Riojas old and new

Recently I have been lucky enough to enjoy a selection of particularly mature riojas and a hand-picked selection of current ones. The occasions were quite different. 

The mature bottles, back to a bottle of La Rioja Alta's 904 Gran Reserva 1904, were served at a dinner in London organised by Purple Pager Thomas De Waen. Most of the wines, including two whites and a rosado from López de Heredia back to 1991, were in great shape, I'm delighted to say. But this of course is a characteristic of Rioja, one of the world's very few wine regions able to offer...