and that stops the wine having the concentration I was expecting from a Reserva.

Perhaps the most surprising comparison is the £5.99 Lidl Rioja I drank recently. That wine had ripe, juicy plum and gorgeous sweet baking spice, but crucially it seemed to have considerably more concentration. Despite costing very little, there was simply more wine in the glass.

That really highlights something I’m beginning to appreciate more as I taste more wine. Having all the right flavours doesn’t necessarily give you complexity.

The Verdict

This is still an enjoyable Rioja.

It’s fruity, soft, nicely spiced and incredibly easy to sit drinking while watching the football. If you want a straightforward Reserva that gives you those classic Rioja flavours without demanding too much attention, there’s plenty to like.

But I’ve had enough Rioja now to know there can be considerably more to it.

The best examples have layers. The fruit develops, the savoury character starts appearing, the oak integrates into everything else and the wine seems to change as you sit with it. With the López de Haro Reserva 2019, I kept waiting for that next layer to arrive and it never really did.

Enjoyable? Absolutely.

Complex? Not particularly.