Winemaker Notes
This vineyard gives the "thick stroke" impression. The presence of volume and the intense flavors of ripe fruit are felt. A noticeably broad, round and dense tannins.
Professional Ratings
-
James Suckling
A very complex red with crushed berries, bark, stone and flint on the nose. Full-bodied and very powerful with firm, fine tannins that run the length of the wine. Hints of cedar and mushrooms on the finish.
-
Robert Parker's Wine Advocate
A wine I always find more powerful but somehow simpler, the 2017 La Poza de Ballesteros reveals concentration and ripeness, with round fruit, and perhaps with better freshness from the deeper soils here. It has an expansive palate, exuberant and showy. It's the one where the oak is still perceptible.
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.