Winemaker Notes
Traditionally styled Rioja Reserva. Balsamic aromatics, complemented by undertones of red berries and earthiness. Notes of licorice and spice emerge on the palate.
Professional Ratings
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James Suckling
Black fruit, nutmeg, charcuterie and roasted marshmallows on the nose. Some licorice and five spice, too. It’s firm and dense, with a medium to full body, tight tannins and a compact core of spicy black fruit.
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Wine Spectator
Wafts of dried flowers and cigar box spices offer a subtle, fragrant thread that winds through plump cherry, plum sauce and vanilla flavors in this well-meshed red. Fresh and focused, with dense, fine-grained tannins emerging to trim the finish. Drink now through 2029. 3,000 cases made, 1,500 cases imported.
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.