Look, the system flag here is technically correct — $81.90 after fees against a $65–75 retail estimate is not a discount. But this is one of those cases where the rule has to bend to the legend, because López de Heredia Viña Tondonia Reserva is not a wine you can just walk into K&L and grab off the shelf whenever you feel like it. This is a winery that ages their Reservas in their own casks for a minimum of six years before release — six years of oxidative, slow, patient elevage in a cellar that looks like it hasn't changed since 1877, because it basically hasn't. There is no other winery on earth making wine this way at scale. The Tondonia Reserva is not a fruit-forward Tempranillo dressed up in a pretty label; it's tobacco, dried cherry, beef broth, tea rose, orange peel, and a finish that goes until Tuesday. It is categorically its own thing, and it teaches you what traditional Rioja actually is — the style the modernists abandoned in the 90s when Parker came calling and everyone started pulling out their American oak and buying French barriques.
The 2010 is the specific reason to pull the trigger here. Rioja 2010 is an S-tier vintage — one of the coldest, most structured growing seasons in recent memory, which gave Tempranillo the kind of backbone and acidity that lets wine age for decades without falling apart. JS 97 and WA 96 are both credible on this — those scores reflect a wine of genuine structural ambition. The CT 91.5 is a bit lower, which honestly might be people opening it too young; this bottle is just hitting its stride and the window runs to 2039, meaning you have 15 years of pleasure ahead. At $81.90 all-in you're paying a modest premium over retail — call it $10–15 over what you'd find on a good day — but for a wine this singular in a vintage this serious, that's not a stretch, that's Tuesday money for a Saturday experience. Drink it over two evenings with a whole roasted leg of lamb, braised oxtail with olives and tomatoes, or aged Manchego and jamón ibérico, and try to explain to anyone at the table why this costs less than a mediocre Napa Cab.
target Tempranillo producer · top cru (Vina Tondonia) · premier site · S-vintage 2010 · elite rating 97+ · drinking well
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Contino is not your average Rioja Reserva — it's an estate wine from a single contiguous vineyard in Rioja Alavesa, co-owned by CVNE, and it's been made with a degree of seriousness that most Rioja blends can't touch. The style leans traditional but with more flesh than López de Heredia: you get the dried cherry, tobacco, and leather you want, but with more concentration and a slightly more modern tannic structure — call it the bridge between the old guard and the new without selling out to either. The 2019 is a legitimately strong vintage in Rioja — warm and dry but not cooked, producing wines with real stuffing and freshness — and a JS 97 is a big number even accounting for their generosity; the WA 93 and WS 92 as corroboration suggest this is genuinely well-made and not just a press sample score. That said, the drinking window listed here (2028–2043) is a real thing to sit with: you're buying this at $36 and it's not going to flatter you at dinner next month — it needs time, and if you're drinking it in the next two years you're jumping the gun. The value math is honest-but-tight: you're saving maybe $2 off retail, which is barely a rounding error, so this is not a steal — it's more "fair price on a wine you'd have to hunt for at this level." If you need more Reserva in the cellar and you're disciplined about not opening it until 2027 at the earliest, this earns a slot. Pair it with lamb chops with rosemary and garlic, braised oxtail, or aged Manchego with jamón. The buy case is style and vintage quality; the skip case is the near-zero discount on a wine that isn't ready to drink anyway.