Wine Advocate (94)

As we didn't have another recent vintage to compare with the 2010 and the expectations were so high, Roda's CEO Agustín Santolaya insisted on uncorking another excellent vintage, the 2004 Roda I, to check on its evolution. The production and source of the grapes was basically the same as today, 100% Tempranillo that, back then, was fermented in French oak vats with indigenous yeasts, followed by aging in barriques for 16 months. There might be some things in common with 2010, which is the current vintage—a very balanced year with great ripeness and acidity, wines with power and elegance and a very slow development. This 2004 is aging at a glacial pace and should have a long life ahead of it. At the time, they produced 184,447 bottles of this 2004. It has been in bottle since May 2006.

Wine Enthusiast (98)

The wine's name stands for recently disgorged and this vintage Champagne was taken off its lees in 2018. That gave many years for it to develop its depth of flavor, richness and beautifully memorable toasty flavors. Drink through 2028.

Wine Advocate (100)

It's an historical wine, a one-off, semi-sweet white produced at the end of the Spanish Civil War, a wine impossible to replicate, fruit of impossible circumstances, a wine I've had the luck to drink and share with many people on a number of occasions and which never fails to impress everyone. The perfect 1939 CVNE Rioja Blanco Semi Dulce Corona is a mythical wine! 1939 saw the end of Spain's Civil War, and the country was upside down. There were some major battles fought in Rioja, and by the time they had to harvest the grapes, there were not enough men in the village. They must have focused on the best parcels, surely giving priority to red grapes. Some vineyards were overlooked, as happened with the whites that eventually produced this wine. These grapes were harvested extremely late, into November, close to December and their health was not optimal, they had developed some botrytis and were clearly rotten. The people in charge of making the wine surely didn't know about botrytis cynerea, or noble rot, and were surely afraid their grapes were rotten and they would not be able to produce any decent white. So they did the best they could, but the fermentation never finished completely and there was some residual sugar in the wine. So, as they did with all their wines, they put it in oak barrels to mature and kind of put it in a corner hoping nobody would notice its shortcomings. We have to realize that CVNE was already producing quite a lot of wine at the time, so it's not unusual to have a few stray barrels here or there that nobody pays attention to. What is not that normal is that the wine was REALLY forgotten and was "found" during a stock take for an audit in 1970! So the wine aged slowly in barrel for some 30 years! Once found, nobody saw any reason to keep the wine in barrel any longer, so they decided to bottle it. Not knowing quite what to do with it, the bottles were stacked somewhere and the same story was repeated, as the stash was forgotten and basically untouched until thirty something years later: thanks to the daughter of one of the family owners (the winery is still in the hand of the same family that created it back in 1879). The proud father had a vague idea about a somewhat sweet wine that could be served at his daughter's wedding and asked to get some bottles to taste. They uncorked it, tasted it and found a complex, subtle white with great balance between alcohol, acidity and a little bit of residual sugar (around 20 grams), which took the edge off the acidity and made the wine rounder, as old Viura can be too austere. The slow aging, first in an oxidative way during the years in oak provided some nuttiness, and spicy aromas, while the botrytis added some of those dry apricot, beeswax and pollen notes, hinting on honey, but also the long reductive period in bottle made it very elegant and polished, with infinite nuances of white pepper, quince, faint smoke, walnuts, petrol...This redefines complexity, elegance and slow aging. The palate is prodigious, with a gobsmacking (literally!) balance, pungent flavors, freshness, acidity, very faint sweetness and length like only something which has slowly evolved over 70 years can be. The aftertaste should not be measured in seconds, but in minutes, and the empty glass keeps changing and giving different tones for hours. If you leave a little bit in the bottle for the day after (yes, it's difficult, I know!) the wine is even better on the second day. There is no reason to believe that if the wine is as good as it is today it is not going to reach its one-hundredth birthday. The wine is mainly Viura, but there might have been a little bit of the white Garnacha Blanca in the blend. At this stage nobody really knows (or cares). This is simply otherworldly, superb, perfect wine, whose only improvement would come if they had bottled some magnums! A dream. A unique, historical wine. If there is a perfect white Rioja, this is surely it. Anticipated maturity: 2015-2039.

Halliday Wine Companion (93)

Deep colour; as befits the very complex blend, powerful and complex, yet retains suppleness through the array of red and blackcurrant fruit. Barossa Valley (48%)/Adelaide Hills (42%)/Coonawarra (10%).

Vinous (98)

Time has only been a friend to the 2004 Recioto della Valpolicella Classico. Soaring and vivid in its beauty, the 2004 is simply stunning today. Bittersweet chocolate, cloves, menthol, leather and sweet dark cherry are front and center, but it is the wine's poise and overall nuance that truly elevate it into the stratosphere of wine elixirs. Don't make the same mistake I have made in the past. Avoid the half bottles. The 2004 is a wine to buy in the 750s. This is as good as Recioto gets.

Wine Advocate (99)

The 2004 Passito Rosso Vino Dolce Vigna Seré (500-mililiter) is a masterpiece that is impossible to repeat. In fact, the wine has not been produced since 2004. Even if a vintage as good as this did come along, we'd need to wait another 13 years before we could enjoy this level of maturity and evolution. Formally a Recioto della Valpolicella, this sweet red wine is made with air-dried fruit as local tradition dictates. Luckily no botrytis set in that year, because that would have eroded the wine's deep and luscious color saturation. The bouquet delivers a generous flow of dark spice, bitter chocolate, espresso, raisin, plum, barbecue spice and teriyaki smoke. The concentration and layering of the wine are both rare and distinctive. The mouthfeel sees sweet flavors with a syrupy mouthfeel. The finish offers hints of caramelized brown sugar and savory hickory. The aging window is impossible to predict, but the wine is surely built to last. I can think of no other wine that comes close to matching this unique style.

Wine Advocate (98)

Wine consumers often forget just how brilliant Barossa Valley Cabernet Sauvignon can be as the area is far more renowned for its old vine Shiraz and Grenache, but they should take a look at the 2004 Aphrodite, a 100% Cabernet Sauvignon aged in 100% new Taransaud barrels. This inky/blue/purple-hued, sexy Cabernet offers a glorious perfume of graphite, creme de cassis, smoke, and vanillin. Full-bodied and stunningly rich, with terrific purity, headiness, and laser-like definition as well as precision, this is a remarkable Cabernet Sauvignon that would turn heads even among Bordeaux first growths. It is a 30 year wine that should hit its peak in 4-5 years.