Winemaker Notes
Professional Ratings
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Robert Parker's Wine Advocate
The first non-DO bottling of the entry-level red is the 2014 Tempranillo, a varietal wine from a number of plots, many of them previously used for Viñas de Gaín (as Viñas de Gaín gets grapes that were previously used for Pagos Viejos). They use the younger vines for this label and also grapes from plots that do not have enough character to be included in other cuvées. As with all of the reds, the grapes are destemmed and in this case fermented in stainless steel and matured in well-seasoned barriques for one year. This is very clean and straightforward, without any excess and perfectly integrated oak, with more red than black fruit. The palate is very round and polished, with good acidity and a fine texture, terribly drinkable and recognizable as Rioja. Some 75,000 bottles produced; they are reducing quantities in this wine as they are getting rid of some of these vineyards to focus on the better ones.
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.