Winemaker Notes
Professional Ratings
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Robert Parker's Wine Advocate
The 2008 Vina Eguia Crianza is aged in American oak for 12 months. The nose demands coaxing from the glass, but it eventually offers a crisp, natural bouquet of dark berries, burnt toast and singed leather. The palate is very well-balanced, with lithe tannins that caress the mouth. The oak is seamlessly integrated towards the lingering, supple finish. This is a very well-crafted, natural Rioja. Drink now-2018.
Hailed as the star red variety in Spain’s most celebrated wine region, Tempranillo from Rioja, or simply labeled, “Rioja,” produces elegant wines with complex notes of red and black fruit, crushed rock, leather, toast and tobacco, whose best examples are fully capable of decades of improvement in the cellar.
Rioja wines are typically a blend of fruit from its three sub-regions: Rioja Alta, Rioja Alavesa and Rioja Oriental, although specific sub-region (zonas), village (municipios) and vineyard (viñedo singular) wines can now be labeled. Rioja Alta and Alavesa, at the highest elevations, are considered to be the source of the brightest, most elegant fruit, while grapes from the warmer and drier, Rioja Oriental, produce wines with deep color, great body and richness.