Winemaker Notes
Professional Ratings
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Robert Parker's Wine Advocate
The 2010 Vinas de Gain red, from a very balanced vintage is made with Tempranillo sourced from different vineyards in Laguardia averaging 30 years of age. It is fermented in open stainless steel tanks and aged in French oak barrels for one year. It’s a little closed and requires some time to start showing its nose. The palate is explosive, with clean acidity and balance, pure, hedonistic with great depth. It slowly develops some minty, balsamic aromas coating the red fruit, with even notes of fennel. 150,000 bottles were produced. Drink 2014-2022.
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Wine Enthusiast
Everything about this highly functional Rioja is nice. The nose is fresh, minerally and shows complexities like cinnamon aromas and herbs. The palate is snappy and racy, but not shear or acidic. Flavors of plum, berry and oak are pure and bold, while the finish is dry, lightly toasted and shows minerality and coffee notes. Drink through 2019.
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.