Winemaker Notes
Clear, clean red fruits. Open, svelte and unambiguous on the palate. Fine, delicate tannins. Exquisite fluidity.
Professional Ratings
-
James Suckling
Naturally high concentration like the rest of Artadi wines. Crushed wet stones, more red and blue fruit than black fruit. Oyster shells, too. Nice chalky tannins on the palate, showing more suppleness and fluidity in the middle. Long and mineral finish.
-
Robert Parker's Wine Advocate
The 2020 Valdeginés was bottled after the shorter élevage in barrel, as it was transferred to tank after it finished malolactic. It has 14.5% alcohol and a fruit-driven personality and is fresh and balanced with very fine, grainy tannins. Valdeginés is 4.1 hectares of vines planted in Laguardia between 1982 and 1989 on silty and limestone soils. It fermented in open oak vats with a soft vinification followed by malolactic and nine months in barrel. This is elegant, balanced and medium-bodied, with a very silky mouthfeel, fine tannins and a clean and harmonious finish. 13,000 bottles produced. It was bottled in June 2022. It was a short crop; they lost maybe 40% to mildew, and that might have given it additional concentration.
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.