Winemaker Notes
Rich ruby red with a tawny rim. On the nose it is intense with notes of Oriental spices, violets, incense and secondary fruit aromas. In the mouth it is silky and elegant with great refinement. The back-taste is long and persistent.
Professional Ratings
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Wine Enthusiast
Black cherries and plums, mountain herbs with a hint of clementine carry into the palate with flavors of spiced chocolate. Abundant, refined tannins and balanced acidity create a persistent finish. This is a serious while pleasurable wine.
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Jeb Dunnuck
From the dreaded frost year that nonetheless produced great quality where it could, higher-elevation vineyards fared better, yet even still, very little of the 2017 Gran Reserva was produced. Employing the same winemaking process as its Reserva, it spent longer in oak (24 months) and more time in bottle (36 months). The aging is tangible in soft, melty tannins and a spiced, mature fruit profile of currant and dried cherry.
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James Suckling
Some fine wood spices, hazelnut and chocolate with cedar, blackberries and graphite. Juicy and firm on the palate with medium to full body and nicely gritty tannins. Long and still quite tight.
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Vinous
The 2017 Gran Reserva Ramírez de la Piscina, from Rioja Alavesa, was aged for 24 months in a mix of French and American oak. Presenting mild red and black fruit aromas, including cherry and a hint of jam, over a woody backdrop, it's dry and structured in the mouth with coarse tannins and a core of ripe fruit. Mildly juicy and concentrated, the winemakers handled a difficult year, 2017, well.
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Wine Spectator
There's a subtle juiciness to this light-on-its-feet red, with flavors of ripe black cherry, pomegranate puree, sweet tobacco and vanilla set on a lightly grainy texture and framed by fine, taut tannins. Moderate finish. Tempranillo, Graciano and Garnacha. Drink now through 2028. 750 cases made, 450 cases imported.
The name Ramírez de la Piscina traces its lineage back to the Navarra Kings who fought in the First Crusade during the 11th century. In early 1945, Julio Ramírez de la Piscina, followed the tradition inherited from his parents in Ábalos, and continued cultivating the family vineyards in San Vicente de la Sonsierra and began producing traditional Rioja wines. In 1961, Julio moved to Bilbao with his wife Angela and began selling his wine in the old Bodeguilla Riojana in the Plaza del Corazón de María.
In 1973, Bodegas Ramírez was officially founded and began to sell bottled wine under this name. In 1980, the fourth generation of the Ramírez de la Piscina family took over management of the winery, and in 1987, the name was changed to Bodegas Ramírez de la Piscina. The name change honors the family's historic surname, which is an ancient aristocratic Medieval Riojan name, originating from a 12th Century Romanesque church nearby the vineyards called Santa María de la Piscina.
All of the vineyards are estate owned and the vast majority of the plantings are Tempranillo on high density trellis. The oldest Tempranillo vineyards are head trained, and the family owns a few small plants of Garnacha, Viura, and Malvasia, that are used for the Rosado and Blanco. Ramirez de la Piscina champions the tradition of ageing classified, traditional styled Rioja.
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.