Winemaker Notes
Professional Ratings
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Robert Parker's Wine Advocate
The valley of Ginés names the 2013 Valdeginés, a single plot of Tempranillo vines from a cold terroir (the sun leaves at mid-day) in a cold vintage. This is an austere red, serious, quite different from previous vintages. There was some 630 liters of rain in the growing season and the vintage was challenging, but has often resulted in less ripe wines with more freshness. The tannins are a little more severe than the 2014, a wine that should age nicely in bottle, with the freshness of the cold years. Spicy, cold, austere and long. The wood is remarkably well integrated. This is a very good showing for Valdeginés; it really impressed me.
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.