Atalaya La Atalaya 2009
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Robert
Parker -
Wine
Spectator
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Winemaker Notes
Deep red cherry in color. There is an elegant, fresh and complex nose that highlights ripe fruit and floral notes. Nice and fresh on the palate, well-balanced with sweet but still young tannins, a delicious mouthful sensation that lingers on the very long and smooth finish.
Professional Ratings
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Robert Parker's Wine Advocate
The 2009 La Atalaya is 85% Garnacha Tintorera and 15% Monastrell that spent 12 months in French oak. It, too, sports a glass coated with glycerin as well as a super-fragrant nose of exotic spices, lavender, incense, and black raspberry. Succulent, layered, and totally pleasure-bent, this plush offering has a smooth-as-silk finish totally unexpected from a wine of this humble price. It is an amazing value in unrestrained hedonism.
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Wine Spectator
A very aromatic red, offering floral and spice overtones to the flavors of cassis, ripe cherry, damson plum and smoky mineral. Firm tannins structure this muscular red, but it's balanced, and should show more with time. Garnacha Tintorera and Monastrell. Best from 2014 through 2019.
Other Vintages
2010-
Robert
Parker
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Robert
Parker
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Robert
Parker
The winery and vineyards are located in the eastern part of Albacete, between Valencia, Alicante and Murcia, a transitional zone between the Castillian meseta (plateau) and the Mediterranean Sea. The vineyards are located on poor soils, rich in limestone, at an altitude of 2300-3300 ft. The area has a continental climate with very low rainfall (less than 14 inches/year) which creates the perfect conditions to keep yields low, lending to high quality fruit with great concentration of color and flavor. The vineyards are all dry farmed without the use of pesticides or herbicides.
Spanish red wine is known for being bold, heady, rustic and age-worthy, Spain is truly a one-of-a-kind wine-producing nation. A great majority of the country is hot, arid and drought-ridden, and since irrigation has only been recently introduced and (controversially) accepted, viticulture has sustained—and flourished—only through a great understanding of Spain’s particular conditions. Large spacing between vines allows each enough resources to survive and as a result, the country has the most acreage under vine compared to any other country, but is usually third in production.
Of the Spanish red wines, the most planted and respected grape variety is Tempranillo, the star of Spain’s Rioja and Ribera del Duero regions. Priorat specializes in bold red blends, Jumilla has gained global recognition for its single varietal Monastrell and Utiel-Requena has garnered recent attention for its reds made of Bobal.